Your prompt word this week is
EXERCISE
There are all sorts of physical exercises we can undertake: running, going to the gym, yoga, Pilates, football, etc. We can also undertake mental exercises in the form of crosswords and word searches. There are written exercises and who remembers those exercises books from our school days? It’s something we can also do – exercise restraint, for example. 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 FIRE.
Spark
You felt loneliness,
I showed you compassion, we
started a fire.
Escape
i finally learned to smile
before i cry
not because i’ve forgotten the pain,
but because i finally understand
that i am free.
free from the bondage of your oppression.
free from the trauma
of your endless guilt-tripping games.
free from the ghosts of
what ifs,
what could have been,
and all the futures
i kept trying to build
with someone who was already destroying me.
you were never worth it.
back then,
i was never willing to give up.
i thought if i became good enough,
patient enough,
tolerant enough,
you would finally look at me
and see my worth.
but it took me long enough to understand:
you never wanted me.
you wanted my forgiveness
without earning it.
my silence without deserving it.
my love without giving me
anything worth loving back.
so go.
go where you truly belong
to the depths where light dies,
to the coldest corners of oblivion,
to the fire where darkness consumes all,
to wherever people like you
go when they run out of souls
to break.
you were made for that darkness.
you had no remorse
when you hurt me.
no hesitation
when you made me question myself.
no shame
when you turned my kindness
into a weapon against me.
but sooner or later,
everyone meets the end
of everything they thought
they could get away with.
and when that day comes,
i won’t be there to save you.
i won’t even look back.
because i survived you.
and the cruelest thing
i can ever do to you
is become completely free
of your existence.
you lost me
the moment you convinced yourself
i would never have the courage
to leave.
now watch me walk away
without a single tear for you.
i cried enough
when i still loved you.
now
i smile.
because i finally learned
that losing you
was never my tragedy.
it was my escape.
Good Or Bad Fire
Some say that fire can be good.
It also can be bad.
I’ll do what’s good the way I should.
The bad won’t make me glad.
Rubbing two sticks together in the freezing rain to start a fire might be a second choice to a slug of bourbon.
If it’s spicy food you desire,
You know farting is going to transpire.
If the entrance is burning,
Your gut will be churning…
And the exit is gonna be on fire!
George Washington once said
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
He was not wrong.
In his fairwell address in 1796 he said
“Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.”
He believed that competing parties could:
- Put party loyalty above the national good.
- Create “ill-founded jealousies and false alarms” between groups of Americans.
- Weaken government by turning public policy into a contest for partisan advantage.
- Fuel resentment, disorder, and potentially the rise of an authoritarian leader.
- Give foreign powers an opening to influence U.S. politics through partisan passions.
One of his best-known warnings was that parties might become:
“potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
I would argue that all the the things Washington said could happen, have.
Government, like fire, is useful and beneficial but only if it is completely contained for if it is not it will grow out of control and burn the world to the ground.
The Night of Horror
The whole day, the electricity never came since dawn. We spent a morning, a noon, an evening, and a night, with no sign of electricity coming.
Fast forward to the night, we were sitting down quietly, and noticed metallic clicking sounds coming from a building next to us. We ignored those sounds, thinking that they’re normal. After thirty minutes, we decided to play a little game to try to offset the horrifying feeling.
As me and my family were playing a words game where one says the first letter and everyone says country names that start with that letter, we noticed the burning smell coming from the outside. When we looked at the window from our balcony, we witnessed the most horrifying scene I’ve ever seen yet.
The power generator from that building seems to have been caught on fire, even when it was off. All of us panicked, as we feared that it would blow up to smithereens. The green leaves were also being burnt to ashes while they were flying in the air, with some of them reaching our balcony.
Even worse, there were no firefighters who could come to turn off the fire, and we couldn’t call them because the cellular towers were turned off as the battery died due to lack of electricity for more than 36 hours. Also, the house was very cold, and the only lighting available to us was our phone’s flashlights. There was no Wi-Fi, which made it worse.
I suggested to go to a room in the other side of the condo where the burning smell didn’t come to close the door, and to open the window to be able to sleep comfortably. When we did this, the helicopter sounds were wailing across the black sky, and the explosion sounds far away from our house came every 30 seconds.
Despite all this, we were able to sleep.
The next day, the burning smell seems to have been gone, but the fire was still there until almost a month later when the firefighters finally came and turned it off. The electricity also finally came the next morning.
That night was the most horrible and nightmarish time we’ve lived.
Whatever’s Left
“Amanda fired me,” Ben told his wife as he walked into the kitchen, put down his briefcase, and threw his keys on the counter.
“Wait, how could she fire you?” Peggy asked, a shocked expression on her face. “I thought she liked you, that you worked well with her, and that you were hitting all of your targets.”
Ben sat down at the kitchen table. The confession came out of him like something rotten finally tearing free. “Amanda came on to me. Well, she didn’t just come on to me,” he said, staring down at the table as if it might swallow him. “I let her. I let her pull me into her office, close the blinds, tell me I was special. I believed it because it was easier than admitting I was weak.”
Peggy stood up, walked over to the window, arms crossed, the hurt of his confession showing on her face.
“It wasn’t just a mistake,” Ben said. “It was a choice I made again and again. And every time, I felt myself slipping further from you. From who I thought I was.”
He dragged a hand down his face. “I ended it. I told her I couldn’t keep living like that. But she didn’t take it well. She said she owns my future, that she’ll fire me and bury me professionally if I don’t go back.”
The silence between them thickened, heavy as wet earth.
“I’m not going back,” he said. “Even if she carries out her threat to destroy me. I’d rather lose my job than lose whatever’s left of us.”
Peggy’s expression changed from hurt to anger. “Whatever’s left of us,” she repeated, as if tasting the words.
Ben realized the real threat wasn’t his boss. It was the woman standing a few feet away, deciding whether he was worth saving.
Ablaze!
Please “Stop, drop and roll!”
Living with firefighters
You learn early on
About fire safety and all
Such preventative measures
~”An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. ~
Benjamin Franklyn
The arsonists who
Care so little about the
Safety of others
Play with matches and they destroy
Too much land and property
Susan Batten:
I once visited the Museum of London, on its original site in the Barbican. A memorable exhibit impressed me with its ingenuity and effectiveness: for the Great Fire of London (1666), they created a room with black walls and a city skyline, behind which the glow of the raging fire pulsed and leapt.
The voiceover told the story and meanwhile they heightened the effect by adding the frightening, rushing whisper of devouring flames, sparking that atavistic fear we all recognized. In this claustrophobic space, we watched and listened uneasily. Then came the master stroke: the room gradually got hotter, until we were thankful to hurry out and take a few deep breaths in the cooler corridors of the museum.
“Tingle My Tongue”
Ooh-wee
Bliss-ter-ing me
With your hot, hot kisses
Roasting fire sparks and hisses
Tickle my nose with scorched delight
Pepper my brow with sweat, tonight
A slow burning heat just can’t be beat
Hot shivers of chili, a passionate treat
Tastes of bliss
When we first moved to Lincolnshire in 2007, we lived about four miles from The Battle of Britain Memorable Flight and it was not unusual to see Spitfires, Hurricanes, and the only remaining flying Lancaster pass above our house or in close proximity of it.
As a point of interest, the Spitfire had a wider wingspan than the Eurofighter (Typhoon).
Climate Change Worsens Wildfires Globally and Human land-Use Changes Reduces them
Climate change worsens wildfires in North America, especially in the western U.S. and Canada, as well as in southern and western Europe, the Arctic and Siberia, Australia, and parts of South America and central Africa. That is because these areas face longer dry spells and rising temperatures due to climate change. However, changes in human land-use, such as farming expansion, and landscape fragmentation in Northern Africa and south Asia have caused the total burned area to decline.
