Itsy Eats it!

October 31, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Guarantee, Halloween, Home, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Protection, Writing Challenge 12 Comments

She’d had it with replacing the gate five times in a season.

She’d had it with coming back from any length of trip to find her garden in shambles, her gazebo in ruins, and her abode filled with debris. There were always some of her favorite things broken or missing.

Something had to be done.

This might not look like it’d stop determined burglars, but it should at least cause pause to the majority. If any dared try.

It didn’t matter that it was made of bent reeds, or that she’d been advised to seal the opening with bricks. Too much stone felt heavy. And anyway, she found pleasing beauty in the symmetry, in the way light filtered through. It was like a window to the world.

Also, Itsy came with references and guaranteed the work.

“Itsy build,” the industrious worker promised. “And if something break in. Itsy eats it.”

For the Crimson Creative Challenge #51

Doomed

October 31, 2019October 31, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bad idea, Costume, Fall, Flash Fiction, friends, Getting in trouble, Halloween, Hospital, Photo prompt, Silly, WritePhoto, Writing Challenge 19 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

“I will stand here, then slowly scoot in and get us tickets. No one will notice.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I tried to keep my voice low. Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to do, muffled as it was already.

Doug shrugged, scattering orange and yellow.

It was a bad idea. This whole thing. I never should’ve let Doug talk me into it.

“It will be so much fun!” he’d said. And … anything did sound better than being cooped up in a hospital bed, my face swollen and bruised and covered with bandages after reconstructive surgery, while everyone else went partying.

Doug’s initial idea was to bandage the rest of me like a mummy, but I wasn’t going for it. I had enough of bandages. So Doug ‘borrowed’ his brother’s bike leathers and brought along some plastic ‘armor’, a roll of fake cobwebs, and a helmet that he somehow managed to fit over my post-surgically-wrapped visage. It was a bit too snug in places and as soon as he’d pulled it on I knew I’d regret it when we tried to remove the thing from my poor head. My noggin was five tons of throb.

We’d gotten through the nurse’s station undetected, and were now trying to crash the doctors’ party at the end of a hallway off the lobby. There seemed to be tickets involved. Or invitations. Or IDs of some sort. Now what?

Music crashed against my ears. I was tired. I wanted to be back in bed. I should have gone as a mummy. Preferably in a sarcophagus. At least then I could lie down. It wasn’t even three full days since my surgery. What was I thinking?… Clearly I was not.

“This is stupid!” I hissed.

“You’ll see,” Doug, undeterred, maneuvered his wrapped wheelchair into a corner, shedding more leaves, “People don’t notice trees.”

Oh, I could see already. And more than I wanted to.

“They would notice this one,” I grumbled.

Already Doug’s stick arms and bony torso showed. Someone should have hold him that being a potted tree in fall was doomed to leave him sitting in the nude.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto Challenge

Empty Promises

October 30, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Assumptions, Change, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Injustice, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Surprise, Taken for granted, Writing Challenge 45 Comments

Photo prompt: © Fatima Fakier Deria

He came down to find the kitchen cold. The coffee machine bereft of beans, the range orphaned of the pan that sizzled on it every morning as far back as he could recall. His lunch boxes waited on the table, naked in their transparent emptiness.

He was sure that the vacant orange juice glass was put on them just to spite.

He never believed her that she’d up and leave if he kept ‘forgetting’ her papers. He never thought she’d have anyplace else to go. But there he was. Alone. The servant that had been a fixture for him, gone.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Apple Picking

October 29, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing, Yummy Tags: Apple Picking, Autumn, children, Creative writing, Description, dVerse, Fall, Family, Poetry, Senses, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 38 Comments

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

He saw the gnarled trunk and the orbs

Round

And red

And green,

Undulating in the breeze that

Caressed his cheeks and flipped the end

Of his shirt up

Cool

On his tummy

When he ran.

He heard the crunch of grass-blades

Succulent

Under the smooth soles of

His shoes,

Each step sinking slightly into the

Soft

Saturated

Ground.

The thump of apple

Fallen

Filled his ears,

Alongside his own breath

Fast,

Excited

In his chest,

And the sound of his family

Drumming apples

Into their

Rustling plastic bags

And creaky wooden crates

And pinging metal pail.

He smelled the crushed grass,

The too-sweet scent of slightly

Rotting apples

On damp ground,

And a whiff of the caramel

That promised

One on a stick

For later on.

He stretched

To reach

Around the fruit,

The sky in his eyes and

The taste of last year’s

Treat

Faint and candied

On his

Tongue.

