Walls and Bridges

Before we read our prompts from the previous session we did the usual warm up exercise of being assigned a letter from the alphabet and spending about three minutes writing down as many words as possible beginning with that letter. Last night it was "H" and this was my contribution:

The writing prompt set at our last meeting was "Walls and Bridges".

I did struggle a bit with this one but with some perseverance I managed to produce the following which does contain one swear word:

WALLS AND BRIDGES

Walls in their most simple forms can provide shelter.

On the down wind side of a wall high up on the wildest of moors all beasts, us included, can shelter from the worst excesses of weather as it torments its way across the countryside.

Walls by themselves do not make a home, except for the smallest of creatures. To make a home there needs to be more than one, all of them topped off with a roof and somewhere a door we can go through. Going in we know we are safe. Going out we face the world.

As much as these walls can give a deep sense of security they can build invisible ones. Walls that make our neighbours visible strangers. From behind our walls we see them walking, driving past or gardening. We are always looking but how rarely do we go to another level of interaction. Thatof knowing as well as seeing?

Bridges have been built since time immemorial to get from one side of an obstacle to another. Be it a stream, river, lake or a deep valley to get closer.

As a species we seem to find it easier to build physical bridges to help us in our battle with topography, geography and geology. Yet, we find it nigh on impossible to transfer our physical engineering skills to an emotional level. It seems that the closer people are the further away they are. A distance that even technology cannot bridge.

Make the effort. Say “Hello, how are you?” to a neighbour or a stranger in the street. Most times it works. The one time it doesn’t that is their choice, not yours. You may even illicit a huge “Fuck off”.

At least you tried to take down a wall and build a bridge.

END

The free riting prompt for the evening was for us to conure up a story that starts in a city and ends by the seaside. I stared at my blank notebook page for a couple of minutes and eventually peened the following:

FROM THE CITY TO THE SEASIDE

Someone shouted across th trading room floor.

"For goodness sake have you seen our profits?"

"Yeah, I think most of us were on that one."

"Time to sell then before the lemmings out there do and we lose all,"

"Right you lot. All sold then let's go out after the close and party."

And party they did. In and out of every champagne bar in the Square Mile. Their numbers were whittled away by stamina and phone calls from home asking where the hell were they until there were just two left.

Liverpool Street, St Pancras and Waterloo had all seen their last trains depart. That left Victoria that was still open. A few drunks flaked out on the benches clutching their cans of liquid electric and cider. Our two were clutching their half finished bottles of Moet. They bought tickets to the end of the line where they found a hotel overlooking Brighton beach that was open for breakfast.

"You going into work today?"

"Nah, let's stay here and watch the sunrise over the pier. I think the office will be empty today."

END

The sad news was that we were told last night that the performing arts and culture hub that we are part of is having to close its doors this coming August. It is all down to money. All of the hub's activities catering for all generations were being subsidised and the overall difference between costs and revenues was being met with funding from the local authorities, the Arts Council and the charity's reserves. The reserves have been depleted as the funding from outside has been cut to the point where it was uncertain if any of it was going to continue.

Everyone in the group was saddened when they were told this and wanted to talk about it. This could have resulted in a self fulfilling doom loop but fortunately our facilitator brought things back on track very quickly by setting that one letter prompt.

NEXT WEEK'S PROMPT

Our prompt for next week is to write about being twenty one in the second person. That should be fun.

I asked if we should work in black and white? One of the group looked at me and suggested that sepia would be more appropriate.