Writespiration #92 First and Last lines

This week, I am giving you a chance to share something from your WIP. I want to know what the first and last line of your current story is.

To join in, post a link in the comments or drop your lines (identified by which is first and which is last) into the comments.

If there’s a significant number of you joining in, I may not be able to comment on every entry this week as I am snowed under trying to meet a deadline. However, I will publish every one in the next Writespiration.

Here’s Mine:

My First Couple of lines (I know, I cheated, I was only meant to use one):

Mother rapped her shoe against the train’s wooden floor. Once, twice, three times. Arms folded, eyes narrowed to slits, I stole a glance at her. I’d pushed too far. But this was my Keepers ceremony and I wanted to feel like myself when I walked in.

My Penultimate Line (the last line gives something away!):

It wasn’t possible. He was dead. I’d killed him with my own hands.

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Now to last time and the hug you always wanted.

First in Adele with, The Hug:

A dark place. A phrase that is used often yet whispered by those who have been there. I lived through a dark place and now have the sunshine on my face and the green grass under my feet. My escape started with a simple tale about a selkie which captured the heart of a princess. She wrote back and so started the unfolding of soul loving soul. Eventually, we were to meet, she would leave her tower and travel to a wild land, never visited by often thought of. I would bend the bars of my cage and fly towards her. I saw her before she saw me and my heart burst the last bars of the cage. She came towards me and smiled then we hugged. Through dark, dark times we survived and married with the sun on our faces and the green grass under our feet.

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Margo up next with this lovely description

She greets me at the door, jumping, spinning, wanting my full attention, demanding to be touched, acknowledged, held.

She craves to have my arms wrapped around her in a loving embrace, holding her with tenderness and purpose. She dashes off wanting to show me what has held her interest throughout the day. She enthusiastically drags toys, balls, and stuffed animals to the center of the room, enticing me to join her world of play.

Then it’s back to my arms to be reassured that she is loved and cared about.

Yes, a hug is universal;  conveying love, acceptance, comfort, understanding.

Given generously and accepted gratefully.

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Allie in Next

I stood at the window and watched as others scurried about, intent on hundreds of other problems. I was only concerned with one. Though I had been in this place for hours, I wouldn’t have recognized a single one of them were we to meet on the street. I wanted to hate them, these faceless individuals. I hated that they existed, that the world needed them,. . . that I needed them. Stuck on the other side of the glass where no sound would pass, I could only imagine what was being said on the other side about me. I wanted to hate them for all they represented, but couldn’t.

An unusual flurry of motion managed to do the impossible, cause me to look away. The door opened and a woman walked out. I held my breath as she approached. “The danger is over. Would you like to meet your baby now?”

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Ritu now, with this lovely poem

A cuddle, a hug, a squeeze

There’s nothing more likely to please.

It’s just like a smile, it costs nothing to you

But a well-timed hug , there’s a lot it can do

The shoulder squeeze,  a solidarity stance

A hug with a shrug, well they do it in France!

The cuddles with children they warm the heart

Snuggles with your Dearest, never to part

But I have to say, the best hug I’ve had

Is the deep embrace I get from my Dad.

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Judy up now with another awesome poem

A hug from somebody special

Is one to treasure indeed

It can make you feel warm and rosy

And is sometimes just what you need

I have been pretty lucky

To have had more than my share

Despite not being ‘touchy feely’

I do like to show that I care!

The Blogger’s Bash was a hug-fest

It was so lovely to hug all my friends

People that I had become fond of

I finally met that weekend

Hugs with people I worked with

When I called in to see them one day

All that warmth and affection

Brought lots of sunshine my way.

Sometimes when I have a day off

And am having a crafty lie in

My daughter will come and give me a cuddle

The perfect way for the day to begin!

After a hard day at work when I am tired

And am feeling a bit down in the dumps

A hug can make me feel better

Which I get from dear Mr Grump!

I can’t choose which hugs are better

Either from friends or family

All I know that I love them

And each one is special to me!

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Jane Dougherty in now with a beautiful but sad poem

Empty arms

There have been so many times,

Your arms around me, held so tight,

When I have thought heaven was mine,

In an embrace that fills the night.

Each time that tenderness, so sweet,

I just reach out and you are there,

Our bodies fit, match and complete,

Is almost more than I can bear.

But the deepest longing, never sated,

Beneath the bliss, a constant pain,

Is for those gone far beyond my loving,

All those I’ll never hold again.

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Phylor, new to writespiration, is in next with this lovely poem

in your puppy-dog-eye days,

you would hug me warmly,

my head in the crook of your collar bone

holding me so tight, I could feel your

desire stir, hug becoming embrace

both yielding to deep kisses

our luxuria accelerants

to a bonfire

in the now, in our twilights

no embracing with emphasis

ghost memory of feeling

aching to be crushed

suffocated in your shoulder

as when you held me

bonfire in embers

to say forever

you will have my arms

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Another newbie to writespiration this week with Shadeau’s first entry

Long as ocean deep

Between us; far as here

To Heaven; two lifetimes

Full of years—

Yours gone, mine lingers…

Please remember, hear

Me call your name when I arrive.

Be handsome still,

Waiting too; let strong arms wide

Scoop me up, receive me finally—

Hold me hard against heart

I’ve held within my own.

Play this scene the way

I’ve dreamed—awake,

And ‘mid dear-tortured sleep…

As stars twinkled on,

Winked out at dawn—

Wishing-lights sky loans.

Prove my imagination true—

Love huge, heroic keeps

Me safe, sane most days

While I bide skeins of time,

Covering pages—thoughts

Linked in ink,

A million poetry lines…

Musing knitted memories, fantasies

Crafted in hope chest niche of mind.

