Your new prompt word is
CAPTURE
My choice of word came today when I thought about a TV series here in the UK called The Capture. It centres around deepfakes. So ‘capture’ can have negative connotations. We might think of it in terms of someone or something being captured. But we can also look at it positively – a photograph capturing someone’s good side, or capturing an event on video that’s happening live. Your imagination may be captured by something you’ve seen or heard. What does this week’s prompt word 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 MOBILE.
I have no Mobile phone or cell phone
No need to really and I
Don’t apologize for not having one either
People Can’t believe I don’t have a Mobile phone
Then that is when I tell them
No need to I live way out in the country near woods
Where there is no cell service so I
Don’t waste my money on a Mobile Phone.
The reaction I get is varied but mostly get Silence
When I tell people I don’t own a Mobile phone
Because they’re so much in shock and stunned I don’t own one
But then I smile to make them wonder what I am up to.
Manmade and Natural Mobiles
Images credit: Eklastic
Bertha
We bought a pre-loved camper-van.
We’d travelled up by train.
The owner’s dog had crept inside
and wouldn’t come out again.
The lady planned to emigrate.
She’d shown us both around,
Watched carefully by Algernon,
an indeterminate hound.
Embarrassed, she said, ‘Take him too
‘He won’t cost much to feed.
‘He can’t come when I emigrate.
‘So… shall I get his lead?’
When Jim and I, and Algernon
(with dog bed, lead and trough)
Were halfway down the A1(M),
the camper-van took off!
Jim fought it through the back roads
till it stopped outside a pub.
We all leapt out. One bystander
gave Algie’s ears a rub.
He said, ‘That’s Fred’s dog – and his bus!
‘Fred died in that there ’van.
‘’Twere camped on t’moors. Two days it were
before they found the man.’
Tears in his eyes, he told of Fred
and faithful Algernon.
‘He barked, and barked, till someone came.
Fred’s daughter took him on.’
Now, spooked and fearful, off we went
but Jim mistook the track.
A cloud of starlings formed an arrow
pointing our way back.
The engine gently coughed as we
approached a petrol bay.
Jim hadn’t noticed fuel was low.
The next was miles away.
The light was fading when, at home,
I raised my evening drink.
‘Thanks, Fred, for looking after us.’
I’ll swear, one headlight winked.
Hubby and I did not want a mobile phone. We were happy with the landline and if anyone wanted to talk to us when we were out, we had a little gizmo called An Ansaphone for them to leave a message.
It was also nice being able to go somewhere and not have to worry about the phone going off and a demanding individual insisting we drop everything to pander to their latest whim (one was a 25 mile round trip to put their bin out because it was raining and they didn’t want to get wet).
However, we were dragged into this part of technology when FIL upgraded his mobile phone and thought it would be nice if he gave us his old one.
OK, it was a generous thought and didn’t cost us anything other than putting funds on it, and of course we always had the option of leaving it at home or turning it off if we didn’t want to be contacted.
There was also the advantage that if we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, we could call for help, signal permitting.
That was over thirty years ago and we have had a variety of mobiles since, all Pay as You Go.
We have learned a few things too:
They don’t float.
They don’t survive the washing machine, certainly not the fast spin.
They don’t bounce.
Most don’t work in hospitals.
We cannot access a text message if we are making / taking a call.
Caller ID is a godsend.
It’s a funny word to me. That’s mostly because how do you say it? Is it:
- Moh-beel
- Moh-bile
- moh-bull
So see, it’s funny to me.
I probably say it like # 3 most times, if I even say it at all ever. I try not to, or I’ll start laughing.
I don’t call my iphone a mobile either. I just say my cell phone.
When I walk or ride, I don’t say I’m being mobile, I say I’m walking or riding.
That thing hanging above a baby crib … well, it’s moving so it’s mobile, and it is a mobile too. haha funny. It is a mobile mobile.
Fleshy Things
The dark has a texture in this room. It sits heavy on the chest, like wet wool or soil thrown atop a coffin lid. There is no music here. Only the wind, and the turning.
Above the iron rails of the crib, the mobile hangs from a hook screwed deep into the plaster, suspended by a thread of dried sinew. It is a construction of profound industry. Dangling there are the small things, the discarded leavings of a god with a scalpel. Digits curled in rigored agony. Papery ears dried to translucent amber. A row of milk teeth strung on gut, clicking against one another with the hollow sound of dice in a cup.
They turn. They dance.
A draft from the ill-fitting window stirs the arrangement and they spin, a slow centrifuge of meat and bone. It is a ballet of the anatomized, precise and terrible in its arrangement. The balance is perfect, a symmetry that speaks of a surgeon’s obsession, or a butcher’s patience.
