Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Memories & The Mummy's Bedroom

Today's blogs....

30 Day Blogging Challenge

Write a story or poem about a political or social upheaval in your or some other country.

What comes to mind in this is Culloden and its famous battle, a blood bath. An hour of hell on earth... where one group wanted to crush and curtail the 'savageness' of a group they could not and would not understand. In they're destruction, Scotland was leveled. Clans were outlawed and the language of Gallic was also seen as an affront. England stuck its arrogance in where it was not wanted or needed and in the aftermath, a culture was repressed and quashed. The British flag is the union of the England, Ireland and Scotland. It consists of the red cross of Saint George (patron saint of England), edged in white, superimposed on the Cross of St Patrick (patron saint of Ireland), which are superimposed on the Saltire of Saint Andrew (patron saint of Scotland).

One group pressing itself upon the others to make them adhere....

Being of English, Irish and Scottish descent, I am appalled at the brutalness of what happened in the year of 1746.

It is past and it is history... but the lives lost.... and the brutality of it.... bother my sense of right and wrong.

Blog City – Day 222

Victor Hugo said: "Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant." Do you feel that your memories work for you, or do you feel beholden to your memories?

Interesting quote, though I am not crazy about the wife and mistress aspect. Though I can see the practical intelligent wife and the flamboyantly creative mistress that pulls you away from the practical. Memory, however, hmmm. I think as a writer we draw on our memories so they do in fact work for us. But like any servant, they have minds of their own and may misplace things or mess up on occasion. They have their place and do play a crucial role in your life.

Memories build up the foundation of who you are. No two of us have the same memories, even two people experiencing the same thing. Perception colours the memories, provides the shading and the colour to make a similar experience ultimately our own. Sure they can be similar but the emotions behind the experience connects it to us in ways that would be different for another in the same experience.
I am thinking that if the memory connections are similar with another person, we would be inclined to think they ‘get us’... maybe that is why extreme circumstances bond people in highly volatile ways. They survived the experience and did it together, but even within that memory, differences occur... differences that may ultimately pull that couple apart when life returns to the mundane.

The Haunted House – Day 9 – The Mummy’s Bedroom

Steps took me back down and I emerged into a bedroom.

The silence was so thick it hung like the dead as I moved forward on tip toe. A large canopied bed filled most of the room. Its heavy ornate frame rose high and was draped with a thick dusty canopy that looked like it had been crimson red at one point in its past. Now it hung like a snake wrapped around the frame, with curtains enclosing the structure. Gothic elements dripped from every surface.

I wondered what lay behind the curtains but fear stabbed at me. Ignoring it, I pushed forward so that I stood by the bed, just where a small gap parted the curtains. I leaned forward, holding my breath.

My eyes widened at the sight before me. Three mummies lay in lifeless sprawls, their bodies covered with thick wraps of linen. I covered my mouth to push the scream that rose up back. I took two large steps back and began to hyperventilate.

Shock settle over me and I began to pace the room looking for an exit. My skin crawled at the memory of those three bodies frozen within their mummified poses. I kept telling myself they were not of this life. They were members of this household not any of my friends, but the sizes sure looked about right.

I stopped and closed my eyes. I needed to find my center and loose the trembling that had taken over my limbs. I drew in deep breaths and let them out in a rough sigh that hitched and caught until I drew in another deeper breath. After a few moments, my breathing settled and I moved to the wall to begin further search for the door. My hands trailed along the intricate designs feeling for some kind of indication that a door existed. I was almost doomed to give up when I found the latch and a door clicked open revealing a hallway leading back to the front on the house. I moved along hoping to find my way out and giving a prayer of thanks that I had gotten out of that death filled room.

Next is My Escape or my Doom.... what shall it be?