These two pieces were written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘edge’. One for fun and one for reflection, and a bonus film clip.
-edge as a suffix (extract from Wackypedia)
‘edge – border for a Cockney garden
Straightedge – Cockney garden border after trimming
Knowledge – from the Old English ‘know ledge’, seat in exam room adjoining the Precipice of ‘F’
Foreknowledge – (Golfing term) knowing when you are about to be struck by a golf ball
Sandwedge – cheese between two slices of bread, snack often carried by golfers
Priviledge – bench in rich person’s outhouse
On the edge of reality
When Alex opened the fridge, there was fresh food in the house, so he reasoned he must have gone shopping.
He must have done because he had less money than he did yesterday and he remembered Annie at the shop apologising for having to give him so many coins in his change
It was increasingly important to have these reference points, although sometimes he was not really sure whether a day or even several days had passed.
It was sufficient to Alex’s purposes that he believed he was alive and could appear sufficiently coherent, because his soul-grinding fear was that ‘They’ would put him away in some sort of institution one day.
He didn’t believe he was mad or demented as much as disconnected from constants and attachments, which in his more reflective moments he conceded could be seen as madness by some.
So he needed to be watchful and that seemed like a cruel and unusual punishment for a man who simply wanted to be left alone.
Six Crooked Highways 
Thst was one trippy Elvis clippie!
Three offerings, yet all together fit as one — nice job!
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Thanks, Liz. A brief clip from Elvis’s even briefer pysychedelic phase 😉
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This inspires more pieces with the ‘edge’ words you provided.
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Inspire away, Reena 🙂
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Wanting to be left alone seems increasingly difficult to accomplish…at least, to my understanding.
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Like the Title, like the definitions, like the story, even if it is getting too close for comfort.
Love the Elvis song, which I don’t remember seeing before.
Or maybe not since 1968, which is pretty much the same thing as never.
Chapeau, Doug
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Many thanks, CE. I ha’e me doots about that film clip too. Perhaps somebody’s done the equivalent to Photoshop on an old video. 😉
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Teetering on the edge of eccentricity can have unfortunate results, especially if a person tries to escape the boundaries of the conventional concept of normal.
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Indeed. Doesn’t bode well for my future. 😉
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Nor mine, Doug!
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Sorry, do I know you? 🙂
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🤔😂
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I like your definition of “privilege”.
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Thanks, Frank. Made me laugh when I thought of it. 🙂
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i relish my excentricity and Elvis
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the fear of becoming… untethered, (that was the term you used, wasn’t it?*) surely can be the most fundamental of dysfunctions. Not that I’m not at that point myself (yeah, that’s probably a threshold indicator in and of itself).
*what’s the deal with the ‘imaginary albeit one-sided conversations appearing in comments?! I did this over at ceayr’s Six… nothing weird, other than make a reference to a point in the story a half-a-scroll up from here… but didn’t seem it would help just to go and look?
Spreading of fictional realities from members of the Six community, I suspect. Or a peculiar willingness to think of the interactions in comments as not that different from interactions in the ‘real’ world.
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Sorry, clark. Totally lost me after the first para but probably says more about me than you. 😉
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What with the drug companies wanting to make all of us customers, every mental state now seems to have a diagnosis and need a treatment.
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A tasty trio. The first word gave me a bubble bath! I’m not an Elvis fan but the clip’s – err – interesting!
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Thanks, Keith. Yes, that clip has generated a lot of interest (and worry). 😉
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Love the definitions, Doug. (Priviledge has another name here – the House of Lords – £300 a day for just popping in and signing their name! Geez!)
And the other story’s a difficult one. Made me think of the old Pete Seeger song, Little Boxes.’They’ want us to fit in boxes and there’s trouble if we don’t. And like Mimi says, a diagnosis for everything.
Your writing really brings out Alex’s confusion.
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Many thanks, Jenne. House of Lords is a wonderful analogy. 🙂
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The second one hit close to home, sometimes it is easy to become “untethered” but I think that this can also be put to a good use, as you have here – in this piece of writing. And it is so easy to fear being institutionalized in a world that looks at eccentric as mad.
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Many thanks. For often untethered folk like myself, I sometimes worry that my writing is providing evidence for the prosecution. 😉
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Doug! Congrats on straddling the edge of…I don’t know what, lol The Elvis clip. Ahead of it’s time, eh? 😉
I believe we’re witness to a cultural evolution where the youth of today have no concept of “being alone”, phones are their constant companions; constant connection to – everywhere. For the rest of us, takes effort. To be alone.
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Thanks, Denise. I have a slightly different take in that I think youth are just as alone but mask it through a variation of FOMO, namely FOBIA (Fear Of Being Internet Alone).
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