In the crib, the tenant lies still. It is not sleeping. Sleep is a function of the living, a maintenance of the machinery. This thing requires no maintenance. Its skin is the color of bruised plums, pulled tight over a skull that seems too large, a dome of pressure waiting to crack. It does not cry. Crying is a plea for a future, and this thing has none. It stares upward with eyes like oiled stones, watching the dangling fingers spin past.
It watches the fleshy things with a recognition that predates thought. A silent communion between the eater and the eaten.
The mobile clicks. Tick. Tick. Tick. A dry sound. The sound of a beetle in a dry box.
The small hand of the infant in the crib twitches, a puppet of raw nerve. It reaches up toward the spinning horror, seeking the warmth that is not there, guided by an ancient, terrible hunger. The room is cold. The dark does not care. The world moves on, indifferent to the small atrocities, but in this room, the dance is eternal. A lullaby of parts. The sweet, copper smell of the end.
Mobility
As we’ve gotten far more mobile, we’ve drifted farther from each other. The irony in that, is profound.
Mobile used to mean movement. Freedom. The ability to go anywhere, untethered.
Now it fits in the palm of my hand.
A small glowing world that connects, distracts, informs, and consumes. A device that keeps us close and sometimes keeps us apart.
I remember a time before mobile phones —when silence had space to breathe, when waiting was part of the story, when not knowing didn’t feel like something was missing.
Now everything is instant. Messages arrive before thoughts have settled. Answers come before questions are fully formed.
We are always reachable. Always available. Always… on.
And yet —how often are we truly present?
Mobile has given us connection across oceans, voices carried through invisible threads, moments shared in real time.
But it has also taken something quieter. Something slower. Something human.
Still, mobile is not the enemy. It is a mirror.
It shows us how we move through the world. What we reach for. What we avoid.
Because the truth is —we have never been more connected…and never more responsible for choosing where our attention goes.
Maybe being mobile today is not about the device we carry —but about remembering we can still move freely within ourselves.
He saw his reflection in the pond and took out his mobile phone to remember the moment. So what will his memory be?
Mobile Turns
From here to there the story goes
and where it ends though no one knows
the mobile when the tempting grows
should take the next turn slow.
Of course the first thing that comes to mind is us living in our mobile motor home, roaming the states looking for those 70ish temperatures and seeking adventure and human connections.
I remember mobiles hanging over cribs too.
My ex-sister-in-law made me a shell hanging ‘mobile’ that I had for years through all kinds of weather but for the ally we had one that I should have brought it in for and it was ruined.
Fluid Verses
Mobile
Single or
Double wide house
Bigger than a tiny
Home
~
mobile
ambulatory
promenade
~
Mesmerizing
Objects strung
Birds, balloons, shapes
Idley sway in the slightest
Little breeze to
Entertain the observer
It’s not a bloody ‘cell’
It’s a ‘mobile’ phone
Why can’t you Americans
Leave the language alone?
And while I’m on about it
Here’s another wish
Stop calling tuna
‘tuna fish’
That’s petrol in your car
It’s a liquid, not a ‘gas’
And don’t you think that all those flags
Are really kinda crass?
And tell me, what’s the story
‘Bout ‘World Series’ (as you say)?
When no one but America
Is invited there to play?
….
But all might be forgiven
If you’d take this antidote
Don’t fuss about the language
Just teach yourselves to vote
–
Haven’t seen the UK in a while
Like the days I was fit and mobile
But what is this thing
With the Queen and the King?
Do these people have no sense of style?
Filipino Spaghetti, A Recipe Poem
cook the spaghetti noodles, don’t let them stick,
follow the pack instructions – oh, that’s the trick!
heat oil in a pan, garlic and onions dance,
sauté them till soft, give your senses a chance.
add ground pork, brown it with flair,
the aroma will float and fill up the air!
toss in luncheon meat and hotdogs, sliced fine,
stir it all up – Filipino spaghetti’s divine!
pour in the sauce and a splash of beef broth,
boil it up, then simmer, let flavors run both.
taste, add salt and pepper, dance your own way,
top with cheddar cheese, make it bright as a raya!
whether at home, in a party, or somewhere mobile,
Filipino spaghetti brings joy every mile!
always
grateful for it
mobility valued
and appreciated when it
has gone
Lou by the Sea:
Am I mobile?
No I’m not
Don’t ask stupid questions.
That’s why I fell down the stairs.
Yes, I’m calling from my mobile
“No problem”
I always keep it in my pocket
You never know
When you might fall down the stairs
Today’s the day!
What? A discharge plan already?
My hip was only replaced yesterday
Yes, I live on my own
Stop asking me that
“No problem”
Yes, I have a daughter
She lives in Sidney
I’m sure she’ll call occasionally
on her mobile phone
Or probably text
U OK?
I’ll just type 🙂
She’s very busy
She’s always telling me
“No problem”
Yes, I can do an online order from
The mobile supermarket
I think they sell tinned peaches
Yes, I’ll call the mobile hairdresser
Ooo! I have can have fish and chips from the mobile van
Every Friday can I?
