It’s time for something new on Blue Jai Creative. Rather than simply musing, the Daydream Believer is going to do one of her favourite things: play with words!

Here’s how it will work…I’ll find and post a random picture, then use it as a writing prompt. You can like it, scroll past it, comment on it, tell me what you would have done instead, or enjoy it as a pop of fictional colour in your day.

Welcome to Blue Jai’s Vignettes!

Dorothy Brownlow was not having it.

There was no way she would let Janice McNulty’s snide remarks get her down, just as surely she was not buying Janice a cup of coffee after aqua aerobics — even though it was almost certainly her turn.

So what if she had inadvertently picked up her shower cap from the hook on the back of the bathroom door? Hank had decided to leave early for golf, muttering something about having his putter fixed at the pro shop, and it wasn’t until he dropped her at the pool that she realised her error — not that it was a big deal. Dorothy had been to the hairdresser only two days before, and the shower cap wouldn’t squash her freshly-set curls the way her thick rubber swimming cap did. Besides, if Marjorie Guthrie chose to wear that ridiculous straw sun visor during class every week, how come Janice had never felt the need to comment on that?

No, Dorothy was not having it.

She had opted not to take up her customary place beside Janice in the front row of the class, even though it afforded the best vantage point for observing Donny, the aqua aerobics instructor, in his tank top and trim white shorts. Instead, she had tucked the arms of her natty catseye sunglasses securely beneath the elastic of her blue shower cap, and chose a position in the second row directly behind her so-called friend.

It was early spring in Florida, and begonias and black-eyed Susans were beginning to bloom beyond the neat row of white sun lounges beneath the pooside palm trees. Insects droned and buzzed above the red and pink petals, while in the pool the water was refreshing and cool. The second row, Dorothy considered, offered her a more than satisfactory view of the vibrant flowers and the handsome instructor. She felt a smug and satified smile turning up the corners of her mouth as she followed Donny’s commands, putting her hands on her hips and stretching backwards, tilting her face towards the sun.

As the class went on, the women raised and lowered their arms in accordance with Donny’s instructions, twirled in the water, kicked their legs and hopped from foot to foot. Still smarting from Janice’s nasty comments, Dorothy was periodically seized by a juvenile urge to pull a face behind her friend’s back, but found herself increasingly mesmerised by the back of her friend’s head. Unlike her plain and practical shower cap, Janice’s swimming cap was bedecked with chunky yellow and orange flowers, bobbing like a bouquet in the water in front of her, around which an alarming number of bees had begun to swarm…