This is to The_vulture‘s prompt “Othel,” and it’s a little weird. As I looked at the rune Othel, I thought of a story, coming up and down over generations. It didn’t end up quite like what I’d first pictured, but it helps if you think of this story as 6 lines, with two junctures (there should have been four, as I look at it, but the shorter junctures are the top and middle points); the story starts at bottom left and follows the rune around to the bottom right.
Learning Memories
The farmhouse where her grandfather had been born, where her mother had grown up, was bustling with family and rocking with laughter. Feather was in the midst of it, sitting on her grandmother’s lap, listening to her uncle’s stories, “…and then the damn cow walked, backwards, all the way out.”
Inheriting a Place
Feather held her grandmother’s glass bluebird. Not a lap, not a hug, or a story. But grandma had loved it, and she could hold it.
Making Memories, I
The bluebird sat in Feather’s dorm window, the room full of laughter and friends. “…and then the damn cow backed right out of the barn. My uncle never could live that down.” She leaned against Jerome’s shoulder, basking in the warmth of her friends. “And then there was that time…”
Making Memories, II
The bluebird turned a blind eye as they came home, muddy, soaking wet, and laughing. “I can’t believe you pulled me out.”
“What was I going to do, let you drown? Here, let me get that.” Jerome pulled her sweater off, wrapping a towel around her shoulders, pressing her close.
Making a Place
“…in sickness and in health …” The dress was blue, echoing her grandmother’s; the bands just like his parents’.
“With this ring, I thee wed.”
Making Memories, III
They stood high on the side of the mountain, their kids to either side of them, looking over the valley below, the trees a rippling blanket of green spread out at their feet. Her son hugged her, briefly and impulsively. “It’s beautiful,” he exclaimed. “I’m going to remember this forever.”
Making Memories, IV
Feather wore dark blue; she always did, to weddings, and this one was more important than most. She held Jerome’s hand tightly while their daughter said her vows, surrounded by the love of her family and friends. A child whispered “she’s pretty,” and the church, as one, laughed, brightly, happily.
Leaving a Place
She wrapped the bluebird carefully with shaking hands, nesting it in layers of blue tissue paper. Her granddaughter might not understand yet, but she would.
Teaching memories
“And then there was that time up on the mountain,” Feather chuckled, cuddling her granddaughter close on her lap, “when your dad decided to slip-and-slide his way down the last hundred feet. I nearly had a heart attack.” The house rumbled with laughter, full of family and warm with love.
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I respectfully disagree with your assessment that this one is “a little weird”; I think the vignette style worked very nicely to portray the story.
Thank yoU!
I think you’ve done something quite amazing with that prompt. 🙂 I really like the idea that you’ve created the plot line to follow the shape of the rune, kind of like shape poetry, but with a story, instead. I’d be really interested to actually see it presented in that fashion, with each segment laid out to form the rune. I really like the parallels and junctions you used in the plotline. This is really great thinking! 😀
Thank you! I spent some time futzing around in Paint, but I think the best way for me to do this will be on paper, and then scanned in. I’ll see what I can do. And I’m glad you liked it 😀
More sniffles. I think it works even without knowing/seeing the shape.
Thank you.
/like I second an interest in the shape of the rune and its interrelationship with the text but also enjoyed it in this more linear form.
I’ll see what I can do with it this weekend.
I enjoy this in linear for, and don’t know what the rune looks like. But it works very well, and is utterly heartwarming. Some of your best work here.
Thank you!!