Letting Go

Via: Daily Prompt – Nervous

Lexi sat in silence on the edge of their bed. No, it was only her bed now, she realized as her eyes followed Michael around the bedroom while he collected things to pack. He picked up the Linkin Park CDs from beside the stereo and she stopped herself from pointing out that those belonged to her. Seemed a bit petty to do so. Besides, she had lost much bigger things in this relationship than that.

Like the baby. Now, there was a telltale sign that this relationship was doomed. He had failed to demonstrate an appropriate level of sympathy when she had been lying in the hospital bed after the miscarriage, his relief palpable. She never pointed that out to him either.

He was so used to taking things from her. To think she used to let him crawl into her skin. She couldn’t really blame him now after she had enabled the habit for four years with her shy silence.

“Those are mine.”

Happy endings came in all forms, she discovered.

 

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY !!!

The Fountain – (a 03 min short story)

Via: Daily Prompt – Juicy

Image: Pixabay

Whispers trailed her all day, fire licking at her ankles. She felt the heat of the eyes boring into the back of her skull. Mostly hostile glares – those would be from her fellow female students. There were some appreciative glances, too, from boys who suddenly conformed their minds to the idea that she wasn’t so homely after all. LJ smiled ruefully to herself but could not blame them for their curiosity. She was the juiciest piece of gossip to hit Carson High in months.

This story picks up from a piece, Crush, I wrote previously. Though it may be read as a stand-alone, you might want to read the earlier installation before proceeding. Or… 

A Proposal Not In Earnest (03 min read)

Via: Daily Prompt – Aware

Image: The National Archives UK, Flickr

“So… there have been talks at home.”

“Talks?”

Sigh. “Yeah. Pressured talks, actually.”

“What’s wrong now?”

“I think we may have to get married.”

Startled laugh. “What? Married?”

Nod. Earnest look. “Yup. This year. Santa’s coming to town.”

“And this is his idea of a gift?” 

Crush – A short story

Via: Daily Prompt – Heard

Image: Danielle Buma, Flickr

 

I heard he sang a good song,

I heard he had a style,

And so I came to see him

and listen for a while.

And there he was this young boy,

a stranger to my eyes.

 

“Nice!”

Startled by the shout, LJ gasped mid-inhale while preparing to belt out the chorus. She spun around to find the young boy in her rendition of “Killing Me Softly” come out of the backstage and cross over to the center where she stood. As always, Juan loomed taller and taller as the distance fell away. When he was standing even with her, she had to crane her neck to look up at his face.

And what a beautiful face he had – all fine brows, crystal blue eyes edged with dark lashes, classic straight nose, and firm mouth arranged amid the strong panes of his golden forehead, pink cheeks, and fissured chin. He looked like a cherub gracefully transforming into a man.

LJ watched his grin move and realized he was speaking. “What?” she exhaled. She always forgot to breathe when he was around. 

The Garden (04 min read)

Via: Daily Prompt – Lovingly

 

 

Image: Benjamin Combs, Unsplash

 

Andrea’s garden was by no means remarkable. In fact, it fell short of the standards when compared to the gardens cultivated by most of her neighbors. Gardening was the in-thing for the households of Lilac Lane. That there was a competition between the some of the families regarding who accomplished the most impressive botanical feat each spring was no secret. Some neighborhoods competed over the best Christmas decorations, some regarding the greenest grass on their lawns, some challenged each other over throwing the best BBQ shindigs; the people of Lilac Lane eyeballed each other over their gardens. 

Create

Via: Daily Prompt – Clean

Antonia Santos had taken great care to dress for this date. After all, it had been ages since she allowed herself such luxury – allowed a man to take her out. But Lorenzo had been persistent. If he wasn’t so kind to Isabella, Antonia may not have relented. Even if he was the most handsome man she met in a while. The most handsome man she met since her ex-husband had walked out on their young family.

She bit the bottom of her Rubina lips, her pearly teeth smearing with berry red lipstick that a pink tongue quickly darted out to lick clean. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Lorenzo’s good looks made her uncomfortable. Not only had her ex-husband made her wary of attractive men but Antonia also felt indubitably dowdy next to them. Living on an art teacher’s salary, constantly worrying about footing the bills and managing the expenses of rearing a two-year-old child could suck the glamor out of any person. What if he decided after their date that they did not suit? She would hate for things to get awkward between them and for her to lose such a great pediatrician. 

WEDNESDAY REFLECTIONS #04 – Jane Austen’s Persuasion starring Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Anthony Head and Rupert Penry-Jones

Title     Persuasion (A BBC adaption of the Jane Austen novel of same name)

Starring     Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Anthony Head and Rupert Penry-Jones