Solitary-satisfied—

Ever-entranced,

No matter the distance,

With only one face…

My embrace is

Yet reserved for you.

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Marje in next with an excerpt form her WIP

Cruel Time Had Him Prisoner

Still feeling dizzy a wave of nausea hit me hard. The room spun around like I was on an enforced merry-go-round. I closed my eyes willing the strange spinning to stop. As my eyes opened, a narrow tunnel of faded kaleidoscopic images came to me in a giddy whirl.

First, I saw my dad playing his guitar, with my mum laughing by his side. Then, the day my dad disappeared, followed by the day he returned.

Buried memories….

All the moments I’d ever treasured, the mother and father I could laugh with, could hug.

Dad’s homecoming should have been a celebration, but it wasn’t. I’d just turned fifteen. It had been two long years wait, for this – what a joke. A life lived within the clutches of a curse. A tear fell from my eye, and then another and another as I recalled the events of the past. Soon they were spilling, splashing on the canvas – watercolour tears of sadness.

I looked at my painting. For a second, I saw dad’s face on my canvas. His sad expression scratched a raw scar on my vision. Cruel time had him prisoner.   His watery old eyes stared back, begging me to help him.

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Jade up next with a tale that leaves you wanting more

The dumpster reeked of rotten food, but he could barely register it above the stench of his own blood. At first, the pain blinded him. It was all he could do to keep his protruding hind leg bones from jutting out further. Now, he barely felt anything as he waited to die.

Fitting, really. He was born on the streets, and here he was, tossed unceremoniously back like a broken-what, exactly? He was as valuable as trash.

What hurt more than his body was the belief that he was finally going home with one of those good humans he had heard so much about, only to be used as a bait dog when he got there.

Good humans. He spat out some drool mingled with dried blood. There were no such thing.

A gasp caught his ears but everything was already turning black. The last things he remembered were hands, soft ones that didn’t hurt, clasped around him, picking him up gently like he was…important, valuable.

Ah…this must be what the humans call a hug.

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Next up something from Colin Guest, A.K.A Tigerman which came in via email:

In this world we live in, life is not always good. However, it’s the only one we will ever have so we have to make the most of it. Sometimes you may feel your life has been burnt on the edges, but don’t despair, it is only part and not all of it. I always try to be positive in life, as positive thoughts lead to positive results. This I think gives me more chance of success in life than if I were negative. One should realise that negative thoughts lead to negative results, which will never help in your trying to obtain a better life than you presently have. They say look before you leap, but in contrast, they always say he who hesitates is lost. It’s a case of heads you win tails I lose. Nevertheless, a decision is better than no decision. Sometimes you just have to get off the fence and get on and do something to help you obtain a better life than you do at present. Unless you do, you will continue to flounder along in life and miss out on something that could completely change your life around.

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Next up the lovely Sarah Brentyn, with this beautiful tale

He stepped through the front door, taking care to bang his sneakers on the tiles to be heard above the TV. He knew the police had phoned his dad about the mugging.

It’s not like he expected special treatment or anything, he knew better than that, but he hoped anyway.

Maybe one of those quick, awkward hugs people give like they’re touching a snake. One of those would be nice.

He tensed as his father’s boots sounded in the hallway, cringed as they got closer. He waited.

His father stopped a few feet away, staring, eyes taking in the ripped clothing and black eye. His arms reached out, touching the torn, blood-stained coat. “No wonder they didn’t take this thing,” he laughed. “Hope you have enough money to pay for a new jacket,” he walked back to the couch.

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Geoff took the biscuit for me this week, with a thought piece based on the politicking of the UK over the recent weeks. GENIUS if you ask me. But don’t, for fucksake tell him! His head is big enough!

Hug let out a sigh. It had been a tiring day, gripping for so long every part of its being felt tense and knotted. And now it had a meeting of the Greetings’ Representatives. God, how it hated politics.

On the one side, there was the Handshake contingent, still living in a world of stiff lipped men and simpering women. It longed for some mystical time when only hands touched hands, kisses were reserved for bedtime and foreigners and hugs belonged to bears. Of course the internal battles between the traditional finger wrap ‘n’ grip and the more fashionable variants of knuckle knocks, high fives and rap-esque choreography had simmered for years but in the light of the current threats in the Greetings’ Market even they had come together in a show of hand-holding unity.

On the other there was the Kissers, those libertine sharers of bodily fluids, lip and cheek brushers and mouth daubers. They had always avoided the factional infighting of the Handshakers but, in truth that was because they knew when to apply which kiss. Recently however Politicians kissed each other and strangers leapt in for a triple mwah without so much as a by your leave; it felt like the old order was breaking down.

And in the middle sat the comfortable hug. Close enough to be intimate and yet nothing so much as a moist palm to disturb anyone’s sensitivities. The variables had always been subtle from the light holding of the arms to the full round grip. Hug had tried to keep the peace, even going into collation with the handshake, creating the popular  half hug, half hand grip as a way to minimize the growing influence of the kiss; but the more esoteric wing of Handshakers felt excluded and in reality everyone knew it was about the increasing influence of the hug rather than a restoration of the primacy of the handshake.

Today both extremes were calling for a referendum. The Handshakers wanted traditional English values of reserve and distance to be restored while the Kissers were after more mixing, an ever closer union. Hug would be expected to come down on one side or the other but really it wanted everyone to live together in peace. After all if they pulled each other apart, the only greeting that would benefit was the small minded, out of touch Wave and everyone knew where that would lead. Hug rolled its round shoulders. Maybe it should offer free hugs?