Photo: Tara Meinczinger on Unsplash
“Where’s Valentine?”
I peered into the other room. “Lollygagging.”
“Again?! I thought I told him to give up that nonsense. He’s way too old for this kind of foolishness. I’ll douse him with cold water!”
“He’s not osculating, Mama.”
“Stop being a Peeping Tom …” Pause. Sigh. Flick of the hand. “What’s he doing, then?”
“Just dawdling.”
“With whom?”
“His phone …”
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Lollygag in 60 words
Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
Look at that thing
With the wings,
Can it fly
Or can it sing?
Should we poke it?
Better not.
Press the fence
That keeps out tots.
For the JusJoJan daily prompt
“He’s never going to make it,” Benji declared.
Shelly shrugged. “I think he can.”
Benji twitched in irritation. “Mark my words. He’s never gonna make it. Not after all the eggnog he’d snagged.”
Shelly sniffed. Eggnog? There was eggnog? He wanted some!
Tilly wriggled between them and squeezed herself onto the couch. “What’cha doing?”
“Nothing.” Benji huffed.
“Ignore Benji, Sis, he’s just being his grouchy self.” Shelly scooted over a bit to make room for their sibling, who was younger by whole two minutes and by that officially the baby. Well, till the next babies had arrived.
“What is he doing down there?” Tilly squeaked. “If Mama sees him on the floor in the middle of the living room he is toast!”
“He’s trying to walk the line to the other side,” Shelly explained. Toast? Why’d she have to mention toast? Now he wanted toast.
“He’s walking funny,” Tilly noted.
“Of course he is. He’s drunk.” Benji muttered. “Now hush.”
“Sorry, Benji,” Tilly demurred, but true to form could barely keep herself still for half a second. “His tail is droopy. It is all in the tail, you know. He can’t keep to the line if his back-end is all draggy. Hey, Giddy,” she called, her whiskers trembling in excitement, “you can do it! lift your tail! It’ll give you better balance! It’s my turn next!”
It was better in the movie.
She’d slipped on the snow and had a wet imprint of her behind on her dress and a freezing spot in her lower back. His shoes got drenched when he’d stepped in a slush puddle, and generated awful squeaky sounds in every step. The benches needed deicing or they risked breaking their necks if they as much as tried to climb them, let alone jump around.
“I am sixteen, going on seventeen, and I’m going back inside,” she declared, teeth chattering.
“I am seventeen going on eighteen, and I’ll beat you to the house…”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
It was a quiet early hour at Headquarters.
Bernice was doing her nails. Bertrand had a foot perched on his desk and was clipping his toenails. Benny was (as always) squinting into one of his miniature rice grain paintings. Bella was snoring. Bonita was munching on crackers. Bruno was belittling Baron’s game-score. And Brittney, brittle as usual, was cradling the radio’s earphones even as she browsed the internet for interesting short film ideas.
Suddenly the switchboard sounded jingle bells and lit up in flashing green, red, and gold.
A Santa call!
In her fluttery rush to respond, Brittney almost dropped the microphone.
Bruno dove to save it. Those things were brilliant but brutally expensive. None of them wanted it docked from their pay for negligent breakage.
“North Pole,” he breathed into the mouthpiece.
“SOS! SOS!” The reedy voice could only be from one origin.
“Rudolph?!” Bruno rolled his eyes and hit the speaker button. The reindeer’s dramatic flair was brilliantly entertaining. “What are you doing on the radio? You know you’re not permitted.”
The radio screeched as Rudolph must have cranked the volume to its maximum.
“Shut up, shut up!! You moron! SOS! SOS!”
Bernice dropped her polish. Bertrand cursed. Benny’s rice grain rolled off the tray. Bella fell off her recliner. Bonita choked. Brittney fainted. Baron stared.
Rudolph was colorful but he was not prone to cursing.
Bruno’s cleared his throat.
“Sheesh, Rudy. Is it really an emergency?”
“Are you deaf? It’s an SOS!! Code Red. Code Red. Santa Off Sled. The darn temporary ladder that Brenda borrowed from Pottery Barn broke. Santa’s hanging by a thread! Send Feathered Fairy Fred!”
For Kreative Cue 240
“I’m telling you, Nym. She isn’t coming back.”
“But her drinking vessel is here.”
They both knew that she never strayed too far from it or for too long. There was even some liquid left in it.
Nelly made a doubting sound that gave him an urge to scratch her. Instead, he sniffed and looked again.
And of course the drinking vessel was still there, unemptied. It was the kind designed to not allow them any actual sipping. Not that he’d want to. The stuff that went into it was odoriferous and generally undrinkable. It wasn’t even real blood.
Still, it would be nice if she didn’t lock her drinks that way. It was insulting.
He’d tried to dip and lick once, but the one legged vessel was too tall and wobbly, and it tipped and rolled and fell and broke into small bits of ice that cut his tender flesh when he’d tried to walk on it. If he’d wanted to taste blood there were better ways for it than being reduced to licking his own.
He never got too close to one again.
“Come, Nelly,” he soothed his anxious, clucking friend. “We’ll nap now. I’m sure she’ll return.”
Photo: Anne Toet
Time had arrived
To make the shift
From frog
To handsome
Prince,
But then the kiss
When it was dished
Kept Frog’s
Amphibian
Bliss.
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Fantasy
Photo: Monika Grabkowska on Unsplash
She looked so fraught
I thought she fought
For what she brought.
She apparently did not
But then still she almost forgot
To tell me of some fish she’d caught
And how distraught
The worms she bought
Were at the thought
That she decided that she ought
Just put potatoes
In the pot.
For Linda Hill’s SoCS challenge: “ght”
“Peach jelly and olives?! Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
Jack shuddered. This may well be the end result.
Jill’s pasta sauce concoction reminded him of “after-school snack” on days his mother had to work late and the school-bus would drop him off at his uncle’s house. Uncle Simon would have a tall glass of bluish milk waiting, alongside a dish of crackers topped with lemon-lime marmalade and loaded with sardines.
The mere thought of Jill’s recipe gave him the runs.
Good. Saved by the throne.
“Sorry, Hon. I must’ve caught something at work. I better have plain toast.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Note: Dedicated to my cousin Noam, who reportedly loved sardines-and-jelly sandwiches. I remember being horrified by the very idea and saddened that he would never enjoy them again. Four years my senior, he died at war, just weeks past his nineteenth birthday. We miss you, Noam (sandwiches and all)!
She leaned back, took a long look around, and sighed in satisfaction.
He’d love it. She was sure he would.
It took three full weeks and dozens of hours, but now every piece of paper he’d ever owned was alphabetized and catalogued. The photos organized by color, location, and main character. The receipts tagged and ranked by preference: favorite things first, the things he’d never order again, last.
He was due home by nightfall. She could only imagine his delight.
The office was transformed. So was the garage. She even organized the nets and oar for an artistic touch. Bronzed all his mementos so they matched.
No more desk and drawers. No more folders. No more boxes with a mishmash of photos and cards. Goodbye to letters stacked together by arbitrary designations of correspondence, when they could be more logically sorted by zip code (or when there was none noted, ordered alphabetically by addressee’s given name and divided by paper-type).
It had been a Herculean task, but she was undaunted. Who but her would take it on to help him out?
She couldn’t wait to show him how she’d got him all caught up.
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