Esther Chilton

Your prompt word this week is:

FLYING

I’ve always admired our feathered friends and love to watch geese flying in a V, the little sparrows and robins flitting from tree to tree and the ducks waddling. But of course we, too, can fly – in planes, helicopters, balloons and rockets. We might also use this word to describe someone who is doing well. What does this week’s prompt mean to you?

Fact or fiction, prose or poetry, I would love to read your thoughts on this week’s prompt, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt GAMES.

Frank Hubeny:

The Games of Feud

“All the same you are just playing games.”
Well, at least I am not calling names.
At least now I am not.
When the feuding gets hot,
who knows what we will use for our flames?

michnavs:

You Don’t Get to Pretend

so you think it’s just a game—
wandering through lives,
leaving bruises behind,
then returning as if nothing shifted?

no, dear.
face what you’ve done.

call your mistakes by their name.
because everything changes
the instant you fracture someone’s trust—
and nothing ever stands
exactly where it once did.

Susan Batten:

The Decisive Moment

I was getting worried about my friend, Oliver. His face had gone red and he stretched out his fingers as if trying to grasp something in the air. Then he clasped his hands together imploringly, then balled his fists as if ready for a fight. I watched fascinated, holding my breath.

“Are you ready now?” I asked gently, from a position of 160 points up and a massive twelve-letter triumph sprawled across the board. I’d fought off every challenge but I was saddened to see Oliver going down in the soup.

“Aaagh!”

This must be a strangled cry, I supposed, not a suggested word. Besides, it didn’t fit in. He was after that corner spot, triple points if he made it, double that if it all fitted together. But I didn’t like the look of his glassy eyes and that twitching lower lip.

Our whole future together hung in the balance. Could I really envisage life with a partner who didn’t love Scrabble?

poetisina:

Night Games

Joey was sat in his chair,

Late gaming with a great deal of flair,

With snacks by his side,

And friends along for the ride,

Laughing loudly in the dark night air.

His mum said, ‘That’s enough for tonight’,

His screen glowed with dazzling light,

He had battled and scored,

‘Til his eyes got sore,

He sighed, ‘Just one level, Mum, alright?’

The Afterlove Voice:

Games is a word with many meanings.
Board games spread across kitchen tables.
Video games glowing late into the night.
Mind games that leave you doubting yourself.
Dirty games people play when honesty would have been easier.
And the simple, sacred games of childhood, played in schoolyards until the bell rang.

Some games are about winning.
Others are about survival.

When I trained to work with children, games became something else entirely.
We spent eight hours a week outside, playing — not to pass time, but to pass on tradition.
Old playground games handed from one generation to the next, carrying laughter, rules, rhythm, and belonging.

We also had to invent new games.
Create the rules.
Explain them clearly.
Then watch as our classmates played — proof that imagination only works when it invites others in.

That’s what games taught me early on:
that play is language,
that fairness matters,
that joy is something you can practice.

Not all games are kind.
But the best ones teach us how to take turns,
how to lose without breaking,
and how to play together —
without anyone getting hurt.

Wilfred Leahy:

You nip out I’ll nip in
They won’t know we’ve been
games over win win win

Author Jan Sikes:

I’m tired of your game
Of thinking you’ll ever change
You play with my heart
With my mind
With my body
I’m done — Finished
My bags are packed
I’m out the door
I’ll never be a victim
Of your game anymore

John W. Howell:

The silly games you play,

Will haunt you one fine day,

Maybe not real soon.

But, before the piper’s tune,

There’ll be a debt to pay.

Sillyfrog’s Blog:

Fair Play

“HEY! Stop playing games!“

“I’m not.”

“You said I could have half of whatever you might win.”

“That’s right.”

“This is only $2.50. You won ten dollars!“

“Oh, but that was a $5.00 lottery ticket. I paid $5.00 for the chance to win money and won $5.00 for it. Half of $5.00 is $2.50. You’re welcome.”

“No fair!“

“Okay. I’ll sweeten the deal. Give me back the $2.50 that I handed you and I’ll let you buy half of my original ticket for $2.50 more, then I’ll give you half of the $10.00.”

“That sounds better. Thanks.”

“I should have known that I couldn’t fool you.”

Jules Pens Some Gems:

Checkmate

Gamble
Arresting, attack
Maneuvered, malleable, mindgame
Engaged, enveloped, entrapped, eliminated
Silenced

The Bag Lady:

Games are played by the highest ranking person in our government. How else can you explain the actions of a deranged child mind that sits in a crumbling white house? Moving pieces on the board without conscience as a three year old would. Time is up Trumpie.

Cathy Cade:

School Games

I hated games lessons at my girls’ secondary school, be it tennis and cricket in the summer, or rounders and hockey in winter.

By my second year, though, I thought I’d cracked hockey. At the start of September term, I’d volunteered as goalkeeper, which involved getting kitted up with pads and kickers at the start of the lesson. By the time I made my way down to the hockey pitch, the lesson was well under way, and it was almost time to return and get changed again.

