Week 14 Theme #2

Board games sit on top of each other, stacked in disarray and collecting dust quietly on the top shelf in the corner of the family room. They long to be played, their pieces mauled and manipulated, their cards shuffled, but it’s been months since light has even touched the insides of their boxes. Occasionally they hear voices but none so close as to understand what’s being said. Silently they stare out of their corner and wait with anticipation, wondering how long it will take before someone realizes how much value they possess.

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Cookbooks, some pages stained, some corners folded over to mark favorite dishes, they are still regarded as prized possessions. Representing a love, a passion, they remain a source for innovation, old techniques, and gallant quests for greater knowledge. However, as of late that knowledge has been left to the land of the lost, innovation replaced by recipes off of boxes and sealed cellophane packages. Sure they are quicker to prepare but where is the pride in that? They wait for flour covered fingers and wooden spoons, the smell of a kitchen coming to life and the heart of a chef opening up to risk possibilities. Burried treasure holds no value if no one even tries to look for it.

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Barbie’s naked, and so are the baby dolls. They have full wardrobes, in pieces, pinned to patterns, sitting right next to the sewing machine. Lavish wardrobes too, wedding dresses, fairytale gowns, crop pants and tank tops, jackets and skirts, all different colors, all different fabrics. A supermodel would be proud, if the clothes were ever finished. They need to be finished soon, it’s getting too cold to lay around naked!

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A box of paper products filled with lines of scribbles sits in the bottom of the closet. Napkins, dog eared bits of paper, pieces of paper bags, notebooks upon notebooks, typed sheets of copy paper, all with snippets of stories, thoughts, ideas, spread across their surface. A young girl’s childhood in Maine, a couples perpetual fall in and out of love as reincarnation tries the test of souls, an ex-mobster fisherman father, old man, trying to remake his life, a rebirth of magic in a world of technology, a guide to good parenting, or at least better than what’s out there now, they all play through their story lines again and again, no real beginning, no real ending, because they remain unfinished. In the deepest dark of night you can almost hear their pleas, ’Someone let us out of here…..’