(Photo: Na’ama Yehuda)
Look yonder and you may see
What has, perhaps, become
Of me.
The good, the bad, we could
Agree,
Had gone to bed and woke up
Free.
Look yonder
And you will find
A key,
To what helps us
Grow
From one, to we.
For Sammi‘s Weekend Writing Prompt: Yonder in 44 words
“This place will never do,” Aaron shook his head.
“It’ll have to,” Ella tucked the edges of frustration back into the crevices that practice had made almost foolproof. Almost. One could not get complacent.
She’d seen what happened when one did, and the cost was never worth the temptation of release.
“We’ll make it work,” she added before Aaron could add argument to what they both knew will have to be managed anyway.
The steep plot of thicket-covered land was all they had. A measly inheritance, perhaps, but better than the debtor’s jail … and the ways one had to pay debts with one’s body. Piecemeal. By the hour. By the man. They could neither of them survive it again.
“It is a long way down,” Aaron acquiesced. “The stairs are rotted.”
“A longer way up for those who do not know the path,” Ella smiled. “We’ll do fine.”
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
They didn’t quite expect him to show up as he had, but most of them who’d known him weren’t all that terribly surprised. Not really.
Not when he had made himself comfortable under that very lamppost, every evening and in every weather, for as long as anyone could remember.
It almost made sense, then, that he would.
Manifest.
From the beyond.
Some began to keep a distance from that corner after dark.
Others, though, just walked on by.
“Evening, Mr. Barns,” they’d tip their head in the direction of his halo.
Even when alive, he hadn’t been known to respond.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
(Photo: Mabel Amber on Pixabay)
There was a moment between
Childhood and
Being almost
Grown up,
Where she knew that she would
Very soon be
Quite possibly
All tied up.
With chores and duties
Work and house,
Strung like eyes
On knitting needles,
In a knot of adult
Life.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: Knot
(Photo: Amitai Asif)
The sun took her leisure.
It was, after all, the longest day.
She could, till the next time,
Meander
Just a little bit
Across the sky.
Peering down at the blue marble
She raised a ray to salute
The tiny orbit.
Odd,
That one,
In how it keeps questioning
Why.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Orbit in 50 words
“Where is that boy gone to again?!”
Mama’s head appeared at the open doorway, floured hands held in the air as to not touch the shutters. The afternoon sun chose to appear from behind a mass of clouds and lit the hair around her face. The braid she’d pinned in place each morning was unruly by this time of day, and the hairs glowed like a golden crown. A smidge of white colored the edge of her eyebrow where she must have wiped at it with her baker’s hands.
“I’ll go look for him, Mama,” I tapped my sister’s shoulder and readied to rise.
Mama glanced at the sky and shook her head. “No, Mauve. Stay and finish this while there’s a daylight.”
I nodded. Bethany’s long hair was draped across my apron, with parts already pinned away as I went through it strand by strand to clear it of the unwelcome visitors we had found in it the other day. We would all of us suffer the consequences if my younger sister’s locks were not tended to immediately.
“Perhaps Lena knows,” Bethany mumbled, her cheek flush against my lap.
“Hmm.”
I would almost feel Mama’s eyebrow rise.
Lena lived in the next farm over.
A moment stretched, then the bottom flap of the door swung open and Mama stepped into the yard. She circled around so that Bethany could see her without having to move her head and upset my nitpicking.
“Well?” Mama prompted.
Bethany squirmed. Even at six, she knew a shaky ground when she was on it. Gossiping was tricky. Gossiping about one’s older brother was trickier still. Especially when one may want to stay in the favors of that very brother so he would carry one’s tired self on his shoulders or share a piece of his bravely harvested honeycomb.
“Out with it, Lass!”
Bethany sighed. Being out of Mama’s good graces would be far worse than anything Jimmy could dish out.
I caught Mama’s eye on the sly. She appeared cross, but I knew she was controlling her expression, and I did not trust my giggles (or hers) if our gaze met.
“I saw Lena sneak behind the barn earlier … with …” Bethany hesitated, “with a picnic basket.”
The path behind the barn led to the small meadow that terminated in a small wood on the banks of the stream.
“And?”
Bethany’s sigh deepened. Once Mama had someone on the hook, there was no slipping off it.
“And … I saw Jimmy with the pail and rod.”
Mama’s hands landed on her hips, flour forgotten.
Bethany gasped. I bit my lips.
“So the lad’s gone fishing,” Mama stated.
She turned half-away but I could still see her purse her lips against the chuckle. “He better not become the bait.”
For KL’s WritePhoto writing challenge – Thank you for continuing Sue Vincent’s weekly prompt!
Photo: Neptune Image by KL CALEY
They wove the curtained tapestry from centuries of hopes and dreams, and from billions of flower petals and puffy dandelion seeds blown into the wind.
They watered it with the misty breaths of “love me, love me not.”
Fed it with the light that emanated from eyes that had found the answer.
Knit it with the gentleness of fingers reaching out to hold.
Paced it with the heartbeats of the young and old.
All that was necessary.
The best of humans.
And it rose.
A cathedral of magnificence.
Delicate but strong.
Made with magic.
Laced with stories.
Wrought by fairies.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: © Liz Young
(Photo: Sue Vincent)
She stood before the wall. The exit. The entry.
Hesitant though the thunder of her heart under her chin sang of excitement.
And trepidation.
For how could she not be somewhat wary, going where she was about to.
The unseen.
The hoped for.
The warned of.
The dreamed about.
For she had dreamed of it, as many do and perhaps feel reluctant to share, for fear of hastening what is inevitable or courting what is feared.
She never did find death’s door to be morbid.
It was another entrance.
An adventure all would take and may as well embrace.
She stood before the oval opening. Ready to exit the womb of this world, perhaps be reborn.
The light receded.
The door creaked.
She passed through
To the unknown.
For the WritePhoto challenge … and for Sue, in her time of transition … We’re all here holding you in light and love.
(Photo: Simona Roubkova on Unsplash)
“What are you going to do with this thing?”
Leah shrugged, and watched as Marty circled the addition to their household, arms behind his back in what she thought of as his ‘Wannabee Inspector General.’
“It is useless,” he muttered.
“It is cute,” she said, and chuckled at the horror on his face. “In its own way, at least.”
For to be fair, the poor creature would win no beauty contests. Patchy hair, droopy eyelid, bloated abdomen. But there was a trusting glint in the blue eye, and a gentleness that sought her heart and hooked it.
“You’d do it mercy to put it down.”
“I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being,” Leah challenged. “If we can be of help, why not even try?”
She reached down to pet the pup. “Her name’s Pat.”
Prosery prompt: “I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being.” — Wisława Szymborska, “Possibilities”
For the dVerse prosery challenge
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