Tag: #The Sunday Whirl

Posted in Writing Prompts

The Sunday Whirl 4/16/23- Redeeming Happiness

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

It’s said that everyone has skeletons in their closet, but Millicent’s closet was about to overflow. Her life of pathological lying had always been a block to her conscience calling for a relief from her hidden stream of suffering. She’d no sooner promise herself to change her ways than her want to be accepted by everyone would dare her not to listen to such ethereal voices.
And now, she was a lonely elderly woman wandering hopelessly with no one who’d listen to her. Her dreams of popularity had not ever born fruit and her days were growing fewer. Every lie she’d ever told while trying to ingratiate herself to people had backfired.
In a desperate last effort, all she could do was retrace as many steps as she could and confess her lifelong dishonesty.
One by one, she reached out for forgiveness to countless estranged friends. Many shut her down before she could start. But a handful of them, forgave her, and a few even returned to her offering a second chance of companionship. That loving power of grace and forgiveness nearly made her knees buckle as joyful redemption from her past came within her reach.


https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/04/16/wordle-601/

Posted in Writing Prompts

The Sunday Whirl- 4/2/23- Smitten and Nearly Bitten

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

A sliver of panic crept into Tonya as her most aggressive hike since the pandemic lockdowns started feeling skewed toward disaster. She had become smitten with the adventure and freedom people could get from hiking in 2018. While she’d been ‘caged’ indoors in 2020, her determination to press the limits of her wilderness treks grew beyond the margins of incremental cautious excursions into a full-blown rambling obsession. All she’d planned this time was to head North. But suddenly, Tonya was starting to regret her casual disregard for natural dangers having noticed some large bear scat along the trail. All she was armed with was bear spray.
In the middle of her first night, she was startled awake by a huge snarling grizzly bear with teeth the size of chair spindles that simply stepped from the absolute blackness into the light of her dwindling campfire! All she could do was throw her supplies one way and flee in the opposite direction.
After aimlessly running for a long time, she was relieved that the bear hadn’t followed her but now she was hopelessly lost and emptyhanded as dawn was breaking. If she hadn’t heard a roaring brook and nimbly made her way to it, Tonya may never have survived.
There were waterfalls upstream to her right and a gentle slope along the downstream side which, as every hiker knows, leads to civilization. It took only 18 hours for her to find safety by stumbling upon a remote hunting lodge beside that stream. It was there that she was told many tales of others who hadn’t been so fortunate.

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/04/02/wordle-599/

Posted in Writing Prompts

The Sunday Whirl #598- Unforgivable

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Unforgivable

The reporting of conspiracy theory scandals was incessant during that world-wide pandemic. The truth had very little to do with anything at a time when a numb public predicably enjoyed many rushes to its own fearful conclusions. After all, our Media whispers layers of gossip in the eager ears of the most vulnerable all of the time in an undeserved tone of ‘moral’ authority. Those who resisted apparent spiral logic became bone-weary from trying to explain evidence that, to most, was just tightly kept secrets made possible by government censorship of free speech. The ruffled feathers of powerful forces directing the raw dishonesty produced scars from weighty consequences they imposed on those ‘non-compliant’ types. It was they who remained undaunted in their pursuit of truthful information that were damaged most while trying to find it. Incremental recent vindication may offer them some small ‘healing‘ but is it all just too late?



https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/03/26/wordle-598/

Posted in Writing Prompts

The Sunday Whirl- 3/19/23 Blind Luck

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre



The mission of the African Safari was to photograph animals in the wild rather than having to observe them in a cage. Our lucky senior class photography club had won this miracle adventure in a country wide contest! No one would need to be forced not go as it was “all expenses paid”.
Once we arrived in Africa, the seven of us found it soothing to our apprehensions that our guide spoke perfect English. He had been educated in the U.S. even though he was labeled in the brochure as a “native”.
On our first excursion into the wild grasslands, we were overwhelmed by the single-colored environment. Everything was a variation of a sandy tan. Trees, land, even the sky, blended together causing us to have to add lens filters and wear eye protection to prevent a kind of ‘blindness’ that would interfere with us getting the ‘full experience’.
Our guide got rather annoyed along that first ride when he pointed out many hidden wild targets that we would have otherwise missed.
“Good grief, you guys! How could people who have such an interest in “seeing the World” be so ‘freakin’ blind.”

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/03/19/wordle-597/

Posted in Writing Prompts

Wordle #581- 12-04-22- The Reckoning

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre



“What you going to do about it, numb nuts?”

That was the last straw! He not only was challenging me, but he had resorted to using foul language in front of ladies!
A flame rising from the ashes of my childhood fears when listening to my drunken father’s abusive rants at my mother was uncontrollably burning inside me.
When I reached for his throat, the walls of the saloon seemed to split open. One large gap spilled a blinding light over the two of us. I was no longer a child cowering underneath my bed. A reckoning was at hand!

The rest is a blur, even now, as I await my moment on the gallows. My own future decided by men longing for a cold beer and a quick resolution had dismissed who I was in favor of who they needed me to be- a murderer.

The world would soon forget, possibly even forgive, me. I had rid this place of a brutal bully who had terrorized every single citizen causing a weight of hopelessness and despair.

As the hangman pulled the lever, I felt my mother’s tender touch sweep along my cheek beckoning me to come home.



https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2022/12/04/wordle-581/
Posted in Writing Prompts

The Sunday Whirl #577- A Difficult Offer to Refuse

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

yourself *guard *trust *pot *thought *kind *willow *breath *ego *focus *end *forgive



Dear Sir:
This is in response to your recent text, “Save your breath!”. My name is Willow and I’m with CCP- Compassionate Censorship and Propaganda. I just wonder if you thought it kind to end our texting exchange on such an ugly note. Here’s the GOOD NEWS; I forgive you! I am hoping you might now re-focus yourself on trust in humankind and let your guard down. I understand that the male ego is overtly belligerent, but our organization sincerely believes in second chances even though we are all aware what three strikes mean, don’t we, Sir?
We have an offer just for YOU today that could change your world. You’ll receive our first two New York Times best sellers absolutely FREE of charge in exchange for giving up your ‘bullying ways’ and growing a boatload of ‘pot‘. “Mellow minds are the most tolerant kinds!” is one of our favorite mottos.
Your first lovely gift is right up your alley. It’s entitled, “Selective Abortion: Eliminating Toxic Masculinity for Good” by Dev L. Spaun and the other one, which our organization promises will keep people like you on the edge of your seat, is, “How to Kill Off Opposition with a Smile” by Cora Rupt-Powers -Introduction by Hillary Clinton.
Thanks in advance as we don’t accept “No” for an answer.
Have a nice day!

https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2022/11/06/wordle-577/