I’m linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and everyone is invited to write a story or poem constructed of six sentences based on a cue word given.
This week’s cue word is Oasis
The False Oasis
Our city is an oasis in the middle of the desert. You can see it from the dunes – all glittering at night like strewn about jewels tossed from the fists of princes and warlords in the midst of temper tantrums as wild as the wind.
Our dear oasis city in the middle of the desert, liberated from tempestuous sands and scorching heat, the freezing nights, the quicksand, the snakes, the scorpions, and the promise that the sun will strip you of your meat and bleach your bones if you dare to wander from our city home for too long and too far and too wide.
We fine men of our city, we finish our work for the day and catch buses back to our air conditioned homes, to obedient wives and sons and daughters who will follow without question our oasis city traditions. See how full our bellies are, as we recline in plush furniture stuffed with the bills agreed upon by Western handshakes, oil and weapons and luxury apartments in London – ha! see, children, see, another oasis city, yet surrounded not by desert, surrounded by sea!
Now shush, children, shush, the news is about to begin; it’s a very important statement from our esteemed chancellor, once more promising us the earth from an oasis city, and in a tongue still wet from dinner taken in his ivory tower.
***
Words and photo art by Ford Waight.
Weaving photos with the text ; and what photos!
You lunatic , you are on fire!!
Welsh Fire!!
A most welcome treat and if I may add, the subtle (to me at least) V for Vendetta vibe is always much much appreciated!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The ‘V’ vibe – yes, I felt that too as the piece was writing. The photos came out lovely: originally a family wedding pic I took of balloons going up 🙂
Thanks for the good words me old shipmate me hearty ahar!
(into pirate mode suddenly)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum !
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi TVTA, I think Spira hit the nail on the head with the “V for Vendetta” comparison. I also got an “Elysium” sort of vibe where the rich and well to do live up on the space station and everyone else resides on the less than friendly surface of the planet. I think I’m beginning to hear “Follow the rules, eat your veg, drink your milk and take your medicine and all this too can be yours….just follow the rules, eat your…..”.Great work as always…and just to let you know you should have an email waiting for you ok!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi mate. Yes, they’re following the rules to aspire to false greatness. It’s a broken system, much like in real life in many aspects.
Oh, the email… I got it, and wow! So cool. I replied back.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi there, yes I just typed a reply! I don’t know though, all these government and authoritarian powers sending out false messaging and running broken systems…I mention it in my email to you. Oh well, here’s to a better 2021!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow. Otherworldly feel yet so close to home.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. The systems of hierarchy and patriarchy at play in a false paradise. Thanks for the good comment and read, Ms Avery 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the description in the last sentence of “a tongue still wet from dinner”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers, Frank. A ‘delicious’ line I reckon. Somehow ‘Orwell’s pigs at the dining table’ came to mind.
LikeLike
Our city in the middle of the desert. . great beginning.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Purplestone 🙂
LikeLike
such a well crafter six. visual as well as intellectual. Great job.
LikeLike
Thanks so much, Paul 🙂
LikeLike
Love that (whatever the cool term for a rhetorical device that takes fantasy, inflates it and melds it to practicality…probably something like antiblandithrope*), which, when skillfully executed does not so much hold up two views for contrast and comparison as it is tricking the reader, now a part of one of the realities, to feel the contrasts and comparison.
cool
*pretty sure thats not a ‘real’ word
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks there, Clark 🙂
LikeLike
WOW, WOW, WOW!!! The imagery is fabulous and the story…oh my.
LikeLike
Thanks so much, Rhen 🙂
LikeLike
You’re SO welcome 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Statement piece?….Naah…..lol
I’m doin’ the wave right now 😁 Reading your Six whilst awake (unlike last evening with eyes half closed), I’m in awe of your word arrangement. Totally caught up in the not unrealistic allegory.
Art renderings very cool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much, D 🙂 This week’s prompt word kicked up a fair bit of sand here. Glad you like the art pics 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow. Excellent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Mimi 🙂
LikeLike
Such a deep thought provoking SSS. I read this over and over thinking about each line and how it could be interpreted. A perfect title for your SSS!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much, Pat 🙂
LikeLike
Pingback: Draig Tân | inSPIRAtion
Whoa! Very dystopian! Awesome 6!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Dyanne 🙂
LikeLike
You really take the reader into another world, yet walk us right in to the familiar.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Lisa. Agree, it does have that otherworldly feel yet is so close to home.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent, Ford! A relevant, heavy write! Also, your images are wonderful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Resa 🙂
LikeLike