Friday Fiction With Ronovan | But I Smile Anyway...

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES #10 – Birth Celebrations

22 Jan 2016 33 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Fiction Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Celebration of Life Day, Challenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fiction With Ronovan

Friday heralds another fiction challenge by Ronovan, and I am really enjoying the twists and turns that he is taking us through! Check it out here

Prompt for Challenge #10

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

January 22, which is Friday’s date, is Celebration of Life Day.

Take a moment in your life of which you would celebrate and use that as inspiration for a no more than 750 word story, but don’t let that stop you if you are enjoying yourself and the story is going well. (SUGGESTED)
If you are not doing a series, write the story as if the characters were animals living in the roles of humans. An example would be the policemen might be German Shepherds and other Police type dogs. (REQUIRED if not in the middle of writing a series.) OR
Use the same experience for a story in one of the following Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller. (Required if not using the above.)

My moment of choice is that of childbirth, and becoming a mother. A moment I had longed for so much, as I had struggled to conceive. And I tell my story as a cat… (Which other animal could I use? Sonu Singh would be far too disappointed in me, if I chose otherwise! Here goes!

Surprise Birth

“Meoooooowwww!”

The pain seared through my abdomen, and I didn’t know what to do. There was no one there to help me. None of my two-leggers were around. Usually, there was always at least one of them fussing around me, especially recently, but today, no one.

Well, no one apart from him. Did you know about him? Tom? Tom Cat.

He’s the reason I was in so much pain right now, and there he was, nonchalantly lounging on the windowsill! I spied an occasional disinterested glance in my direction. He knew I was suffering, but when we managed to lock eyes, he’d look away, and stare out of the window.It was not good. I hadn’t felt anything like this ever!

Another wave of pain. I padded over to the special bed that my two-leggers had made especially for me. Soft, cosy, inviting… but just not for me right now. All I wanted to do was pace around. It felt like it had been forever that I had been getting these little pains.

“Meeeeoooow!”

Something was happening, and I needed to go lie down. I don’t know why, but the urge to lay down was so extreme that I just crawled under my two-leggers bed, and settled myself in between all the different bags and boxes that had been shoved under there.

All of a sudden, my body gave the urge to push, and I knew that my two-leggers would be sad with me… I was so good, I never had accidents. I was a clean girl. I didn’t ever miss my litter tray, or kick the litter about. Not like ‘him’ over there!

I looked to see whether I could clear the mess I had made, and what I saw made me stop and stare in wonder… There was a little sac, and my urge was to break it. Something pushed me to do it, and when I did, this teeny little ball of fluff was revealed… a tiny kitty, just like Tom, only much, much smaller…

I licked and cleaned him, and cuddled him, and it dawned on me.

This was like when my two-leggers had to disappear once, and when they came back, there was this strange little basket, and it kept on making a huge noise. On inspection, I found a little bald creature, laying on its back, arms flaying and wailing, worse than Tom Cat’s singing! My she two-legger picked this creature up, and held it to me, and said it was Courtney, our new baby… And when I looked, at her, and gave her a sniff, she seemed just like my two-leggers…

As time had passed, this Courtney also started moving about. Like me to start with, she used to chase me, grab my tail, cuddle me rather vigorously, then slowly she started to do what the two-leggers did, and she too began to move in that odd way, like my two-leggers did… Strange creatures!

I looked down at this little thing in front of me and realised that I too had a Courtney. Just then, I felt like I needed to go again, and within a short while, there was another sac, another little furry bundle…

It felt like ages before my two-leggers came home, and I could hear them calling for me, but it was impossible to move. A while ago, Tom Cat had appeared, and was watching from the side of the bed… the urge to push had stopped now, but in front of me, lay 5 little Courtneys. And they had all come from me!

“Purrrrrlease, can I come and take a look?” Tom Cat purred… “It is time to see my offspring too.” And he sauntered over to sniff my Courtneys.

“Hissssss! Step away! They are mine!!!” I made him step back in surprise. No one was coming near my Courtneys!

“Look, Tom is over here, in our room!” my lady two-legger Megan said, as she entered the room, and she knelt down. It was like Tom Cat had told them where I was, and she gently knelt down to look under the bed. Her face lit up when she saw my little bundles, and she quietly slipped away to the door “Jack, the kittens have come!”

My man two-legger, Jack, came in and looked under the bed too. “Oh yes, they have definitely arrived! Well done KittyKat!” he whispered.

I looked again at these little bundles, snuffling into my chest, seeking the swollen teats that were hidden in my fur. No one was taking these babies away from me…

There you have it!

All feedback gratefully received!

Friday Fiction with Ronovan #6

20 Dec 2015 21 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Fiction Tags: Blog, Challenge, Fanily Gatherings, Friday Fiction With Ronovan

Ron

The arrival of Friday brings the new prompt from the lovely Ronovan of Ronovan Writes for his Fiction Friday Challenge. Read more about it here.

