Upending

November 24, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Belgium, Beliefs, Disarray, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Folklore, imagination, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Reflection, What Pegman Saw 21 Comments

Brugge, Belgium (Photo: Libby Penner on Unsplash)

Some call this city “Venice of the North,” but they don’t know the other direction this town goes, and it is not one of the winds.

I know, because I’ve seen it.

Seen what lies beneath the streets, glazed over by blind eyes of tourists snapping photos, dismissed by those who should know better yet still refuse to view.

For the ones beneath need acknowledgement to manifest. Not trust, recognition.

I know, because I don’t trust them. Not one bit. And yet they are there, plain as anything: The Upenders.

They’ve been here before people, and they expect you pay respects. Their mirage is reflected in the still waters of the canals, and when you let yourself go below the floor, beyond the basement, they’ll reveal themselves. If you won’t visit, beware. For when you least expect, they’ll rise to flip yours over, resentful of a willful ignorance of Upending.

For What Pegman Saw: Belgium

Cold Recalled

November 23, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: City life, cold, Lens-Artists, light, Memory, New York City, No Filter, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, snow 20 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

I remember

Past winter

Of old,

There was light

Shining warmth

In the cold.

I recall spring’s

Late blanket

White bold,

Under lamps’

Glow of soft

Molten gold.

For the Lens-Artists challenge: Cold

Not Long Enough

November 23, 2019November 23, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: caregiving, Creative writing, Grief, Longevity, Loss, love, Poetry, Relationships, saying goodbye, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 18 Comments

Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

“It will be long enough, for a life,”

He said.

She blinked back tears

And said nothing

Because she knew that no matter

How long he would be

Around

Would not be longevity

Enough

For her.

Instead, she patted his hand and

Plumped his pillows

And fussed with the covers

Over his beloved

Form,

Once robust,

Now a shadow of itself.

The shadow smiled.

He understood.

He always had.

At his last inhale, she smiled back.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Longevity in 76 words

Note: Dedicated to all tender goodbyes. Especially the final kind.

Fortified

November 22, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Fortified, Historical fiction, Micro-fiction, Photo Fiction, Resilience, Resistance, Secrets, Shelter, Trauma 10 Comments

They’d fortified the ceiling.

So they said.

The old structure needed periodical reinforcing.

So they said.

The thickness of the walls supported their claims. The deeply recessed windows. The heavy coats of paint on ancient plaster.

‘Twas all a ruse. Of course.

The false ceiling hid a warren of crawl-spaces and narrow hiding places. A stream of escaped slaves was followed by a flood of those fleeing Nazi persecution and thereafter a steady trickle of modern-day refugees.

The ceiling hid them all. Young and old. Broken and defiant. Desperate and bewildered. Men and women and the all-too-heartbreaking child.

Some stayed a night. Others for longer sheltering. Hilda had stayed the longest. A girl on arrival, she was almost a woman at war’s end. She emerged educated. In silence. In stealth. In compassion.

She became the guardian of those who followed.

Fortified with hope of one day needing it no more.

For the Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Note: Dedicated to all the heroes who — often at tremendous risk to themselves — had managed to shelter the needy, the desperate, the voiceless, and the vulnerable during times of injustice, persecution, violence, horror, and hate. To all who do so still. May we one day need to do so no more.

Side-Effects

November 22, 2019November 22, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Advertisement, Current affairs, Drugs, medicine, Poetry, Sale, Side effects, SoCS, Television, TV Ad, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 42 Comments

Photo: Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

They said it was the best thing for it.

They hinted that to forgo discussing it will

Mean all manner of awfulness

happening

(And would, perhaps, be partially my fault

For not taking steps to fix

By listening).

They showed how it would better

Everything:

My house, my shape, my friends

My job.

May even lead to what I never had

Or always wanted

But an illness was sure

To rob.

The ad said it was the best thing for it.

A discovery deserving of a

King.

If only my eyes hadn’t left the screen

To pluck an errant string,

Which had my ears

Abandoned

To the chatter —

Which had previously lay hidden

Under sprawling beaches

And smiling people

And every beautiful

Thing —

And I heard

The actual words

That listed

All the side-effects

(from death, to heart-attack, to vomiting)

That this supposed

Miracle drug

Was likely to also

Bring.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Flyer/Ad

Park

November 21, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Calm, Central Park, City life, Geese, Just for fun, Nature, New York, Poetry, Wildlife, Word Play 4 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

There’s a serene kind

Of beauty

Not far into the

Park,

Where the geese,

Quite majestic,

Will parade and then

Park.

One Thousand Steps

November 21, 2019November 21, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Commitment, Courage, Creative writing, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Morning, Mystery, Short Story, Unknown, WritePhoto, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 24 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

The snow fell softly in the early hours, blanketing a brittle frost with a bridal veil.

She undid the entrance flap and shivered in the chill. Her thin underclothing was not sufficient for the cold. She retreated back into the shelter to don her clothes, lace her cloak, and pull on her boots.

Still when she emerged from the tent, her breath caught in the frigid air. She welcomed it. She needed her wits about her, today more than most.

Her feet crunched over the frozen ground as she hurried to relieve herself by a nearby tree. The warmth leaving her body felt palpable. In it there was relief and wariness, both.

She did not fold the tent but she did not know if she’d return to it. What she did not carry along might not be seen again … and she would not be carrying much. She was warned to bring naught but herself.

“You’d have no need for anything,” were the instructions.

The words could be ominous or comforting. She wasn’t sure which it was and she didn’t think she was meant to be certain about it. Or about anything.

There was some food left in her pack, but her stomach did not feel ready for any digesting. She drank some water instead. It tasted flat and smelled of the container it’s been in, but it would have to do. She didn’t know where water sources might be found and even if she saw some on the path she didn’t think she’d be able to avail herself of any.

She shuddered again. Of fear. Of cold. Of worry. Of expectation. Of trepidation. Of all of the above.

It will be what it will. She had little choice now. She’d given her word, and what follows was not for her to decide on anymore.

She turned her back to the tent and began counting paces. The location for her tent had been marked. The one thousand steps were to be taken away from it, with the rising sun at her back.

She mouthed the numbers, ignoring the breeze as it tunneled under her cloak, the errant twigs that grabbed hold of her hood and deposited wet fluffs of snow on her hair, down the nape of her neck, on her back. No one had said what will happen if she lost count. She did not intend to find out.

The steps became a meditation of intent and tunnel vision. The world receded into the yard immediately ahead. Then the next. Then the next.

Nine hundred ninety nine, she breathed.

“Turn around.”

She jumped. The sound came from the space her body had just vacated.

She turned only to be blinded by the sun’s glare, rising through the narrow branches of a sapling. The light speared her.

When she finally adjusted, she was elsewhere. The forest was no more. The world as she’d known it, gone.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto

Warehoused

November 20, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Captivity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Micro-fiction, Tenacity, Trauma, Writing Challenge 56 Comments

The cells were small. Sturdy enough to keep them separated. Aerated enough to keep them alive. Near enough to let them marinate in each other’s misery.

What the jailers did not foresee, however, was how they were just close enough to offer comfort. Fingers laced through fencing let them hold hands. Almost.

Oh, they moved to corners when anyone came. Pretended to hate each other. Endured each other’s fake bullying that so amused their captors.

But in the silent moments they sat close, back-pressed-through-chain-to-back. Their ‘caretakers’ warehoused them like animals, but the children’s defiance held: they remembered they were siblings.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers