Free Write | The Ghosts Of Lord Byron’s Past Regrets

Hello!

So, a couple of weeks ago I was scrolling through Twitter and I don’t really follow a lot of writing accounts, although I have days were I want to go on a follow spree but I have to stop myself in my thoughts because I hardly saw this in the chaos of my timeline! The one account I do follow is called Magic Realism Bot. When I first started reading the various prompts, I realized there are a lot of fantasy and sci-fi but mid-2019, they started asking for other subject suggestions and I think that was my main reason why I haven’t unfollowed in the last few months or so!

After we left for my nephew’s party on the 13th, I fell asleep and when I got up I saw this writing prompt and was immediately inspired to write, but I chose to wait it out a bit to collect my mind because honestly I was fully awake when I saw it. Before I start telling you my story, I want to mention that I haven’t written anything since Christmas so I hope you can forgive me for the many, many mistakes you’ll probably see below. I also hope you enjoy it as well!

And now, here is the prompt:

“You wake up and realize you have turned into Lord Byron.”

Setting is Greece in 1824, Byron is very sick and slowly dying; he’s laying in a makeshift bed in his army’s camp alone. He is hallucinating after the bloodletting operations went unsuccessful for the second time. 

“Where–where am I?”

“I should be with my mates.. on the grassy lands and making plans to attack our enemies.”

The hero, poet, soldier, womanizer is under strict orders to stay in his tent by his doctors. He thought the need to pray at first his illness appeared but he feared that God wouldn’t listen to his selfish cries. As sweat continued to pull down across his face and pain in his stomach became too much to ignore as time went on, he was without a clock or any of his exclusive pleasures to hide away from the shame inside. The longer the blood sat in his body, the more poison would spread and race to his heart. It would be its final resting place to infect and then he would be at peace, or at least he hoped he would.

Before this was to happen, he stirred in his bed covered in the now soaked blankets to keep warm, and closed his eyes reluctantly and fell into a deep sleep. He had hoped it wouldn’t be his last.

Suddenly the faint sounds of children giggling around him. A little girl playing with a long red ribbon, she’s running away from him with a smile across her face. “Wait, come back Augusta! I need you!” he shouted in his empty room. He never opened his eyes, hoping the girl would return if she knew he was asleep, instead the space became quiet again.

Bryon shifted in his bed again, this time turning on his left side, away from the slightly open flap of the tent and away from the curious eyes that would sometimes pear inside to see the non-flamboyant man withering in hell. Unbeknownst himself, he lifted his left arm to make room for the rest of his body and splitting the fresh stitches in the corner of his elbow. He was already experiencing strong pains, one more to add to the endless lists didn’t bother him.

“Oh yes, my Lord.” a seductive voice of an unknown woman appeared in the opposite corner. She was alone with him, enjoying each other’s company very much. A smirk emerged on his face in front of the vivid mirror in front of them. George saw himself in a glance and saw himself kissing a brunette maiden. He liked every hue as long as he was in control, that’s all he asked in their time together. This woman was different though. He knew she was adventurous but nothing could prepare him for the game she wanted to play.

“How about we take this off? Hmm?” He quietly spoke into her ear, and the slight nod reassured he could do anything he wanted with her.

She stood from the chair of the desk and furiously pulled his hands to her back but he continued the kissing on her neck. His fingers worked the way down the tight corset in her middle section of her body. After unlacing the last string away from the rough exterior, he tossed it to the floor. Now she was able to undress by herself now and this meant his hands could explore and wander around her body freely. Once every last garment was off, she turned attention back to him, but something was wrong.

A minute ago, the man was young and incredibly healthy. Now she stood in front of him in disgust. He looked as though they had just finished having sex as he was sweaty but the major difference was he looked miserable. He tried his best to keep standing but a sharp pain his stomach only grew worse and he couldn’t control his rage like she was the cause of it.

She wasn’t though.

The memory of having slept with Mary Shelley stayed playing over and over in his thoughts even after their little affair ended several years before. He remembered every feature, as she was quite the beauty back then as was he at the time too. He knew she was the woman in front of him. He looked down at his weakling body and thought of their ghost stories they read at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland. Could she picture him as her monster? Is this how she created him? Using the body of an worthless man like him right now?

As he tried to approach her one last time, the image of her naked body and the gold rimmed mirror on the wall behind her began fading away. The more steps he made, the quicker the reverie collapsed on itself. Colors of Mary ran through each other and created another landscape. This time the memories were harder to ignore because now he was in a field. He tried to focus on the ground and wondered if he was standing in the middle of a battlefield. The only thing that tore away from this notion was the piercing cry of a child. George squat down but this time not from the lingering pain he suffered.

