Photo: Amitai Asif
It cracks the rock and pushes forth
To skies that swirl in
Matching froth.
For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Flower
Blooming White
Month: June 2019
The Apprentice
Photo prompt: Sue Vincent
“It requires one step through.”
She squinted at the trunk. “I can see the other side.”
“So it would seem.”
She circled the tree and peeked through the opening. “It is as I said. I can see your legs.”
“I’m sure you believe you can.”
His calm voice infuriated her, but she knew that getting riled up will only lead to another long lesson in teaching her self-control.
She breathed.
He nodded.
She turned away from him and breathed again and then counted to ten for good measure. She could almost imagine him chuckling, though she knew he probably would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him react that way. Still, she could feel his amusement. It had been the hardest thing for her. His mild dismissing mockery. It was a constant reminder that she was a mere neophyte swimming furiously upstream in hope of getting even the smallest measure of trust, let alone recognition.
Why did he take her on when he had so little regard for her?
She circled the tree one more time. In part to move some of her agitation, but also to use the trunk as some shelter from her mentor’s scrutiny. She knew what her eyes told her: A hole in a tree, a gap she could toss a pebble through (not that she’d dare, now that he told her what it was), certainly of no size to fit a person.
She also knew that eyes can lie.
Still she resisted.
“Perhaps you aren’t ready.”
In spite of herself she felt her fingers clench. She hated when he did that. It made her feel like a child to be goaded.
Perhaps I am not, she retorted in her mind.
“Indeed, perhaps you’re not.”
Her eyes flew to meet his. She had suspected for some time that he could read her mind, and it felt like someone’s wandering hands rifling through her underwear drawer.
“I could read it in your eyes,” he noted, confirming rather than reassuring.
“What if I go through with it?” she sighed. She felt not so much resigned as she did defeated. He always got his way in the end. She could flail about and delay and prolong the path and belabor the process, but inevitably he got her to do things as he’d wanted. Half the time she thought his goal was to get her to where she would no longer resist him, while half the time she felt that the day she ceased rebelling would be the day he tell her that she’d failed completely.
Even now he did not answer till she asked again.
“You will see what there is for you to see.” He lifted his hand to indicate it was time for her to suspend all judgement, ignore her perceptions, and walk through the tree that he said was a portal.
“Is this the last test?” she fretted.
At that he chuckled. “It is never the last test …”
As she turned toward the tree she heard him add in a small voice that perhaps was made with mind, not larynx, “not for you, not for me.”
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What If?
Photo prompt © Ceayr
“Are you sure this is the house?”
“It says 345.”
“What if it’s the wrong number?”
“It’s not.” She unfurled a sweaty fist to show him the piece of paper and its slightly smudged pen marks. “It says right here.”
“What if you wrote it down wrong?” His eyes met hers, mirroring her apprehension and amplifying the seeds of doubt that tightened shoots of worry in her stomach.
She shook her head, courage evaporated.
It was one thing to flee their miserable surroundings. Another entirely to knock on the door of the father who’d rejected them even before they were born.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
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Give Us A Smile!
Photo: Ofir Asif
There are none here more pleased
Than this moth
At her ease.
For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Smiles
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Ancient Crush
Photo: Amitai Asif
You’ve seen nations
Rise
And fall,
Felt oil
Extracted
From trees’ toil.
You’ve seen
The farmers
Tend the soil,
Bread dipped
To nourish
Heart and soul,
As children laughed
And played
And lived
And died
Through centuries of
War and spoil,
While you remained
Above the boil,
Till peace returns
For olives’ roil.
Note: The photo is of an ancient base stone (called “Yam” in Hebrew) of the grinding stones that are used for the first step of extracting oil from olives. A current-day olive grove can be seen in the background to the left. Olives were first domesticated about 6,000 years ago, likely in the Mediterranean basin. Documented history of deliberate oil pressing can be found as early as 4,500 years ago (around 2,500BCE).
To this day, making olive oil involves several stages of crushing and rinsing to extract the oil. In many places, olives are still harvested by hand or by beating the fruit off of the trees. The olives are then washed, and crushed by milling stones (traditionally between a bottom stone like the one in the photo and one or two mill stone that stand perpendicular to it and roll around the base stone). The millstone/s were historically moved by use of man-power or animal power, and in some places still are. The pulp is placed in woven bags or baskets, then the baskets themselves are pressed. The liquid from the press bags gets drawn into a reservoir where oil is left to settle and separate. Oil is then skimmed off and allowed to settle again, sometimes repeatedly, to remove impurities.
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Ancient
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Bamboo House
Photo: Adi Rozen-Zvi
May there be a home
Inside this house,
Where the strength
And flexibility
Of bamboo
Is proffered,
As basis for the rapid
Steady growth
Love offers.
For Cee’s Black &White Challenge: House
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Simplicity
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
The sun.
The shade.
The tree.
And me.
For One Word Sunday: Simplicity
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At The Edge
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
You look down from the edge
To see,
The world bottoming out
From what could be.
The waters
That will take with them
Again
To sea,
All that has come
Before
And will one day
Once more
Be free.
For the Sunday Stills Challenge: Edge
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Mood Shift
Photo: TimHill on Pixabay
The mood shifted,
Scudding and persistent,
And she knew that no matter the allure
To try and reach out
To touch it
In attempt to stop
It’s flow,
To do so would only
Poison them with
Mercurial glow.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Mercurial in 38 words
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Wild Places
Photo: Ofir Asif
Find wild places inside your
Self,
Where vistas stretch
Your heart.
Climb peaks you did not know
Exist.
Let freedom
Joy impart.
For the Lens-Artist Challenge: Wild
Na'ama Yehuda 
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