Human-caused global warming is causing longer dry spells and rising temperatures in many areas. This results in larger and more intense wildfires despite improved forest management. This has globally expanded the area burned by 16% (2003 to 2019)
As mentioned, climate change worsened wildfires in North America, especially in the western U.S. and Canada, as well as in southern and western Europe, the Arctic and Siberia, Australia, and parts of South America and central Africa. However, changes in population distribution, land use, forest fragmentation and the conversion of land for urban development and agriculture in particularly south Asia and North Africa have suppressed wildfires, driving down global burned area. The net effect is estimated to be a reduction of the burned area by 5%. You can read more here, or here, or here, or here.
For more on this post, together with images, click here.
Firefly
Fleeting
Is a firefly
Flickers where no eyes dare
Whispers night’s sweet-shivered secrets
Freedom
Candle Light
Burning with fire
for peace
Be Careful What You Wish For
“Good day, Thomas. Can Farriner’s spare a crust for a hungry relative?”
The wind blew Uncle through the door. Father emerged from the oven’s depths.
“What brings you to Pudding Lane?”
“I’m avoiding Mr Wren. He’s in a mood! I wish they had let him pull down the old cathedral and start again like he wanted.”
My father wiped soot from his hands. “Hanna – go tell Molly there’s another for dinner. The oven can wait.”
Later that night, as we scrambled from an upstairs window to the house next door, we little realised that our modest house fire would be the means to granting my uncle’s wish.
Lou By The Sea:
The Orange Passion
I’m fired up
In this place
My fireplace.
Fireflies buzz
Above my cooling embers.
Light my fire
With fiery passion
Fire the gun
And make me fight
Make me a firefighter.
Give me water for this fire
No- give me fire water.
Fireworks,
does it?
So thinks this
Firebrand- that is me.
Fireworks excite me
My fire spreads as fast as the
Wet rivers of my soul.
Don’t ever put me out
Just lay your irons beside me
Please place your guard around me.
Consumed
You walk in and the air goes thin,
a match struck low against my skin.
I’ve been embers, banked and slow,
waiting for the wind to blow.
Your hand …. a spark. Your mouth …. a flame.
I forget my guarded name,
forget the walls I built from ice,
forget the caution of looking twice.
Surround my soul, my body too.
I was tinder, built for you.
Let the fire burn where it will ….
I was never meant to sit still.
December 2/25 I bought into the app Suno Pro
The beginning of a journey with a long way to go
Money spent on new gadgets & stuff for me to sing
Not knowing the future this addiction could bring
Creating a new spark for poems that I have written
Not knowing if their worthy enough of giving a listen
I'll keep travelling this path as long as I have the desire
To create music with AI that helps fuel my inner fire
Suzette B's Blog:
Lamps
Making a statement
fireflies with tiny lamps, light
Great Smoky Mountains.
Boomcha:
Where We Gathered
Fire has always meant more to me than heat. It’s the smell that clings to clothes after a long night outside, the way food tastes different when it’s cooked over open flame, the sound of kids laughing while they run around the yard. I think of s’mores, half‑burned marshmallows, and stories told because the dark makes people honest.
Those nights were never complicated. Just a circle of people, a crackle in the air, and the quiet that shows up when everyone is exactly where they want to be. Fire didn’t demand anything. It just gave us a place to gather.
I still think of it that way.
Therapy Bits:
A Deep Fire Within
I have walked through nights
that seemed to have no end,
carried wounds in silence,
learned to break and still not bend.
I have stood where hope grew quiet,
where every road looked thin,
yet beneath the ash and sorrow
burned a fire deep within.
The world has tried to shake me,
the storms have called my name,
but every time they knocked me down,
I rose despite the pain.
Not untouched, not unbroken,
not the person I had been—
but stronger in the places
where the light came pouring in.
I learned survival isn’t pretty;
sometimes courage barely breathes.
Sometimes strength is simply waking
when your heart just wants to leave.
Sometimes victory is choosing
one more day to begin,
trusting there’s a spark still glowing—
a fire deep within.
So let the thunder find me.
Let the cold winds test my skin.
I’ve survived the darkest seasons;
I know what lives within.
And if tomorrow brings another fight,
I’ll face it scarred, but standing—
because I’ve learned that even ashes
can become a new beginning.
I am still here.
I am still becoming.
And through everything I’ve been,
there remains, fierce and endless,
a fire deep within.