I’d taken little notice of inter-form championship matches, which took place at the end of each winter season. When the other goalie in my class caught chickenpox, I was required for these lunchtime matches as the only available goalkeeper.

So, instead of avoiding games, I suffered more hockey and sacrificed several lunch breaks as my more enthusiastic class colleagues took the team as far as the semi-finals.

Pensitivity101:

My dad and I would play cribbage every night after my homework was done.
We would be fifteen twoing and fifteen fouring while Coronation Street was on TV and Mum was knitting. We used to drive her nuts when she was counting stitches.

I love crib. Hubby and I play sometimes, but usually I play on the computer now, still trying for that maximum hand of 29. I’ve had a couple of 28s, but never that important one for his nob.

ladyleemanila:

Such an erotic game to play

Found her just waiting at the quay

Soft light shining at her masked face

Chiming my heart with all her grace to make my day

Am I so tame or am I lame?

Tethered to this dream just the same

Getting the sign from the card drawn

One moment and then she was gone and that’s a shame

Dawgy Daddy Responds:

I dream of the days when spring will arrive once again. I can run through the boscage playing games with my large family. The sun warms the earth in the daylight making us want to dance on the dry ground. But the time for that is still months away and my fur isn’t keeping me that warm.

This is where I wake up and realize that I was a rabbit in my dream and it was an intense one. I get the coffee brewing and sit down with the scripturient of complaining about the winter cold once again.

panaecea:

Now That

Now that there is silence

Do I need words

Do I need birdsongs

Do I need the pause

Now that the games are over

Do I need the pawns

Do I need the noise

Do I need the cons

Now that peace resides

Do I need the chaos

Do I need the twists

Do I need a choice

Now that the path is clear

Do I need a bend

Do I need a fork

Do I need the spin

Now that the tale’s told

Do I need it to end

Blind Wilderness:

Challenge Games

Well, I don’t remember too many games as a child. We didn’t play games in our family, but I do remember playing chess when I was at Secondary school. We had a chess club there and that was where I learned how to play it. I don’t think I was bad at it but there were some there who were an absolute whizz at it. I really enjoyed playing it but for some reason I gave up in the end. I was in the bottom class at that school and most of the pupils in the chess club were the ones int the top classes so maybe I felt out of my depth a bit.

I do remember playing snakes and ladders but I don’t remember when or who with. I enjoyed that when I did play it but I think I ended up sliding down the snakes more than I climbed the ladders.

I don’t think I played monopoly except for maybe once. That was more complicated.

Oh I do remember playing ball games. I used to go to Woodcraft when I was about ten or maybe a bit younger and we played with a ball.someone would throw the ball into the air real high and whoever caught it threw it up next and so it went on. I was real good at running to it and catching it. I remember getting all hot and sticky doing it though.

Another game that I loved playing was scrabble. In fact I would still be playing that with my husband today if I could see. We used to while away many an hour playing scrabble.

I used to play a game in the dark winter evenings with my grandmother at the farm, and it consisted of various categories like flowers, boy’s names, girl’s names, countries, towns, fruits, and various other things. We would choose a letter by sicking a pen onto a word in a book and then we had to find a country or whatever beginning with that letter. I used to play that for hours with my grandmother who was very patient with me. Lovely memories.

Sexagenarian Scribbler:

The very word ‘games’ takes me back to the horrors I endured  during my senior school years. Always in the bottom group, always last to be picked.

I’ve memories of taking short cuts on runs, avoiding the showers in the changing rooms. Swimming at Uxbridge outside pool, when the temperature was freezing. You never saw any of the teachers get in the water.

I couldn’t run fast enough, couldn’t throw anything far enough, and as for hurdles, I can’t remember ever being able to get over one.

I loved tennis but could never get the ball over the net when serving.

The only thing I was marginally any good at was netball.

Funnily enough, when I left school, I played in the mixed hockey team. 

On one occasion we were playing at a mental asylum (against the staff, not the patients!)

My now husband, who lived locally, came to watch, probably more interested in the drinking afterwards.

(I discovered recently, researching his family tree, that one of his ancestors was an inmate there, but sent elsewhere due to violent behaviour!)

It wasn’t long after the memorable match that he asked me out. 

It must have been the sight of me in my hockey skirt that did it!

Rall:

tennis is my game but the grunting

is appalling plus

the mindless endless chit chat

from sports commentators ruins it

will turn the sound down tonight

for the final

go novak!

Therapy Bits:

The Evil Games You Played

You taught me silence like a second skin,
a language learned in flinches and closed doors.
Love was a maze with rules that changed at night,
and every wrong turn somehow mine to own.

You smiled while moving pieces on my fear,
called it care, called it teaching me to stay.
The evil games you played were never fair—
the board was tipped, the dice already shaved.

I learned to doubt the ground beneath my name,
to apologize for breathing, for the rain.
You kept the scoreboard etched into my bones,
each loss a lesson written as my fault.

