…my tastes in books, music, etc. yes. Daily events and feelings? Not so much. It takes me a while to be convinced anyone might be interested, and by the time I’ve decided they might, life has usually moved on. However, a group I’m active in on Dreamwidth gave an interesting prompt and for once I felt inspired. Feel free to grab the idea and run with it – either for your own life or for some kind of ongoing action in my story. (And yes, it’s all real, very real, too real.)
Prompt: Write Your Life! No, really! Write the opening segment of a TV show based on your life right now. It can be a comedy, a drama, a dramedy, reality TV, horror, whatever fits your circumstances. You can keep it drabble-sized, write a pitch for your show, or maybe do an arty title card. You can write yourself, an original character, or drop fandom characters into your life. However you approach this, the important thing is to have fun with it!
From Sunshine to Shadow.
(An ongoing soap opera.)
When the story begins the heroine has an idyllic lifestyle with two homes, one in UK and one in Portugal. Much of her treasured antique furniture is en route for the Portuguese house though some is still in storage. The UK house, now sparsely furnished but habitable, needs work before it can be sold.
A wildfire destroys the Portuguese house and most of her personal belongings including all her books, CDs, DVDs, inherited heirlooms and gifts received for birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries, etc. for her entire life. There is survivor guilt because she was not there and so many of her friends were. Some of them lost their houses, too.
The stored furniture returns and fills the UK house with extra ‘stuff’ which needs culling, and far too many boxes which can’t be unpacked because there is no access to anywhere to put the contents. A sideboard arrives and is filled, then other arrivals mean the sideboard is no longer accessible. The contents might just as well have gone up in smoke. The planned IKEA kitchen (and appliances) for Portugal now form a massive ‘island’ in the centre of the UK kitchen. (See the illustration…)
The heroine now feels like a rat in a maze – or in a scrapyard full of junk. (Just as weeds are flowers in the wrong place, junk is belongings in the wrong place…). There is no room to celebrate the holidays or anniversaries or entertain friends. Christmas dinner can’t easily be cooked because of the navigational hazards. She is considering a chicken with minimal trimmings. There is no space anywhere for a tree. Cards could theoretically be strung from the beams in the lounge but boxes prevent these being reached. She has come to the conclusion that any gifts or desires are just asking for future disaster and has deleted her wish list. Anything that might replace lost items is just seen as adding insult to injury; replacements create flashbacks, and besides, the items could turn up in the boxes. Who knows?
The scrap heap (or whatever you want to call it) has built up over the two years since the fire, as the heroine’s husband has gradually brought things ‘home’. The only silver lining is that the insurance company paid out in full. This underlines the truth of the saying that money can’t buy happiness.
Meanwhile, there is ongoing drama related to a possible poltergeist in the seventeenth century UK house. Suspicions have been around for years but recently, whatever is going on has expanded. Missing in action so far: a wooden letter opener, a charging cable for a Kindle (fortunately she has two), one of a favourite pair of earrings, two Christmas cards for relatives abroad (not yet addressed so nobody posted them) and, perhaps more worryingly, a very heavy sharp cooking knife. The vacuum cleaner hose was blocked by a small plastic dinosaur that nobody remembers ever having seen.
On another faintly paranormal note, the heroine has become aware that appointments with both her hairdresser and her dentist are always, but always, accompanied by appalling weather. No other appointments or arrangements are ever affected – the weather varies as it usually does in UK.
From the sublime to the more-than-ridiculous. Will she ever find out what’s in the boxes? Will she ever be able to use the kitchen safely again? Who (or what) has the knife? Can we predict the weather next Monday? Follow this slowly unfolding drama to find out.
Jay's World 
laughing-crying-laughing 😀 *waves hello to the kitchen maze*
You’ll notice that it’s getting worse instead of better. All our work putting things in the sideboard? Well, I hate to tell you but as soon as C got home that became a no-go area. I miss my crockery!
Lost treasures can sadly never be replaced, you might be lucky to find something nearly identical but the emotional attachment is irreplaceable and cannot be ” conjured ” ,ever. Personal experience of lost or ” mislaid ” things from parents and dear ones who died are sadly missed but live on in our hearts and minds.
Even if you manage to replace something, every glimpse of it just reminds you of the way it was lost in the first place, so I’m not trying to replace anything! I think the worst losses are the things my parents and grandparents made for me – my ‘designer’ bookcases my grandfather built, the tatting my mother crafted, etc. And yes, they live in our hearts and minds, but they fade a little. I miss the cassettes that had my mother’s voice on them – things like that can’t even be partially replaced.
What an opening for an ongoing soap opera! Despite the sadness of your loss and your obvious frustration, I enjoyed reading this little insight, it was very…insightful. I hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel and you get your kitchen back although with the alleged poltergeist activity I might think about putting a ‘for sale’ sign out the front!
I look forward to ongoing installments 🙂
The poltergeist has been with us for years but has been particularly active recently. He/she/it seems basically harmless though the knife is a worry. I would suspect we were simply being absent minded but things turn up in rooms and cupboards we haven’t been into, etc. My Halloween story (don’t know if you saw it but it’s on here somewhere) was based on our house… As you know, it’s quite old!! 🙂