Lisa A Paul:
Bonfire
build me a bonfire
fit for a song
string notes like fireflies
floating lazily along
sit close and hold my hand
in our circle of light
the cold at our backs
the fire burning bright
whisper I love you
fire and peace in our veins
our hearts together stronger
as the blaze slowly wanes
The Fire We Keep
The most interesting fire in my childhood was not in a fireplace. It lived inside an old kerosene stove that my grandmother treated with the wary respect usually reserved for difficult relatives.
Every morning, she would pump the little stove, strike a match, and lean back slightly as the blue flame appeared with a soft, determined hiss. If it sputtered orange, she frowned. If it behaved, she carried on cooking as though she had negotiated successfully with a minor demon.
Years later, I discovered that my grandmother was not particularly fond of fire. She simply understood it.
Perhaps that is one of the forgotten skills of modern life: knowing what can be trusted only when it is watched.
We have become remarkably good at domesticating fire. We hide it behind glass, electric coils, induction plates and little red indicators that tell us something is hot without actually showing us anything. A child growing up today can heat a meal without ever seeing the thing that does the heating. Fire has been reduced to a button.
Our ancestors would have found this suspicious.
For most of human history, fire was neither appliance nor metaphor. It was infrastructure. It meant cooked food, protection from animals, warmth, light after sunset and the ability to turn raw clay into pottery and sand into glass. It gathered people together because darkness had very practical consequences.
Even today, fire has a peculiar talent for making strangers behave like a committee.
Put a dozen people around a campfire and within twenty minutes someone becomes responsible for the wood, someone starts rearranging the logs, someone insists the flames need more air, and one unfortunate person is appointed to prevent the marshmallows from becoming archaeological specimens.
Nobody needs to announce that the fire is the centre of the gathering. Everyone simply arranges themselves around it.
There is something similar about the tiny flames we preserve in ordinary life.
A birthday candle is fire with manners. A diya is fire given a place to sit. A kitchen match is fire on probation. The flame on a gas burner is fire employed full-time and expected to meet deadlines.
We have rituals for putting it out, too.
As children, many of us were told not to play with matches. Adults, meanwhile, spent decades doing precisely that, only with greater confidence and worse consequences. Cigarettes were lit casually at dinner tables, fireplaces were left smouldering, and someone was always burning rubbish in the backyard because apparently smoke was once considered a perfectly respectable waste-management strategy.
Before she fell ill, my mother had the habit of checking the stove twice before leaving the kitchen.
She turns the knob, looks at it, and then turns back again.
“It’s off,” I tell her.
“I know.”
She checks anyway.
Perhaps this is not anxiety. Perhaps it is knowledge accumulated over years: fire does not care that you are late.
There is another kind of fire, of course, the one we use to describe people. Someone has a fire in the belly. Someone burns with ambition. Someone is fired up. Someone has lost their spark.
We are fond of borrowing fire to describe human intensity, but humans are considerably more complicated combustion systems.
We can burn brightly for something and quietly resent it. We can be passionate on Monday and exhausted by Thursday. We can spend years protecting a flame we no longer particularly enjoy tending.
Maybe that is why the old stove stays with me.
Not because it was beautiful. It wasn’t. It was greasy, temperamental and capable of making the kitchen smell faintly of kerosene.
But my grandmother knew exactly what it required. A little pressure. A clean burner. A match. Attention.
And perhaps that is still the arrangement, whether we are dealing with a stove, a friendship, an ambition, or the stubborn little thing inside us that refuses to go completely dark.
Fire has never promised to be convenient. It merely asks whether we are paying attention.
This year, it sometimes feels as though our planet is on fire.
Here in Spain, we have watched devastating forest fires sweep across huge areas of the country. July alone became the worst July for burned land in the records used by the European wildfire monitoring system.
Images of flames, exhausted firefighters, evacuations and landscapes turned black have become far too familiar.
Here on Fuerteventura, our landscape is different.
We don’t have the vast forests found on mainland Spain. Our island is dry, volcanic and open, with far fewer trees.
Yet somehow, fire still seems to be everywhere.
Almost every week, it feels as though there is another story on the news.