The child was still screaming, but he had trouble concertating on the source behind it. And then, he yelled out, “Ada!” hoping that if it was in fact Ada in trouble, she would cry out for him again.

“Papa!” Ada returned the signal. The picture of his little girl flourished inside of him. He ran towards the direction she appeared to be in; all the while even more memories and of course overwhelming regrets sat inside his heart. He knew he had to save her. He tried to run faster but he would run out of breath and was forced to stop in his tracks. Ada never stopped shouting for him, nor did he in trying to catch up to her.

After running for a couple minutes, he saw a small child with lightly brown curls and dressed in the simplest dress. The ribbon in his first vision was attached to her hair in a beautiful bow and as he walked towards her, he soon realized this was not what it seemed at all.

He knew she was going to vanish like Mary had in the last flash of torture, this time he wouldn’t let it happen without speaking to her one last time.

“Ada!” Byron debating to walk closer to her, worrying that it would speed up the dreamscape again. “Come here sweetheart. Come over to me please.” He reached his arms out to her but she didn’t budge.

“Why didn’t you love me, Papa?” She spoke to him, never breaking eye contact with him. He was trapped in her gaze and it wasn’t like the moment he had Mary, as that was  pure pleasure to him. This was a burden he longed to forget when he was alone.

“I do love you, my darling daughter.” Byron said to her as he fell to his knees. “You are mine. You always will be…” The pain in his body raptured inside and it was greater than any pain he experienced before. He just couldn’t tell if it was his heart braking or the infection finally hitting its destination, either way he knew his heart was dying.

“I love you Papa!” Ada said with a small wave and then suddenly the look on her face turned to black and Byron snapped out of his dreams. He grunted as he shot up in his bed and tried to turn away to the large bottle of bourbon and spilled out of the bed and landed hard on the dead grass underneath him.

He knew this was the end but he was angry at himself and the memories.

He never got to tell his daughter how much he loved her too. Even though he was obsessed with his booze, war and women. Nothing could take away the love he felt for his sweet daughter. Tears flew down his cheeks along with the sweat that never stopped when he fell down. He was in pain, emotionally, mentally, and physically. He hoped to live to write to Ada about how much she meant to him truly but it wasn’t to be.

George growled into the Earth, and spoke out loud for the last time. “…I love you…”

 What do you think of this story? 

Things I Learned From The Movies!

Howdy!

Today’s post was inspired by the trending hashtag: #ThingsILearnedFromTheMovies on Twitter that appeared back in January! Once I saw it, I look into the answers people were tweeting and after finding some clever and very hilarious answers, I ultimately decided to turn it into a blog post!

Movies are my favorite pastime.

I’d rather watch a movie early in the morning than late at night. It’s also a great time of day to work on blog posts too! I think maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m more relaxed and/or in a good mood around that time of day.  Everybody is generally still asleep, so I know I can’t have my TV up too loud. If I were to watch a scary movie, I could potentially scream or if I watched a comedy, I’d be laughing my butt off so I’ve learned to only watch drama or action flicks!

I’ve learned that movies only show you things that you need to know, and I feel the 1985 classic Back To The Future is the greatest example I can give you! Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) is a scientist that has built himself a time machine with a DeLorean alongside a stolen crate full of plutonium. He shows it to his friend, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and they record their first attempt to send somebody to the future: enter Einstein the dog! After the Libyans come to slay Doc for tricking them, Marty tries to dodge them by going into the car and it takes him back into November 5, 1955!

You really need to pay attention to every scene of this movie, because everything ties in together! When Marty walks into Doc’s home in the very beginning. He realizes the mess on the floor of the dog food piled up in the bowl, and he puts down his skateboard and he pushes it back with his heel and it hits the yellow case of plutonium. This is your first introduction to something a little fishy!

To the scene where his sister tells him that Jennifer Parker has called him and his mother and sister have a conversation about which way is the right way to meet a guy, and you start to hear the story of how both Lorraine and George met and when Marty goes back in time and sees the younger versions of his parents, he changes the story he’s heard all of his life!

And then finally when Marty is about to use the lightning storm to his advantage to go back home, he writes a letter to the younger Doc about what is to occur on the date that he sends Marty back to, so that he can at least prepare himself but unfortunately Doc discovers the note and rips it up. However, you can see him putting the pieces directly back in his pockets of his jacket for a split second when the tree branch falls down, so that basically tells you that later he finds the letters and puts them back together and when Marty watches his friend get shot again in the future, Doc suddenly awakes and sits up to show Marty the bullet proof vest hidden underneath his white suit.

