Esther Chilton

If you could go to any fictional world, where would that be? I love the Harry Potter books and so I’d love to go to Hogwarts. Enid Blyton was a firm favourite and so I could see myself climbing up the Faraway Tree. Or perhaps fighting my way through a wardrobe of coats into Narnia. Though I think I’ll give Panem, in the world of the Hunger Games, a miss and I’m not too sure about the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones…

This week’s prompt is

FICTIONAL WORLDS

I always enjoy seeing what you come up with if the prompt gives you inspiration, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt TOYS.

Kim Smyth:

When my brother and I were young, we had sort of an unwritten rule about our playthings. He would play with me and my dolls if I played with him and his matchbox cars. We each seemed to like that arrangement, until then toys got more fancy. I remember getting a Lite Brite, and I know I had an Easy Bake oven. He had those gross things called Incredible Edibles that poured into molds and were something like a gel edible but they tasted horrible. We spent many hours just coloring and listening to music when we were tweens, but we fought just like normal kids and their toys. Still later, we grew up and “toys” became bikes and guitars.

Dawgydaddyresponds:

Should I construct an image first or write and then create a image to fit the post? Alas, answers are too foggy to see since Starpup left this morning with feelings of joy and triumph. He was in charge of the toys bin this morning and while gathering the rubber bones he felt callous towards the pack for no reason but soon corrected his attitude. While experiencing this anacoluthon of his morning, his focus shifted from sanity to peaceful insanity.

Tony:

They were there, on the shelf of childhood, these toys.
Not toys. No. Fragments of memory stuck in plastic and dust.
Each figure, a totem. Each miniature car, a dream stopped in its course.
We’re not playing.
We observe. We remember.
They carried our simple joys, our anger without words, our silences too full.
We made them talk because we didn’t dare yet.
Today, they are the ones who look at us, mute witnesses of what we lost growing up.
Toys, objects that trip the boredom,
receptacles of whole universes that we carried in the pocket.
Today, this word sounds like an echo.
No stack. No magic. Just a whisper:
“Who took your child’s soul?”
And in a corner of the heart, where even the light hesitates to enter,
He’s still a little soldier.
Standing.
Still standing…

Pensitivity101:

This picture was taken in March 2022. Maya had been with us about a week and soon grew out of this bed.

She has her own toy box, the same as Maggie and Barney did, only the difference with her is that sometimes she actually puts her toys BACK before picking out something else.

How I remember shouting at partner’s kids to put their toys away!

Believe it or not, the bear, pink Kong and green gonk are still in play. The two rope knots were removed following us reading an article on how much damage the strands could do to a puppy’s digestive system if consumed. I don’t think she held it against us as her toy box is overflowing with lots of different things for her to pester us play with. There are two other teddies in it now, a soft ‘pringles’ squeaky and an all singing, all dancing, all bouncing musical ball we thought she’d love, but she just looks at it!

John W. Howell:

I’m always amazed,

At what people say, as they . . .

Talk about their toys.

Teleportingweena:

One toy I wish I still had is called the “Frustration Ball”. It came out in 1969, and it lived up to it’s name. Anyone remember these? It was a clear hard plastic ball with little colored cups stuck inside, with one little ball. You turned the big plastic ball all around to make the little ball inside go into the little cups which were numbered. It was not easy, but I think I’d done it at least once, after many tries. I think you can still find them online some places.

Therapy Bits:

I had a lot of toys when I was little. I was an only child for the first 8 years of my life. So I was a little spoiled.

I grew up in the 80’s!

I loved cabbage patch kids, care bears, my playhouse, my life sized baby doll, and of course, barbie!

I also loved building blocks, board games like operation, hungry hippo, ludo, snakes and ladders, and dominos.

I also loved music and I had a keyboard that I loved, it made over 100 sounds, and played lots of tunes.

I also loved my cassette recorder and I’d record lots of different things, I had a bit of a fascination with recording people.

I spent many happy hours playing games with my best friend, we’d play house, doctors, shop keepers, pretend we were moms, all sorts of fun stuff.

I also had roller skates, and a skate board.

Oh and a scooter too.

I remember when I first got roller skates my best friend taught me how to use them, and we’d spend hours flying up and down our hill outside our house.

Fun times!

Happy memories! Wish sometimes it was the 80’s again. Times were much simpler then.

My Mind Mappings:

At the tender age of five I surprised the world by taking the victory lap at the Indy 500.

Before I reached the age of seven, as commanding general of the massive allied army, I defeated America’s enemy on the bloody battlefields of France.

And I flew my World War II fighter plane in missions knocking out many Messerschmitts in dog fights over Germany.

At eight I joined the police force and cruised the big city arresting bad guys at a record setting pace.

By nine I crafted exquisite tinker toy windmills and built bridges and skyscrapers with my erector set.

These weren’t just childhood toys, they were creative outlets to the imagination of a growing boy.

Joanne Rambling:

I remember having a small blue koala that I loved and took it everywhere for years, but I don’t know what became of it.