Director     Adrian Shergold

Screenplay     Simon Burke

Genre     Romantic Satire, Drama

Release Date     January 13, 2007

Filming Location     Bath, Somerset, England

Parental Guidance     PG – General viewing, but parental discretion advised

                                                                              IMDB Rating     7.6

Synopsis: Anne’s (Sally Hawkin) life has been led by others. She lives with a narcissistic father, Sir Walter Elliot (Anthony Head), and a self-absorbed elder sister who leave her to handle all household responsibilities but give her none of the credit for it. She has a younger sister married off but who always calls for her ministrations whenever fancying herself ill. And her only confidant is her deceased mother’s best friend, Lady Russell (Alice Krige), who has only her “best interest” at heart but may love her a little too dearly. At twenty-eight, Anne has resigned herself to spinsterhood and obscurity when the return of a former paramour sends her heart once again aflutter. Once almost engaged to Fredrick Wentworth (Rupert Penry-Jones), Anne’s love affair had been halted by Lady Russell’s advice on the unsuitability of their stations and connections in life. But Wentworth returns to their lives as an exalted Royal Navy captain who made a sizeable fortune serving the nation and Anne must eat crow. As a series of circumstances keep pushing the former lovers into each other’s paths, each struggle in their own way to be not affected. Anne does not believe she has another chance with Wentworth because she rightly discerns that he still blames her for being so easily influenced away from his proposal in the past. And then there is also the sudden entry of a distant cousin who is to eventually inherit her father’s baronetcy and who seems to fancy Anne. Any chance of reconciliation and rekindling affection between Anne and Wentworth, therefore, seems hopeless.

Experience: I always feel that whenever a Jane Austen novel is adapted into a film, people start comparing it to the epic 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. So I consciously switched off my parity tool because let’s face it – there will never be another flawless masterpiece like Pride and Prejudice or such a dedicated collection of cast and crew to turn a literary work into a 06-hour cinematic indulgence of an author’s genius. So with a deep breath and a mind as unbiased as possible, I sat down to watch Persuasion. For a 1.5-hour TV movie, it was a pretty good attempt to emulate and entertain. And not only because it had Austen’s clever storytelling style to fall back on.

Definitely, the strongest facet of the movie was its mechanics. The direction, the cinematographic techniques, the queueing of the scenes and music all swelled and dissipated to match the ethos of the story as it progressed. From the first scene where the camera circled Anne and followed her about as she rushed from room to room auditing items in preparation for the time when the Elliot family will move out to lease their home to strangers to that when she rushes all through Bath in search of Wentworth so she could tell him she accepts his proposal to that in the privacy of her room as she records in her diary her romantic success and secretly smiles into the camera to allow the audience to bask in her happiness, Burke and Shergold perfectly captures the protagonist. As to the protagonist herself, Hawkins may not have been my first choice for the role of Anne, a girl in her late twenty’s that has lost some of her bloom but still remains adequately pretty, but Hawkins manages to flirt with the camera in a subtle way that gives Anne life. While in the book, Anne’s character is more subtle, the movie-Anne does not suffer for the little boldness inspired by Hawkins.

Moreover, Hawkins manages to portray the drama that revolves around Anne’s character. She allows herself to be shuffled between her family members and is often led by Lady Russell’s advice, but it does not make her unobservant or unfeeling. She watches and notes her surroundings acutely but accepts her lot in life for the most part. But there are moments when she does not allow herself to be bid, moments where her logic prevails. This aspect of Anne’s character is well-turned out by Hawkins in the movie in the manner with which she moves. In the novel, Austen did not give the docile Anne much dialogue but Hawkins very intelligently trounces that challenge with her body language. Comparatively, Penry-Jones did not pick up on the subtlety of Austen’s depiction of Wentworth. Rarely do I say someone has underacted but Penry-Jones playing Wentworth is one of those times. I can only assume he did not read the novel, which for an Austen fan like me is unforgivable. However, he is handsome and just enough handsome to be adequately cast as Wentworth.

Another notable portrayal is of Sir Walter Elliot by Head. Now, I must admit I am a bit biased towards Head from his Buffy the Vampire Slayer days but, again, I tried not to be while watching the movie. I found Head to portray Sir Walter with just the right level of ridiculousness necessary to make him unlikeable. I initially thought Head was disappointing me with overacting until I remembered Sir Walter and the rest of the Elliot clan were meant to be comic relief. They are the characters that are the butt of Austen’s satirical wit. So, yes, when Head does literally huff and puff at the possibility of having to rent his family seat to people of “inferior birth” and potential “coarse countenance”, it is the required precedent.

The one character I felt that could have gotten more screen time was Lady Russell’s. Lady Russell plays an indispensable antithetical role to Anne-and-Wentworth’s relationship in the novel. More so than the fact that she openly discourages Anne from pursuing a relationship with Wentworth (in the past and present), it is the nature of her influence, the subtlety that is wrought in her relationship with Anne, that makes Lady Russell a centrifugal force in Anne’s actions in abandoning her desires, and later in her polite decline to subjugate. While Anne’s tendency to be persuaded to do the biddings of her family members is the surface manifestation of her character, it is Lady Russell’s persuasiveness, albeit, in good faith that does the pertinent harm to Anne’s happiness. It is especially more disappointing Lady Russell’s character is not more explored in the movie because Krige has proven in past performance that she is able to deliver the necessary gravitas for such a role.

The other smaller parts are played relatively well and relevantly ensures the smooth flow of the plot depiction. In particular, the characters of Mary (Amanda Hale), Anne’s younger extracting and fretful sister, and Charles Musgrove (Sam Hazeldine), Mary’s husband and Anne’s once upon a time admirer, are performed suitably well. Interestingly enough, the role of William Elliot (Tobias Menzies), the distant cousin who aims to sweep Anne off her feet, is played better than one would expect. The novel mostly portrays Mr. Elliot’s character via the grapevine, yet Menzies brought out the character with mastery.

Recommendation: If you haven’t seen this movie yet, do. If you are a Jane Austen fan, do it right now! After BBC’s 1995 versions of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility [too many ‘and’s but you’ll figure it out], I found this to be the next best Austen rendering.