Writer's Toolbox: "Personification"

The tabby cat stretched luxuriously on the hood of the car, its fur shimmering as if it had absorbed the sleek vanity of the vehicle beneath it.

The old sedan grumbled in protest, its headlights narrowing into a glare as the cat pawed at its windshield wipers like a teasing game.

The calico purred against the tire, and the car seemed to hum back, a metallic vibration of mutual contentment.

At night, the sports car preened under the moonlight, its glossy curves outshining even the cat’s elegant stride as it sauntered by.

The tomcat leapt onto the roof, and the car gave a muffled groan, as if dismayed at being so easily conquered.

Georgia

Writer's Toolbox - The use of "SIMILE"

Five Simile Sentences

The goat perched on the rocky hillside like a question mark, curious and unbothered by the wind.

The dog bounded through the grass like a runaway kite, all joy and wild energy tugging against an invisible string.

The cat stretched out on the windowsill like a puddle of melted moonlight, sleek and silent.

Her laugh rang out, sharp and clear, like a bell forged from sunlight.

His voice was warm, wrapping around me like bread fresh from the oven.

Georgia

Walk This Way

Every morning around 6:45, on my way to work, I walk past a small tree that has the loudest chatter of birds I have ever heard! They’re all shouting at once and it sounds like they’re all angry at each other.  I thought to myself, “It sounds like a company board meeting, no, it sounds like a company bird meeting,”

They are all screaming so loudly that I can hardly hear the piles of autumn leaves crunching under my shoes. The crunching sound reminds me of eating a Nestle’s Crunch Bar when I was a little girl.

The cars passing by are lazily making their way in and out of the roads. By the sound of the humming of their tires, you can tell there’s not much traffic at this early hour.

Sweet Tooth

 

Well, I had done it again procrastinating until the last minute in my search for Halloween candy. It had been a busy morning running out to the stores to buy bags of candy that had somehow been overlooked by hurried shoppers and finding the Trick or Treat bags that had been stored away in my closet since last year. Now with steep piles of each confection in their shiny wrappers displayed across the kitchen table my sweet assembly line moved along quickly. Picking up a brightly colored trick or treat bag from the left side of the table emblazoned with an orange, black and white image of a haunted house above a cemetery with a yellow harvest moon hanging in the evening sky,I moved mechanically across the table throwing a few samples of each confection inside the bag until it was overflowing with delicious delicacies and twisted the bag shut and then tied it  with a striated orange ribbon.Next I placed it in my large plastic pumpkin serving bowl to my right for the day’s festivities. The bags accumulated quickly but I knew that they would disappear just as quickly as the hordes of marauding demons, witches, ghosts, and goblins descended on the block, sweeping it clean like a ravenous infestation of locusts. But it was always a fun day which brought back fond memories of my own childhood Halloween experiences. I finished preparing the treats a while before the school day finished and well before the children ran home to jump into their costumes to start their fun. I waited for the invasion to commence.

                Soon the crackling sound of little feet crushing and kicking dried leaves could unmistakably be heard. It didn’t take long before the doorbell began to ring as many brightly colored characters arrived on my doorstep, each one scarier than the last, proposing that ominous question “TRICK or TREAT?” to which I responded “TREAT!” not wishing for any tricks to be visited on my property or person. My planned inventory had been accurate as the supplies of candy had held out for the afternoon rush and there were even a few bags left over as the evening came on and all the children dissipated. As the time for childish play was waning and nighttime was coming on, and as innocent tricks were ending , a different intelligence was coming into its own as an old evil thrived and malingering ne’er-do-wells emerged. Slimy, slithering things appeared now that crawled out from cracks and oozed out of swamps, stepped out from the shadows or rolled out of their hideous, malignant hovels and foul conditions showing themselves, as good people and the innocents retreated to hearth and home. A time for light to recede from the gathering darkness and goodness to evade evil, a time for the Lord of Misrule and Darkness to reign as the impure, malignant and compromised engulfed the land. I sat down with a bowl of steaming beef stew from my cauldron, actually a crockpot, and enjoyed the delicious meal. Eventually I began to eye up the leftover candy plotting its demise. It would not survive the night. Suddenly the doorbell rang once again. I immediately grabbed my bucket of treats and as I was approaching the door I felt a chill as if cold tiny spiders were running up and down my spine, despite the considerable warmth of the room. I opened the door. Before me stood a huge figure well over six feet tall wrapped in a black cloak and it was hard to make out a face under the hood but I could distinguish two eyes burning like red hot coals. A terrible stench emanated from the apparition and there were maggots crawling around its boney feet and hands. The hands had no flesh on them and appeared to be boney digits covered in skin. It grunted unintelligibly presumably asking the question “TRICK or TREAT?” and held out its boney hands to receive the treats. I dropped two bags of candy between its boney digits, but the apparition grunted its disapproval shaking its hands for more treats, so I emptied the bowl into them not wishing to experience its retribution! This supply seemed to quench the apparition’s thirst for sweets as a different sound, that could have been a low chuckle, emanated from deep inside the monster as he hopped off the ground and clicked his boney heels together dislodging a number of infuriated maggots in the process, who were not entirely thrilled with this sudden and revolting display of mirth. The apparition noticed a loose unwrapped spherical jawbreaker in the bottom of the serving bowl and picked it up with two of its digits and popped it into its mouth. I could hear the candy as it bounced down his entrails like a steel ball in a pinball machine at an arcade of the damned, eventually rolling out between his boney toes as the maggots tried to corral the sphere in what resembled a game of maggot soccer! The creature stuffed the bags of candy into the folds of its black robes as it backed away from my door and as the maggots regained their composure and jumped onboard this skeletal train to hell. It began to dematerialize and then levitate above my porch and floated all the way back down the hill to the cemetery across the road and disappeared between the tombstones.

Sometimes you just need something sweet. That night I had a second bowl of stew. The apparition craved the candy more than I did and it would be quite some time anyway before I were reduced to skin and bones.                             

Jim- OCT 2024

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!