But here’s the part you never planned for: dawn.
The way a body remembers how to heal.
I gathered back the corners of myself
you scattered like confetti on the floor.

I named the rules you broke, the lies you fed,
I quit the table, left the room, the noise.
I am not what you trained me to endure.
I am the one who stood up and walked out.

The games are over.
I keep my hands, my voice, my time.
I keep my life.

Suzette Benjamin:

Goaltend

cold, a scoreless tie—

evergreens referee home games,

artic winds goaltend

Thru Violet’s Lentz:

Twilito

When Alan pulled out his phone at the watercooler to share the number of the local Thai place that delivered to the office- the new hire caught a glimpse of his home screen, grabbed his phone and gasped, “Oh my god! He is gorgeous!” And not a polite just between the two of them gasp either- a broadcast-it‑to‑the‑entire‑floor type of gasp.

Every head within a thirty‑foot radius swiveled. They all knew without any explanation, that the new hire had just been visually introduced to Alan’s Greek God of a boyfriend, Phillipe via screen saver. 

“Go on, Alan- tell her how you met him!” Twila called out over the din as the whole office turned toward the watercooler.

Alan sighed, feigning humility. “Well, alright. Since I’ve got everybody’s attention already…”

“So. A couple of years ago Twila showed up to the annual awards dinner solo, and the hyenas here- present company excluded, of course- decided she had to be awfully lonely to do that- so they spent months trying to correct her dowager status by fixing her up with anyone they could think of. So, after that fiasco- our beautiful and talented Twila here, swore she’d never walk into that ballroom alone again. So, she hired Phillipe.”

The new hire blinked. “Hired?”

“Oh yes,” Alan said. “Phillipe is… how do I put this… an independent contractor in the personal‑appearance industry. Hen parties. Birthdays. The occasional divorce celebration. And he is exactly as beautiful as he looks in that photo.”

He paused for effect.

“So Twila walks in with him, and the whole room tilts. I mean forks froze mid‑air.  And Twila? She was so thrilled with herself- the poor girl was oblivious!”

Alan raised his voice just enough for the whole floor to hear. “Now, here’s where things get interesting. Because while everyone else was busy trying to figure out how Twila had landed a man who looked like he’d been carved by a committee of Renaissance masters… Phillipe was giving me the eye.”

The new hire’s eyebrows shot up. “You?”

“Oh yes,” Alan said, hand to chest, mock‑modest. “Me. The humble accounts‑receivable gremlin. At first I thought he was looking past me. Or at the dessert table behind me. But no. The man’s eyes were smoldering- and his gaze was aimed directly at yours truly.”

A few coworkers snorted. Someone whispered, “This part’s my favorite.”

“So,” Alan continued, “I caught Twila alone by the bar and told her, ‘Look, honey, I hate to be the one to break it to you- but that gorgeous man who accompanied you here tonight- is gayer than I am!”

“Of course Twila tried to deny it- tried to play it off- after all her little game had not come cheap!”

“So I said, “Ok- you may be right, I may be crazy—but the not knowing is driving me crazy!”- and I sashayed right up to her Adonis- and what is it they say- The rest is history!”

Twila didn’t miss a beat. She popped up over her cubicle wall, “And I am still waiting for my refund!” 

The office erupted.

Alan pressed a hand to his chest, wounded in the most theatrical way. “Darling, we’ve already promised to name our firstborn after you- and regardless of the sex at that!”

“But honestly,” Alan quipped snarkily as he sauntered away from the watercooler- “We have been considering Twilito if it’s a boy.”

Robbie’s Inspiration:

Anger Monopoly

When I was nine years old, my family moved to Cape Town. My parents rented a house in the same street as the local school, Kirstenhof Primary School. We lived in that house for six months and Cath and I became friends with the children who lived next door. Michelle was thirteen and in her first year of high school. Her brother, Neil, was ten and attended the same school as Cath and I. He was in Standard 3 and I was in Standard 2.

Over weekends, we used to all hang out together at the neighbour’s house and we often used to play board games. Their house was the popular choice because they had a swimming pool and no howling babies.

One of the games we like to play was Monopoly. I was good at this game and I was also ruthless. If you landed on one of my properties, you had to pay up. I remember one of these gaming sessions turning into a real fracas. I had most of the properties and had build houses and hotels on them. I was winning by a long stretch. Neil landed on one of my properties and paying up bankrupted him. This terminated him from the game. He went red in the face and shouted at me. I’ve never been a person to take being shouted at well. I’ve had some real set-tos at work with rude male colleagues. I shouted back, louder and longer. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and gave it a great tug. I reached out, grabbed his hair, and dragged him forward by the hair. I was so angry, tears of rage were streaming down my face. He let go of my hair and I let go of his. He overturned the board, ending the game dramatically. I never forgot this altercation.

tears of rage

uncontrolled passion

upsetting

utahan15:

games famed renown

little games

yardbirds

this year

i still hear the bullshit

and the silence

of one too busy

there is no shape

just goodbye an ultimate escape from her!

***

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