However sometimes movies like to keep their audiences guessing! For example 2016’s Arrival with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. The story starts off with Amy’s character Louise, who is a linguist, divorcee and sadly her daughter Hannah has just died from an illness. In the beginning, it shows the fact that Louise cherished and obviously misses her daughter very much.

And then these space ships appear all over the world and she is given access to help figure out why they are there so she is given a team with Renner’s character Ian, who is a physicist and they embark on the upper level on one of these ships to try to communicate with them. They try a number of symbols and codes to see if the aliens understand them. Gradually, the relationship between both Ian and Louise grows and as they continue to study the two aliens that they ultimately name “Abbott” and “Costello” they finally figure out their language or symbols.

When asked about why they were there, they answered “offer weapon” but another research team in China mistakes it as “use weapon” and they want to take down the aliens and their ships for good. Louise doesn’t want to stop, she wants to learn more about the answer she was given and they try to explain to her that they are here to help humanity and they make Louise realize that the thoughts of Hannah and memories of her younger life and eventual death are not what they seem.

I learned that not every extraterrestrial inspired film has to be the same! We’re so used to watching the normal “world destroyer” type of movies, that we think that would be the best way to handle aliens if they ever showed up on the White House lawn! For the ones who enjoy the Star Trek TV show and movies, hope they are welcoming beings, who want to share their advance technology. This film showed the theme of aliens and the word “weapon” in a different light. It wasn’t as jam-packed with action but it was very interesting on the fact that we’ve been taught to fear them of what they could do our world, but I think we think we’re causing enough destruction to ourselves that they don’t want to intervene.

What are some lessons you’ve learned from your favorite movies? 

Antagonist Vs. Villain

Howdy!

I am a big nerd! I may not be all about books, but there are films and TV shows that were inspired from novels and comic books that brought the characters to life. As you probably know I am a big fan of superheroes; mostly on the Marvel side than DC or any other comic books. I don’t know how it started exactly, I just remember being in the living room lying on the couch watching X2 with my dad and that’s how my obsessed with Wolverine and Rogue started!

I’ve wrote a couple of different X-Men posts over the years. Starting with Mutant and Proud after I watched X-Men: First Class and we were introduced to our favorite mutants a whole lot younger! I’ve always seen Erik/Magneto as this troubled mutant who basically hated the human race. When I watched this film though, I finally understood why he was like the way he was and what changed him. In all honesty, I understood both sides of the argument of Charles’s way of blending in and controlling their powers. Whereas Erik was more about embracing your true self, letting yourself have everything and don’t care about what everybody thinks. Somehow after watching First Class and then changing direction and watching Man Of Steel the story of Superman, I wrote Waiting For Superman explaining how I saw the stories of these characters in a different way. Trying to explain to the reader that people and young kids with disabilities feel the same way. We’re being pulled both ways of attempting to blend in and embracing yourselves. It’s a complicated process that never really ends.

I didn’t want this post being about my previous posts, I wanted to discuss the theory that we’re looking at villains all wrong. What we think is a bad guy may not be. Several weeks ago, the question was asked during a Twitter chat for nerdy bloggers, like myself, “is there a difference between an antagonist and a villain?” I first said Draco Malfoy was more like an antagonist than a villain because he mostly wanted to impress his father and the rest of Voldemort’s party. I never thought he was a bad guy, he just had a lot of bad influences around him. And then I started thinking about Magneto and how in ways, he’s not exactly a villain either. He genuinely had a good heart; he hid it very well, but it was still there. He showed it for other mutants that were being abused by others who wanted to use, and ultimately destroy them.

Everybody is born with good intentions, even our most prized super villains like Dark Phoenix, Mystique, and Magneto. We keep forgetting–I keep forgetting–that people have a breaking point and they just lose it. The good runs out and the evil overcomes them. The ego takes over and controls their power, but like Professor X, you have to dig deep to find the good in that person. Everything can harden, but you can’t harden your heart. No matter how you try, of course, you have to also understand that not everybody can be saved either.

Are there any characters in books, movies, and TV shows that you’ve found more like an antagonist rather than a villain? Why do you believe in them that they can change?

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The Food Questions!

Hey guys!