For the dVerse challenge: senses

Coastal Calm

October 29, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Analogy, Breathing Space, Calm, Coast, fpj-photo-challenge, Meditation, Photo Challenge, Poetry, Raising Children, Sleep, Sweetness 15 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

Ah, the curve of the coast

Leaning into

Itself,

Like a child’s

Sleepy head

Her weight slowly

Transferred.

Ah, the breath of the sea

Curling wave after

Wave.

A warm exhale

On your neck,

Child’s rest clearly

Preferred.

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Coast

Life’s Cliff

October 28, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Challenge, Courage, Creative writing, Dreams, Finding a way, Jagged, Poetry, WordOfTheDay, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 13 Comments

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

Until you manage to get

Past the jagged edges

Of life’s cliff,

You’ll dream of rivers

Soothing through

The valleys

Of What If.

Till then you’ll hold on

To old anchors

That keep you

Safe from doom,

And luxuriate only

In dreams of

Rappelling out

Of your fear’s womb.

For the Word of the Day Challenge: Jagged

Goose-Sitter

October 28, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Flying, Geese, Helping out, Kreative Kue, Micro-fiction, Migration, Pecking order, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 15 Comments

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“Do they really think you’re their mama?”

“Yep.”

She stared at the small flock of geese. There were still goslings, in a way, but they no longer looked like anything but full grown, feathers puffed, beaks out to get ya in the soft parts geese.

“They’re quite tame,” Luke chuckled at her wariness.

“Tell that to the bruise that this one over there left on me the other day.”

Luke’s chuckle turned full throttle laughter. “Miles was just trying to establish a pecking order. He’s fairly low ranking and you could’ve showed him his place. Instead, you freaked and he showed you his. It’s normal goose behavior.”

“Normal for you, perhaps. I’m a human. Not a goose mama.”

Luke patted one of the geese in what Darla swore was just a showing off. “Also, they are a little antsy,” he conceded. “It’s going to be their first real flight.”

Darla nodded, unconvinced. She was already regretting her agreement to take care of any stragglers. Luke was going to fly the flock — or any of the flock who were capable — through the whole migration route. Darla was to help with those who lagged behind or proved too weak. Luke already had two in mind that he believed would end up among them, including, of course, Miles de Munch.

She wasn’t sure how she got roped into agreeing. There was, of course, Luke’s contagious enthusiasm. And his charm.

Darla sighed. She’d bail out if it weren’t for the fact that they were due to leave tomorrow and there was no way Luke would have time to find a substitute goose-sitter.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Luke’s face lit up in a manner very much like the excitement that had led her to agree to shepherd biting geese in the first place. “We’re going on one last practice fly today. Wanna come?”

For Keith’s Kreative Kue 235

Perhaps

October 27, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Graduation, Hard work, Immigration, Job interview, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Sacrifice, Sunday Photo Fiction, WritePhoto 14 Comments

Photo prompt: Janet Puddicombe

The morning was overcast but the weatherman promised afternoon sunshine. “A perfect day,” the man in his not-quite-fitting suit gushed, and Lola felt protective. No one better dare mock him!

It didn’t take a doctorate to recognize what he woke in her: Her father, hiding repeated humiliations, readying to leave for yet another job interview that he already knew would likely go to someone younger and better educated, with no giveaway accent and a lighter complexion.

“Go get’em, Dad,” she’d tell him as he’d fuss over the knot of his tie or the papers in his attache.

“Thank you, Querida,” he’d say as he buttoned the jacket for his only suit, the one that didn’t fit him as it should. Or perhaps never had. He’d certainly gotten it off the rack.

She’d tried to convince him to get one tailor-made.

“I’m no big boss, Querida,” he’d always shrug her off. “Just a man looking for a job. Perhaps one day, Lola, when you’re a doctor, for your graduation, I’ll buy me one.”

She eyed his favorite flowers. Bought as she had those days, to cheer him up.

“Perhaps,” she whispered, buttoning her cape, “you’d have gotten that suit. Today, Dad.”

For the Sunday Photo Fiction challenge

In Two’s Company

October 27, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Analogy, Beautiful, City life, Double, foliage, Lens-Artists, Micro Poetry, New York City, Pair, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry 20 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

They stand together

Fully dressed

Their branches interlaced.

The streetlight hugged between them

Like a child

Held in embrace.

Note: all year long these two trees appear almost indistinguishable. Then comes foliage … and with it a different kind of double take for the glory people see.

For the Lens-Artists Challenge: Seeing double