Tag: writing

musician

Stranger Things Broke my Heart in the Best Way

Kelly Rogers

Stranger Things took me on an adventure with my children back to my childhood and then broke my heart in the best way with a beautiful, flawed goodbye. The tender years of my kids aligned with the children on the show. We faced changing friendships, first loves, and grief with the show’s characters, 1980s old style…no mobile phones and devices, no socials, and a worldview limited to a D&D campaign.

While the plot was sometimes messy and the connections were dizzying, the show never failed as a time machine and stayed true to the characters even in the darkest, most confusing moments. My kids and I had our favorites, with Derek as a late entry pulling on our heartstrings and inspiring humor in what had been a humorless year IRL. My kids grew up on this show, and I was okay with that. Fortitude and heroics in the service of friendship and love are life’s greatest lessons. Loyalty is another one. You don’t leave your people behind, and mothers are bad a$$es when pushed to their limits. I grew with the show, too.

It was the right time for the story to end, but with it, so did the portal it provided to my youth and that of my kids. And this is where I find myself heartbroken. Writers of shows and books get to create portals to other places, times, and lives. This is a power. I am grateful to the Duffer brothers for allowing me to share this story and my childhood with my kids. Maybe I have the power, too, to preserve memories of that time, or maybe I can make new worlds and portals equally compelling. It’s the end of this story, but there are always stories to tell that shift perceptions, make you fall in love (or hate) with characters, and potentially change your life. Stranger Things was never perfect, but it was powerful in all the right ways. It’s never goodbye when characters and stories find their way into your heart.

fiction, story, writer, writing

Elements: Part 1

Kelly Rogers

Author Note: This is being inspired by a painting from local artist Ryan Holmes that was shared for a writing prompt.

Nobody told me it would feel like this, melting into water, into nothingness. Why did I have to watch my face disappear?  My hands melt? My feet dissipate even though I could still stand? I was in a room of mirrors, brightly lit. I stood on a floor made of air. There were three other people in the room with me disappearing into the Element Stream. I wondered if we would be stuck together on the other side. I knew what made me choose this, but it did not stop me from thinking less of them for joining me.

“Patient AGX45, please focus forward. This is your first and only reminder that Elemental, Inc. is not responsible for any slipstream occurrences caused by the errant focus of participants. Do you comprehend and re-agree to all terms, conditions, and assurances you have made, Patient AGX45?”

I nodded, turning my head quickly back to the mirrors ahead of me.

“Please use words and not head or hand gestures to articulate agreement, Patient AGX45.”

“Yes.” I felt like I was disappearing more quickly during this exchange of words than felt unnecessary. I didn’t fully believe my matter could simply combine with someone else’s, but I also did not think I would be in a room with anyone else. Maybe they weren’t real, and this was a trick to get me to focus on immersing fully into the Element Stream.

“I don’t think our matter can actually combine,” said a voice from behind me. He was distorted in the mirror ahead of me because he was a reflection of a reflection, making us back-to-back.

“Stop talking to me. I’m already in enough trouble.”

“How can we get in trouble for something we are paying for? I think we have a customer service claim in this situation.” He chuckled in a husky way that put me at ease.

“Fair point. I’m Anastasia.”

“Carl. I wonder if we will see each other on the other side.”

“I’m wondering the same. I hope we enjoy each other’s company because where we are going, there is no customer service. Just us and all the other elements.” He chuckled again, and now I found myself hoping we would see each other. I would know soon because I was on my last leg and then nothing but blackness.

“Anastasia, are you okay?”

“How would I know that, Carl. I am nothing. I no longer have a body. How are we even talking?”

“Well, you have a mouth, and if you open them, you have eyes.” I sat up, opened my eyes, and there was Carl, with his kind smile, angled face, very French. He was gorgeous.

“Do I look like me, Carl?”

“Were you a gelatinous cube with eyes and teeth before the element stream?”

I screamed.

“Settle down, Stasia. You aren’t now either. You are a classic beauty with long brown hair and soft green eyes, cute figure, and button nose. Does this track?” He chose to chuckle again. He was doing me in with his curly brown hair. If I had known him before, maybe I wouldn’t be here now. I touched his face, a bold move for an introvert.

“How did a guy that looks like you get a name like Carl?”

He narrowed his eyes, but it was in a way that meant he was studying me versus judging. “My name is really Sebastian. I went into this with a fake name.”

An overly loud, projected voice said, “Patient AGX46, please do not stray from your contractually agreed upon naming convention. Further digression from the terms, conditions, and assurances you made to enter the Element Stream will be met with swift dismissal of Elemental, Inc.’s ability to honor all terms, conditions, and assurances we made to you.”

More soon…

poetry, writer, writing

If I Could

Kelly Rogers

If I could carry you on my back

To the next place, a fortress of peace, I would.

A million memories like threads

Of alabaster spiderwebs will still exist

If I could absorb your pain and any sadness

In the sponge of my soul, I would

A movie of what we were and will always be,

Beautiful and righteous, will play on

If I could rock you in a cradle of my arms

To a sweet, unending sleep, I would

Pieces of you are intertwined in all of us,

Filling the darkness of life’s lattice with good

And to carry you on in all that is done, I will. We will.

fiction, writer, writing

Artist’s Date One: The Beauty in Ordinary Objects

Kelly Rogers

Each week I must have an Artist’s Date with myself as part of the Artist’s Way journey. I wanted to go outside and find a story in pictures.

Fast forward. I’m in a hotel, and it is frigid outside. These are the photos that resulted. I find the ordinary to be extraordinary when seen through the right lens.

poetry, writer, writing

winter soul

Kelly Rogers

I am the last piece of tinsel clinging to the fir that’s about to return to the earth

I am the first bud fighting activation by the sunshine I know is forgetting the last snow

I am the shade, the single cloud, the arch of a tree, providing respite from the dry heat

I am the first leave to turn on the branch and the last to fall, stretching on the way down towards peace on frosted ground

I am the first crystal to form in the sky, willingly joining other crystals, ready to find my place in a snow angel

I am a winter soul, an arctic fox, a counter of stars under the frigid night sky

musician

Tired

Kelly Rogers

When you are the kind of tired sleep won’t fix

And your second hand is stuck but it still ticks

When you’ve lost your bookmark in a breeze

And you need a prayer after life has brought you to your knees

When you try to drive forward while in park

And you are in a story that has no discernible arc

Look up to the sky, you are kissed by the sun

Look down at your feet where two puppies run

You are here now, a gift, tired or not

Breathe it in, breathe it out, give it all you’ve got

musician

Written Words

Kelly Rogers

I read to taste life twice.

I write to channel imagination’s vice.

The words they flow, and stories they sew, leaving me in the grips of night.

As the pages by wind turn

Off the paper, love creates a burn

The hero becomes a villain while the air, bone-chilling, sends a shiver to the edge of the spine

From beginning to end

The chapters maliciously mend

Any trace of a shred, of who I was before bed, and wake me new in the morn.