A bus on fire.
A building burning.
Smoke rising somewhere it shouldn’t.
Another reminder of how quickly an ordinary day can change.
Fire is strange that way.
For thousands of years, humans have depended on it.
Fire gave us warmth.
Light.
Cooked food.
Protection.
We gather around it for comfort, watching flames dance while feeling strangely peaceful.
Yet the same element that warms our homes can destroy them.
Perhaps that is why fire has always been such a powerful symbol.
It represents destruction —
but also transformation.
A forest may burn, yet eventually tiny green shoots push through the blackened earth.
A candle burns away, but while it does, it gives light.
And sometimes we humans have our own kind of fire.
The fire that keeps us fighting when life becomes difficult.
The fire that makes us speak when silence would be easier.
The fire of creativity, love, determination and hope.
I wish our planet could have a little less of the destructive kind of fire.
But the other kind?
The little flame inside us that whispers,
Keep going.
May that one never go out.
Piece One
Written In the Stars
OMG, I was so bored. He was nothing like his profile; his photo must have been taken years ago, and so far, I’d seen nothing of his GSOH.
How long before I could plead a headache?
‘Sorry, am I boring you?’
Was it that obvious? I realised I had no idea what he’d just been talking about.
‘Oh no, of course not, I didn’t catch what you said. Forgive me.’
‘I was asking you what your Earth sign was.’
‘Umm…pass?’
‘ Well what’s your star sign then, your birthday?’
I felt like I was being interrogated.
‘I’m a Virgo.’ I replied reluctantly, no way was I telling him my birthday.
‘Ah Virgo, the fair maiden.’ he smirked.
‘That makes you Earth then, and I’m Water. We’re a match made in heaven, or should I say in the stars. Splendid!’
This was getting creepy, I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.
‘That’s one of the best pairings. Now my ex wife, well, she was Fire, and believe me, Fire and Water do not mix. Did I mention I’d been married before? I should have seen the signs ( pardon the pun ). But hey, you learn by your mistakes, don’t you?’
I was rapidly realising this was one…
‘Well actually, I’m not sure if I believe in all that nons…’
‘No, listen, Earth provides security, and Water offers emotional depth. Together they make the relationship strong, supportive, and long lasting.
Please God, get me outta here.
And just like that, my prayers were answered.
The fireman alarm went off, setting off the water sprinklers, and we were all herded outside to safety.
Standing on the pavement, we looked at each other. in awkward silence.
‘What a drip’, I thought to myself.
Unkind, I know, but there was no point in pretending. There was no way on earth there was ever going to be any spark for me.
‘What was I saying about fire and water?’ he quipped. ‘We’ll look back on this and laugh one day, how our first date turned into a disaster. We won’t forget tonight in a hurry..
I was half expecting him to say ‘It’ll be something to tell our grandchildren.’
If ever there was a sign, this was it.
I let him down as gently as I could, telling him that, sadly, I couldn’t see our future in the stars.
He didn’t take it well.
‘Got it wrong again then, didn’t I.’ he said sarcastically, before turning his back on me and walking away.
He got two things right, anyway.
No. I won’t forget tonight in a hurry.
And yes, it was a total disaster!
–
Piece Two
On holiday in Majorca with my husband, my brother, and my cousin, we were having a lovely time as usual; this was our annual autumn break before the dreaded winter ahead.
Until…
My brother received a text in the early hours of the morning, telling him that his car had been destroyed!
Yes, his car was one of the 1300 parked at Luton Airport., when, possibly an electrical fault set the entire multi-story car park ablaze.
It was rather a shock hearing news like that, but we weren’t going to let it spoil our holiday.
My brother loves his expensive cars, this one was a BMW, only a few months old.
We cannot fault the service he was given. of course they could not argue his claim; we had a complimentary taxi to pick us up at Luton airport (we’d travelled in one car), and he had his brand new BMW within a couple of weeks.
We are reminded about it every year as we park up at Luton for our jaunt to Majorca, and although not a nice experience at the time, something we can look back on and laugh about…
***
Inage credit: Pinterest
Esther Chilton 
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