In A Moment

August 1, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Anticipation, Flash Fiction, Flying, Friday Fictioneers, Going home, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Trepidation, Writing prompt 34 Comments

Photo Prompt © Ted Strutz

She sat with her nose glued to the window, ignoring the roar of the engines and the bawdy chatter in her headphones.

It was cloudy when they’d taken off, with only little visibility. Now miles of forests stretched in all directions, the greenery as dense and impenetrable as her father’s face the last time she’d seen him, brooding and taciturn even by his own standards.

A glint of water sparkled in the distance and the pilot banked to the right to circle toward the lake. Suddenly she could not breathe.

It’s been a long ten years.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Rectangled View

July 30, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Awe, Day trip, Fish pond, fpj-photo-challenge, Photo Challenge, Photo prompt, Poetry, Rectangles, Toddler, View 3 Comments

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

Bright light shines

Onto poles

As egrets call

And small hands

Hold

Sight to

Behold.

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Rectangles

Freckled

July 29, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Beautiful, Creative writing, dVerse, Face, Freckle, Galaxy, Poetry, Quadrille, Universe, Writing prompt 44 Comments

Photo: Mehrdad Haghighi via Unsplash

Spattered,

Scattered,

Splattered

Like galaxies

Of reversed light

Upon the expanse

Of skin.

Concentrated pigment

On the canvas

Of the body,

They speckle

Like stars

Reflected

In the negative of film.

Beloved,

They dance upon

The nose.

A freckled

Symphony

Of brown and gold.

For the dVerse Quadrille Challenge

The Amateur

July 28, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Amateur, Communication, connection, Creative writing, Intimacy, Poetry, Relationships, Trust, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 8 Comments

Photo: Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

He was an amateur in

Matters

Of the heart.

Oh, he prided himself on being

An expert

Of the physiological

Domain.

And perhaps a tinkerer

In that

He was.

But he was not even

A dabbler

In intimacy.

He lacked all expertise

In the understanding of

Connection

Or trust

Or hope.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Amateur in 51 words

No Prayer Crossing

July 27, 2019July 27, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bhutan, Bridge, Crossing, Fear, Flash Fiction, Height, Karma, Micro-fiction, travel, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge 37 Comments

Photo: Faris Mohammed via Unsplash; Punakha, Bhutan

I glanced across the chasm. For someone born and raised in the Alps amidst sharp elevations, I was woefully unequipped. Sometimes I wondered what Karma I’d accumulated to explain it.

“You are protected, Dania.”

I looked up desperately at my mother, who wore an encouraging smile and already had one foot on the swaying bridge and a hand held out to assist me. Even as a baby I’d been known to tremble at the sight of any height, yet Mother’s optimism never wavered that one day her offspring would overcome what to her was an incomprehensible fear. She adored climbing.

Why she took me to Bhutan.

“This bridge is blessed,” my mother tried. “You’ll come to no harm.”

“I cannot,” I whispered, my legs shaking. Each prayer flag a flutter to match mine, the river vertiginous miles below. “No prayer will suffice. My very soul knows it’ll die.”

For What Pegman Saw: Bhutan

Cleaning Up

July 27, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Change, Clean up, Creative writing, Fire, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, New Beginnings, Restart, SoCS, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 24 Comments

lighted matchstick on brown wooden surface

Photo Sebastian Sørensen on Pexels.com

No amount of soap and water could clean up this mess.

Even if I were to try, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d go about it, or if the effort was worth the results. Perhaps it’d be better to burn the whole thing to the ground and start from scratch.

I eyed the matches on the stove and looked at what I could no longer justify keeping around.

I wouldn’t miss most of it. Or so I had to hope.

My fingers struck a match and I held the small flame to the ring, amazed as always by how easily it grabbed hold and circled to make a blue-yellow-purple circuit of heat.

The fire leapt and danced and hissed.

I sighed.

It was time to wave good-bye. I needed a fresh beginning.

I set the kettle on to boil, sat back down, and hit “Delete.”

For Linda’s SoCS writing prompt: Clean/Dirty

Flight Patrol

July 25, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Black and White, CB&W, Community, imagination, memories, Photo Challenge, Poetry, Stork, Story, Wondering 14 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

I watched its solitary fly by

And wondered if it felt

Lonesome for the many it had once

Belonged to

Yet left,

Or if it was a scout,

Holding a memory of a long-ago-known

Place to land

That others had forgotten

Or had misplaced the

Sense of.

Will it circle back to its own,

Flapping on the wing

In fatigued relief,

To let the rest know

It had found this night’s

Home?

For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Anything that flies

Day Trip

July 24, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Change, Day trip, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro-fiction, parenting, Plans, Train Station 33 Comments

Photo prompt: Sandra Cook

The day dawned gray and there was threat of rain, but she wasn’t going to be deterred by a bit of dirty weather.

She dressed him in his powder blue slicker and packed a bag with this and that. She weighed the idea of leaving the cumbersome stroller, but at three, though the boy liked walking, he lacked endurance for it.

“We going to see Papa?” he asked as the train rolled into the station.

She hesitated. She was loath to lie to him.

“Not the one you know,” she answered finally. “Though he may become it. We shall see.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Reading Time

July 23, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Writing Tags: blessing, children, Creative writing, fpj-photo-challenge, library, Photo Challenge, Poetry, Reading, Sculpture, Statues 5 Comments

Photo: Philip Coons

May the words wrap

Around you

In shade and in

Sun.

May a book grab

Inside you

To where stories

Abound.

May good tales sustain

Your

Every heartbeat

And sound.

May you find space

Aplenty

To create

Reading time.

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Sculpture

The Moon

July 22, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Dreaming, dVerse, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Moon, Nightmares, Poetry prompt, Trauma, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 22 Comments

Photo by George Desipris on Pexels.com

“What’s wrong?” I burst into her room with uncombed hair dripping from the bath and my bathrobe hanging half-opened.

She was sitting in her bed, sheets all tangled, the pillow clutched against her chest.

When she said not a word, I felt the terror rise inside me, too.

She’d had good cause for nightmares in the past, but it’s been years since any of those had woken her in such a state. Why now?

“What is it?” I crossed the distance from the door in three steps but dared not touch her lest my hands make her remember other ones, a lot less loving. “Can you tell me?”

She shuddered as if coming back from a great distance.

“I dreamt I was the moon,” she whispered. “Vast and cold and deathly airless.

“and,” her breath caught, “I dreamt that he found his way there.”

For the dVerse prosery challenge