This week’s prompt.

PROMPT FOR CHALLENGE #6

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Challenge This Week: Write about a family gathering. I know that sounds like non-fiction but by writing pieces like this you tap into emotional and sensory experiences you use for other writings. An example of this would be a short piece I did quite some time ago called My Ocean, My Lover. No Word Count limit this week, just no book lengths please.

And so here we go…

On The Shelf

I had been summoned home.

Another family function.

Great.

I had finished university a few years ago, and had managed to secure a pretty amazing job, even if I do say so myself, at a high flying marketing agency in Central London.

Living with two other girls, in a little, but very expensive flat in Shoreditch, I had got totally into the independent woman’s lifestyle, gorgeous clothes, nights out, a good salary… and now this call from home.

Now people would be happy to be going home, to see the family, and that would have been me too, a couple of years ago, but now things were different.

We had been invited to a large family gathering, to celebrate some milestone birthday of a cousin of mine, and I love a party as much as the next person, but I knew there would be a totally different feel to the whole event.

You see this wasn’t the first function I was going to as a graduate. Having graduated means, in most Indian mummies heads, that I was ready for marriage. So as I walked in, I would be being appraised by certain people with regards to my suitability for various boys of a certain age that they knew.

But the thing was, I didn’t want to get married. Not yet anyway! I had only just managed to get away from home, after living through my university years at home too. It had taken so much convincing to get my parents to realise that me moving to London wasn’t a bad thing, and all the talk of marriage proposals would start mum and dad off again, about me getting older, and not being settled, like all the other girls of my age.

That’s if I even get looked at… I mean come on, I was 26 now, practically mouldy in comparison to the fresh 21 year old meat that would be there! Oh well, let’s see what happened.

***********************************************

Oh it is painful, you know, sitting here, swirling the ice in my glass, trying not to make too much eye contact with the old biddies! I just about convinced my brother to get me a Bacardi and Coke… no one would know, it was just Coke to them, but I needed a fortifier.

My reliable family informer, a younger cousin, who is in awe of my ‘London-Life’, was telling me the latest gossip, about me! Apparently, I was shacked up with some man in London, which is why I wasn’t agreeing to any proposals, according to Pritam Aunty. Seriously? Just because I was not interested in her nephew? Why can’t people leave me alone!

But looking at my parents, and their downcast eyes, I do wonder, should I really be thinking about settling down? They look so upset, and it’s like a light has gone out in their eyes. Damn the family gossip queens!

Ritu 2015

All comments welcome 🙂

Friday Fiction With Ronovan # 5- On A Saturday!

13 Dec 2015 23 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Fiction, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Don't Let Go, En Vogue, Friday Fiction With Ronovan

Friday Fiction with Ronovan… Yes I know it’s now Sunday, but hey, I needed time for other pressing issues, the last two nights, so here I am! The prompt post is here.

Challenge This Week:

Pick your favorite song and use the title for the title of your story. No, you are not to write a story about how you like the song.
Get rid of adverbs outside of your dialogue.
No word count limit this week.

Finding my one favourite song in itself was a challenge, I love so many

So my song, a particular favourite, is Don’t Let Go, by En Vogue.

It was poignant when Hubby Dearest and I were dating, and I still love the words to this day.

https://youtu.be/-g8qfzJGMnI

And no adverbs??!!

Oh this will be a toughie!!!

Here goes!

Don’t Let Go

“Don’t let go!”

That’s what he said to me, just before my grip loosened.

I didn’t mean to. I mean, I had tried hard to hold on, but after 15 minutes of holding his feet, as he dangled over the edge of the bridge, I couldn’t do it. He was heavy, and I’m just a slight lad myself.

It was all his idea.

He’d seen all these amazing graffiti-covered bridges and he wanted to ‘tag’ one too. It had only been a couple of months since we had started spraying…leaving our mark around the local area, you know, the school hall walls, the bus shelter Ad boards.

But this, well it was a totally different ball game. I had only been joining in to seem cool, you know, one of the gang.

Yet here we were, standing on top of this bridge. The only way he said he could reach was by being held, as he dangled, upside down, and I had to grab hold of his feet.

I don’t know what masterpiece he was trying to create but our quick usual ‘tag’ that took a couple of minutes, seemed to take forever. It was getting dark when we had reached there, and there were a few cars that had passed under the bridge, but none had stopped to see what we were doing.

But I felt myself tiring, and my hands couldn’t hold on for much longer. I told him to hurry up. I told him that I couldn’t hold on much longer, but he carried on.

Then, just as he said it… “Don’t let go!” my hands gave up, and as I looked up, there was a truck driving towards us, headlights beaming brightly….

Right, so I have read, and reread this so many times, I can’t tell of there are adverbs in there or not! It is totally different to the message of the song, but hey, it was the title that was the inspiration!

You can be my teachers now, mark it, tell me if adverbs slipped in, and what you think!

Oh Ronova, you make us work hard!!!!