The Mystery of Imagination

“Imagination thrives on mystery”―Patrick Harpur

Well, this had been an extra fun Mystery Photo Game, but tonight we come down to our last mystery photo for this time. I’ve strained my brain enough coming up with five mystery photos. And I didn’t do too bad with the first ones. I managed to get some tricky ones in there for some of you and even most of you and maybe all of you once. It did turn out that my cicada eye wasn’t all that mysterious to those of us in the middle of the invasion of Brood XIV, named the Bourbon Brood (I think). We’ve seen a lot of those red-eyed bugs and heard even more.

I got 27 guesses on the last mystery picture (109 total guesses on all the photos so far), and I was surprised when it turned out to be such a mystery. There was one for sure right guess and another sort of right guess. As every other time, you all used your imaginations and came up with answers from a lot of different directions. There were guesses of everything from two muddy hands to a hamburger on a bun to a doily on a chair arm. I loved every guess because I could almost hear your imaginations making a whirring noise as you thought up what the photo might be when the rest of the picture was revealed.

Several guessed flower. I  got to use my imagination when some of you saw that flower floating in a creek or emerging from the mud. A couple guessed trees and tree barks. Lavon went from a chocolate cream pie to a rocky outcropping. But she wasn’t the only one thinking rocks and stones. That might have been the most popular guess and went from granite to rocks to stone countertops.

Several saw moths. A few said a towel or blanket. Paula saw a turtle. Birds showed up in the guesses and feathers. Of course, the food guesses are always fun. Not a bad thing to try since I have had food mystery photos in the past. Angie guessed S’more with marshmallows and immediately was ready for some chocolate.

Several of you said you were no good at this game. Trust me, I would be stumped right there with you if I hadn’t already seen the pictures. In fact, I’ve kept a file on my computer of past mystery photos, and sometimes I have no idea what this or that one actually is.

The surprising, exactly right guess is from Lucy who has fun suggesting interesting things like a deer licking a popsicle. If you look back at the mystery photo of those birthday candles, you might see that popsicle licking deer too. Lucy was smiling about her guess that day. And this time, she did first say a chocolate lava cake, but she went from that right to a fungus on a tree. Connie was mostly right when she said mushrooms. Way to go, both of you!

When I took a picture of this early in March before the flowers started blooming, I intended to post it on Facebook as a flower in winter.  But I kept forgetting about it until the moment for posting it seemed to have passed. Then it was time for mystery pictures.

Now, we have this last mystery that I’m guessing  might not be that much of a memory. I might not have used it except my daughter didn’t figure it out. She’s sometimes my mystery photo tester, but maybe her eyes were just tired that day.

If you all get it right this time, that will be only fair after your patience at trying to figure out all those other mysteries. All of your imaginations ran down some pretty interesting paths. I’m always ready for my imagination to find some of those kinds of trails to follow in my stories.

I’m getting ready to jump into some editing on the book that is scheduled for next spring. My characters do go down some interesting trails. Speaking of characters — we were sort of, weren’t we? — I talked with a wonderful group of writers Friday at a Books in Progress Conference in Lexington. I tried to share with them about how I come up with my story people. I’m not sure that they went away with any new hints, but I did make them laugh when I shared an Appalachian phrase to describe a lazy man. “He’s so slow it doesn’t hurt him to fall out of a tree.”

All right. Nothing slow about you all. It’s time for  you to make your last round of guesses on the new mystery photo up top? 

A guess will get you an entry or another entry if you’ve already guessed on one or more of the other mystery photos. I’ll pick the winners before Wednesday’s post. So the deadline to enter is noon EST, Wednesday, June 11, 2025.  Two winners, chosen by random, will get their choice of one of my books.

Thanks again for reading and for playing my Mystery Photo Game.