So last night I hosted my week of #USBloggerChat and we finally talked about food! If you follow me, you’ve probably seen me promote it since Monday! I’m very sorry about the spam, but I just want to make sure everybody knew that we would have a chat and maybe there would be a good turn out! And it was marvelous! I had a great turn out that talked about their favorites and I’m hoping created some everlasting friendships!

Something I tried to explain to another person on Twitter, all of us at #USBloggerChat open up our Thursday chats to everybody! Jasmine, who is our co-creator, she tries to send out tweets throughout the week; to help promote the host, topic and whatever time it starts in your country! When I host, I don’t care if you are a blogger or not. If you want to join in it’s perfectly fine with me. As long as you use the hashtag or mention me at the start of your tweet, I will reply back to you as fast as my little toes will go! Never think because you’re not a blogger or someone not from the US that you can’t join the chats. You are always welcome!

I mentioned that I’ve been promising this topic of choice since last November. Somehow at the end of the chat, we started talking about food and I think because it was after Thanksgiving and getting closer to Christmas, everybody was sharing their favorite comfort foods and like three or four of them asked for that subject. Well,  I was hoping I’d have my food bucket list post up by now and that it would contribute to the whole chat, but I haven’t worked on it since early November! I’ve also had two other chats that I’ve hosted so it’s safe to say, this was a long time coming!

Thankfully, I still had my mom’s picture of the crawfish my dad made during the SuperBowl that I knew it would be the perfect “starter” to this post! When I made up these questions, once I was finished scheduling them and whatnot, I actually had a couple more questions pop up in my head. So since I didn’t have any more room that I would try add them onto this as bonus questions!

I hope you guys enjoyed the chat and like the questions! Hope I didn’t make you all too hungry during or after! 😀

Q1: Let’s start with a somewhat easy question, what is your favorite meal of the day?

Q2: As kids, we were picky eaters. What were some foods you never liked?

Q3: I shared that I was creating a food bucket list – places I just wanted to visit for their food. Do you have such a list?

Q4: Have you ever had anything exotic before?

Q5: Do you cook/bake often? What is your signature dish?

Q6: What is your guilty pleasure?

Q7: Who is your favorite chef?

Q8: We all follow at least one or (like me) 10 food bloggers. Who is your favorite?

Q9: Who inspires you to cook/bake?

Q10: What do you think of paleo, veganism, and popular registrations?

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Chat Questions!

I don’t know how exactly this happened but it did. I hosted TWO different chats on Twitter!

The first was of course, Thursday’s chat at 8pm EST for USBloggerChat! Originally, I had done what I say I’d do in last month’s post of questions. I asked fellow blogger Maria if she wanted to host it for me, but she had to let it go last minute so I decided to take it back. I’ve known about my role as host for Friday’s chat of SpoonieSpeak for at least a month or so. I didn’t think I’d be able to organize two different themes, questions, and answers but I did! Am I officially the master of multitasking now?

I decided to put both sets of questions on this post, so I hope you don’t mind. I only decided to talk about Christmas for the USBloggerChat because I doubt we’d have a chat the week of Christmas, somehow I got really lucky of finally getting the chance to ask holiday questions! As far as the SpoonieSpeak chat, I had to go a different route. This chat is for “spoonies” or people with disabilities/illnesses. I have to say they’re a great and supportive community. So I’m thanking Miss Tania for allowing me to take over the reins this week. This chat was at 2pm (7pm GMT) for me, so this makes my first international chat I’ve ever hosted too! Hope you guys like the questions!

Q1: Who is excited for Christmas?

Q2: Have you been doing blogmas/vlogmas? If not, who have you been keeping an eye out this month?

Q3: What kind of traditions do you have at Christmas?

Q4: Do you like it better when your gifts are wrapped or inside bags?

Q5: If you got one gift card, what card would you love to have the most?

Q6: What are the best Christmas cookies?

Q7: What is at the top of your list to get for Christmas?

Q8: How soon after Christmas is over do you take everything down?

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Q1: What is your disability/illness?

Q2: For those of us who have weak muscles, what do you do to help strengthen yourself? Have any exercises?

Q3: What are some daily things that you’ve had to find new ways of doing them? Do you use any special gadgets?

Q4: Do you push yourself on different tasks? Like, you know you can do it, but your body isn’t letting you, but you continue?

Q5: Do you set a limit of time to learn an old/new task? Like a week, month, or year?

Q6: Have you ever had to give up something completely? Something that was already helpful or that you loved doing?

Q7: What are your goals for 2016? What do you hope to learn or relearn to do?

Q8: Have you found some cool, different products online that you think would help you in someway?