Cant wait ……
Grease buckets
“No problem”
If I console myself by
Eating toffees
My only pleasure left
Yes, I get it, I’ll have the mobile dentist visit
I’ve such a lot to look forward to
in my new solitary world
Oh yes, of course I have daytime TV
for company
Stimulating…
And when my toe nails start curling under
I needn’t worry
A mobile chiropodist will come and chop them off
“No problem”
They’ll say
I’ll have a visiting physio will I?
And an O.T to clutter my house with rails and commodes
They’ll assess my mobility
I’ll tell them it’s
“No problem”
Leave me alone.
Tony:
Mobile Plot,
The mobile vibrated once.
Then two.
Then nothing.
On the screen, a message that no one had sent :
“I know why you did it.”
The problem is that I hadn’t done anything.
Nothing… that I remembered.
So I wanted to turn it off.
Shut down the network.
Get out of there.
But some truths do not go through the waves.
They already live in the device.
And mine had just woken …
As the phone rings, I snapped it
Like spirits coming, I admit
Some stories radiate, some not
Origin of why I bought
Me? I was born in a cave
From the rain, it can’t be saved
Ashes to ashes, limb to limb
Without mobile phone, life is grim
Uncertain
an uncertain thaw
early spring a dangling mobile
—life’s vicissitudes
Still Standing
They chose the apartment block because it looked the most structurally sound. Half the façade was peeled away, the stairwell open to the sky, but compared to all the other buildings on the block…
They weren’t reckless people by nature. But they were young, and they’d spent the last three months listening to artillery walk its way through what was left of the city. So on their first day together- it couldn’t really be called a date- but when they decided to sneak away to be alone together, they did so because they understood- they had no time to waste.
Inside they found a door to an apartment intact enough to afford them the privacy they desired.
What they didn’t know was that the doorbell camera had somehow survived. It shouldn’t have- but then, the city’s infrastructure was a patchwork of miracles and failures.
Moments later, a man sitting in a basement shelter not far away, felt his mobile phone vibrate. He assumed it was another alert to seek shelter. Instead, the screen showed two strangers walking into the apartment he used to call home- a young couple and judging by the ferocity with which they stopped to kiss before they closed the door- they were clearly not there to strip copper wiring or pry fixtures from the walls.
However, the structure was unsafe. He had been informed that the next strong vibration could bring the whole thing down.
He sighed, grabbed his coat, and started walking.
When he reached the building, he climbed the stairs slowly, testing each step. He knocked once on the ruined doorframe. And then pushed the door open.
The couple froze.
“Hey, I’m not here to cause trouble,” he said through the gap. “I know you’re not looters or anything like that. I just got an alert on my phone. The door camera shouldn’t even work, but I guess it does.”
The couple exchanged a look- a combination of embarrassment, fear, and the absurdity of being caught by this ghost of old-world technology.
He continued, voice steady. “I’m only here to tell you that his place is unsafe. The floors are shifting. The support beams are cracked. If another shell lands anywhere nearby, this whole structure could come down.”
He pushed the door open and motioned for them to follow him out.
“Let’s just for today, believe we will all be here for many, many years– and that this moment will become one of all of our most cherished memories.”
What a Feeling
When I was a girl, children had a lot more freedom than they do now. My little sister, Cath, and I used to go out and about on our own. We both had bicycles so we had the option of riding or we walked, depending on where we were going. When I was in Grade 3 at primary school, roller skates came into fashion. The roller skates then took the form of a boot with four wheels on the bottom. The wheels were spaced out more like the wheels on a vehicle and were attached to a chassis-styled frame on the bottom of the boot, unlike the modern roller skates which are more like ice skates with wheels.
Cath and I both received a pair of roller skates for Christmas that year and I spent the rest of the December / January school holiday learning how to skate. I soon go the hang of swinging my legs correctly to enable forward motion and quickly learned to add arm movement to go faster. I learned to do spins and turns and how to skate backwards. It was an obsession for me and I spent hours practicing. As time passed, I started creating dances on skates to music. I’d set my small cassette recorder up on my bedroom windowsill and practice skating to my favourite soundtracks. The theme song to Flashdance was the track I liked the best and remember practicing my skating dance over and over to that song on repeat. Thankfully, Dad was out working during the day when I practiced so he didn’t complain about the endless refrain of ‘What a feeling’.
Skate dancing to Flashdance is one of my best memories and it was this process of mastering motion on roller skates that taught me I could learn to do anything if I set my mind to it.
freedom in movement
flowing like a waterfall
my spirit flying
goin mobile
so pete
neat
as for the phone
leave me alone
the ads and text
and no you cannot buy me outta me mums home
eh?
***
Esther Chilton 
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