Writing and Art:

I had drawn my favorite soft toy long ago.

Scrump has button eyes and a button belly button.

Scrump’s crooked smile has a multitude of meanings. She empathises with me. Are you a fan of Lilo and Stitch? If yes, you’ll know Scrump is like a sidekick to Lilo. Just like she is a sidekick to me, providing emotional support.

Michnavs:

Silent Cries of War

did you scream
with anger too,
when you heard the news,
young boys, forced to fight
in a war they never understood?
guns, their toys,
battlefields, their playgrounds.

did you cry
with pity too,
when you watched on TV,
children dying
with their bunnies
and bears still in hand,
blood staining the earth,
leaving a world of questions
they’ll never answer.

did you scream
with disgust too,
when you read the paper,
hospitals shattered,
newborns sleeping,
helpless and unaware,
of the world that will never
wake them,
nor the future
they’ll never see?

Lisa A Paul:

Let’s Play a Game

I have no memory of being very fond of dolls when I was a girl. Their vacant eyes kind of creeped me out. I’m sure I played with baby dolls when I was a toddler, I just don’t remember. I know I played with Barbie dolls when I was older because my friends liked them. Some of my friends had dozens of outfits and accessories, but I could never understand spending all that money on a toy, and I couldn’t immerse myself in pretend play with the dolls like they could. I had a vivid imagination, but I didn’t use it on plastic dolls that couldn’t do anything but pose.

I was between 2 and 3 years old when my dad got me a puppy. She was the cutest little thing and we bonded immediately. She was a mixed breed dog, with some collie and cocker spaniel in there somewhere, and everyone loved the show “Lassie” so, of course, I named her Lassie.

Lassie was my playmate and best friend. I had other friends in the neighborhood, and my little sister, but she was my partner in crime. She learned how to open the gate and she would break me out of the fenced in back yard when I was barely older than a toddler and she and I would go exploring. I got in so much trouble, but continued to get out and wander the neighborhoods regularly. I can’t say I didn’t come to any harm, but that is a story for another time, maybe never. Anyway, Lassie wasn’t a toy, but I played with her every day.

When I started elementary school, my family moved out to the country. We had no neighbors and were isolated. It was about a year later that my uncle moved his family a half mile down the road from us, and then I had cousins to play with. I loved my cousins. I had two girl cousins, one my age and one a year older. We played together as much as we could, weather and school permitting. My cousins loved to play games, and we had so much fun together.

The toys I grew up on and played with the most were games. I loved games. We would play Monopoly, Scrabble, Chess, Checkers, card games, Barrel of Monkeys, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and, my favorites, the Game of Life and Clue. Later there came Mystery Date and Twister. I know there were more, but I can’t remember them all.

I remember how much I loved the Game of Life. I couldn’t wait to see what my life would be like. What career I would have, if I would be married and have children. I could play that game twice in a row, while everyone moaned and begged to do something else. My favorite toys were games. I enjoy games even now, and our family plays games when we get together, especially card games.

Roberta Writes:

When I was a young girl I did not like to knit. I like to sew. I liked sewing so much that I designed an entire wardrobe for my younger sisters and my Barbie and Cindy dolls. I also hand sewed a dress for myself with a dropped waist and a frill around the bottom of the skirt. I liked to create. I created a dolls house out of a wooden tomato box and decorated it with doors, windows with views, and curtains all cut out of old magazines. But, I did not like to knit.

Unfortunately, the nuns thought that all young ladies should know how to knit. Not just passably. Oh no, they wanted us to knit well. To this end they ceaselessly gave us knitting tasks of greater complexity involving adding and dropping stitches, measuring, changing pearl stitch to garter stich and vice versa. They even made us learn ribbing and how to turn the heel of a sock. Oh, the incredible unkindness of it all to a girl who hated knitting.

The last knitting assignment I had was to knit a Pink Panther. The toy in question was not small. No, it was an significant trial of knitting reaching a height of 60 centimetres … if you followed the pattern. The assignment did not, however, give a required size for the horrid task. It provided a pattern and said a knitted Pink Panther had to be handed in on a certain date.

I left it and left it. Suddenly, it was the day before the knitting assignment was due. I spent the entire morning at school contemplating different ways of managing the disaster. Mom wouldn’t let me stay at home the following day and even if she did, I couldn’t do all that knitting in one day. And then inspiration struck.

When I got home I went straight to my room and got started knitting. I knitted and knitted and by the early evening, the Pink Panther parts were made. After dinner, I sewed the toy together and stuffed it. I sewed on the face. By bed time I was finished. I had a perfectly knitted and stuffed, 15 centimetre high Pink Panther. The pattern divided perfectly by 4.

The following year, the instructions were amended to include a required size of 60 centimetres. I still regard this as one of my greatest school triumphs. I wasn’t even marked down. Sister Agatha knew when she was outwitted.

Tiny pink toy

Creative thinking triumphs

Earned a perfect score

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