The Raise

March 30, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adventure, Blending in, Curiosity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro-fiction, New York City, Runaways, Street life 34 Comments

r-bultot-street

“Will you stop it already?”

Davie swallowed a sigh and lowered his eyes. He was making them stick out like sore thumbs.

“Only tourists and amateurs look up,” Bessie admonished, kicking a dry piece of sidewalk gum. “Real New Yorkers have already seen everything.”

Perhaps, but he had yet to. And he wanted to notice. Everything. Who lived in the tall building? Whose shoes were tied overhead? Why? Was it a memorial? A gangster’s territorial?

“Raise plow,” he read, imagining. He was looking up again.

“If we’re caught,” Bessie hissed,”the only raise you’ll get is welts from belting.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Roger Bultot

Green Grace

March 26, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, Deserted, Discovery, Flash Fiction, friends, Greenhouse, Kin, Loss, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Professor 18 Comments

ccc176-

“I didn’t even know where she lived.”

Maya shook her head, agreeing. “Don’t think anyone knew.”

“I did,” Sydney whispered.

Deena and Maya turned to her and stared. Tears made a path through the makeup on Sydney’s cheeks, ruining an hour’s worth of work in front of a mirror.

“Spill …” Deena demanded after Sydney said no more. “You brought us here!”

“Yeah,” Maya echoed, encircling the overgrown garden and weed-filled greenhouse with her arm. Goodness knows the condition of the stone cottage. “How come you know where Rock-For-Heart…” she shrugged apologetically at Deena’s kick. “Sorry, now that she’s, um, gone…where Professor Rockfort lived?”

Everyone gave a wide berth to the gruff professor in musty tweeds and bushy eyebrows. Her snap was prodigious, and her marks were stingy. Why would anyone even want to know where she lived?

“Her name was Grace,” Sydney sniffled. “And she was my great-grand aunt.”

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Anew

March 23, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, History, Home, Memory, Micro-fiction, Nothing is Impossible, Old and New, Revisiting, Ruins 36 Comments

bet-shan

She took the bus to near as possible. Then walked. A few cars honked, perhaps to offer a ride. Perhaps to get something she wasn’t offering.

She waved them off. Walked on.

It made sense to arrive by foot. As in the times before.

The times she should have no way of knowing, yet did.

Remember.

They’d tried to put her behind locked windows between soft walls when she first tried to speak of it.

She had learned not to.

But her soul knew.

And there it was. As then.

Almost.

The stone crumbling, yet still her olden home.

Anew.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Hallowed Sleep

March 19, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Catacomb, Dreams, Flash Fiction, Life and death, Life Lessons, Micro-fiction, Sleep, Teachings, Weekend Writing Prompt 13 Comments

(Photo: Amitai Asif)

She didn’t know that where they lived was sacred. She thought all places of sleep were.

“When the body rests, the soul may travel,” her grandfather taught. “The dark makes space for dreams to manifest.”

She never doubted this referred to sleep of various lengths.

Hers, which ended when she woke. Others’, who slept on.

The catacombs were home.

To her.

To them.

One day her grandfather did not wake.

His voice now traveled in her dreams.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: catacomb in 77 words

Inside Job

March 17, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Encourage, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Make the most of it, Making do, Micro-fiction, Survival 25 Comments

gate-photo-promt-unknown-submission

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like on the outside …”

“Yea,” Elianna intoned, “it’s what on the inside that matters.”

“Exactly,” Jennifer winked. To be easily discouraged was a privilege of the young. Something time cured. Or tanned into tough old leather. She chuckled.

“What?” Elianna sounded wounded.

“I was laughing at myself, Eli.” Jennifer tested the length of her chains. Sink to bed to door. “We can do not a thing about that horrid gate or those who guard it, but let’s put some elbow grease into this door and make our inside view a good deal better.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Brenda Cox

Or So He Claims

March 12, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Current affairs, Moral compass, Narcissism, personality, Poetry, Purport, Relationships, Standards, Unacceptable, Weekend Writing Prompt 25 Comments

(Photo: Sandra Grünewald on Unsplash)

He would not ever harm

Another

Soul.

Or so he claims.

He says he doesn’t see the benefit

Of such a

Game.

His very words

Exclaim

Just how incapable he is of

Admitting blame

Or having even the

Appearance of

Shame.

It is clear to her that what

He purports

To be,

Makes him the very

Opposite of who

She will agree

to see.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Purport in 64 words

Stable Home

March 9, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Home, Making do, Micro-fiction, Priorities, Seeking safety, Stable, Survival 42 Comments

lisa-fox-stone-cabin

They thought it mattered to him that it wasn’t fancy. That he’d care it was damp. Or old. Or cobbled together from what materials could be found.

They were wrong.

All he ever wanted was a roof that did not leak, a hearth that could be lit, food enough to fill his belly, safety in his sleep, a bed that did not bite, walls that did not threaten to collapse about his ears.

The cabin was all that.

And more.

Sure, it had housed horses, and smelled of them, sometimes.

It only made it more a home.

A stable home.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers