ASTRAY - a 100 word interquel.

This week's photo prompt was first posted two years ago on Rochelle's blog,  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/ . If you'd like to read the story I wrote then you will find it in my archive for May 2014.
I almost used it again this week, as I had a cataract operation two days ago and my eyes are a bit strange, but instead you have more about Juan, whose story I wrote last week. It's neither sequel nor prequel - is there such a thing as an interquel?

ASTRAY

“Take it to policia,” Juan’s mother would have said, but he’d left home to escape her discipline – he sold the bracelet he found in the street. Later, broke and hungry, he stole a handbag, and soon he was a regular at the backstreet pawnshop.

Juan lived the high life until he fell ill – his woman took his wallet and left. Starving, his fevered hands botched the next robbery, and under the uncompromising regime of jail he yearned for his mother’s gentler discipline.

The moment he was free Juan scuttled home, settled down with the wife his mother chose, and raised sheep.

PRODIGAL SON - a 100 word story

PRODIGAL SON

In the narrow alleys of the barrio word spread like floodwater, and if Juan misbehaved his mother had her slipper waiting when he got home. “I heard what you did.”  At sixteen he ran away.

In the city Juan lived by his wits, and was soon smoking fat cigars and wearing gold rings. But when he was ill, no-one brought soup: when he fell, nobody helped him up: and when he screamed, nobody heard.

Aged thirty-two, he returned home, where his mother clipped his ear. “I heard what you did.”

Juan smiled happily as she washed the prison stink from his clothes.

.................................   .......................................

Thanks to Rochelle for this week's Friday Fictioneers' photo prompt. It reminds me vividly of the narrow alleys I saw in Tenerife, hence my Spanish hero Juan. You can read what other writers made of Jan Marler Morrill's photo by following the links here:  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/



This is one of my own photos from Tenerife - you can see the resemblance.

WHY I WROTE THOSE TOY POEMS


Here I was, newly retired and moved to Tenerife, and I was bored. So my younger son said, "Write a book".
The very idea was daunting, but I had written poetry all my life, so I set out to write a book of poems for my children and grandchildren, which I illustrated myself.
The characters are their soft toys. For this camping holiday in 1976 we restricted them to two each, but they had dozens.
The adventures these toys get up to in the poems often reflect some incident in, or aspect of, their owner's lives, so the book of 40+ poems is very personal to them.
A couple of my own dolls, and one or two of their father's, sneaked in there too, and of course, Margaret's bear and Kevin's Woms.

Then when I'd made eight copies, coloured in the drawings and sent the books off in time for Christmas, I was bored again. So I started my first novel.

How I started writing

What starts us off on the writing road?
My spur was retiring from work and leaving the village where I had lived for 35 years. The shock to my system  was devastating.
Then my younger son asked, "How are you, Mum?" and I replied, "Bored."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and write a book," he said.
Well, I started small. I wrote 40 verses based on the family's dolls and memories. I illustrated each one, and made up copies for family and a few friends. It was a marathon which I completed just in time for Christmas.
And then I was bored again. And twitchy - weeks of working on the project had kicked the author into life and she wouldn't lie down. So I wrote my first novel.
That was some years ago, and I've not stopped since, but those verses were the start of it all.
Written so that my children would recognize their toys, and in the hope that my grandsons would enjoy reading the book.
Look on "My writing" page for a few examples.