Memory Lane

December 4, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Childhood trauma, dVerse, Flash Fiction, Memory Lane, Micro Fiction, Overcoming, Prosery, winter 16 Comments

(Photo: Juho S on Unsplash)

She had promised herself to never revisit those times. The best forgotten ones. And yet there she was, a small child in her lap, embers glowing in the hearth, the dog worrying a burnt crust, and her mind meandering down memory lane.

“I was where I am when the snow began,” she started.

The child shifted a knobby knee into a rib, and a cold replaced the sweet weight in her lap. Stolen coals, they were then. Collected under pain worse than whipping if she was discovered yet at the risk of frostbite and no dinner if she did not. She’d secreted an apron-full before the snow began, coating the path, incriminating every footprint.

For the payment, she bore scars.

“I was where I am,” she pushed an unneeded log into the fire. Just because. “Yet now the snow scares me none.”

For dVerse Prosery challenge

Prosery prompt: “I was where I am
When the snow began”

From “The Dead of Winter” by Samuel Menashe. Full poem here.

The Enlightened

November 8, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Assumptions, Current events, End hate, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, History, Never Again, Students 26 Comments

We were not supposed to be afraid of them. After all, they were the articulate. Inquisitive. Supposedly enlightened.

It was the latter which scared us. The assumption. The expectation that if they have found their way here, they are automatically allies, and not foe.

And yet, they marched with those who sought to do us harm. They justified what should not be. They claimed superiority through intellectual high-ground dressed as morality.

A repetition. It was. Of the past.

And so we learned to hide. Our names. Our true identity. Our truth.

Lest we be hunted.

In the name of peace.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo credit: © David Stewart

Fence

October 13, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Current events, Distrust, Division, Etiology, Friday Fictioneers, Hate, NonFiction, Now what, Poetry, Separation 20 Comments

They built their house on the other side of the fence.

The far end of the bay.

To stay away.

Others aren’t like us, they’d say.

We’re better.

People don’t understand that

They’re nothing like us.

They built their house on the other side

Of the fence.

Taught their kids to hate

The Others

For not being

Like them.

For being

Less worthy.

Less than.

They build their house on the other side of

The fence.

The town gawked

First

Then shrugged

Then came to believe

That indeed

They were different,

Even dangerous

On the other side of

The fence.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Rowena Curtin

Not a Zero-Sum

October 10, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Memoriam, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Current events, End cruelty, End hate, Enough, humanity, pain, Put children first, Terror, Terrorism, Trauma, War 16 Comments

(Photo: Jose A.Thompson on Unsplash)

Heartbreak is not a zero-sum game.

Pain is an and/and.

Destroying another is not a condition

Or proof

Or sign.

Being right or being wronged is not exclusive.

To anyone.

I will condemn

What should never

Be done.

I will not hate a People.

I will not celebrate harm.

I will not justify terrorism,

No matter the desired outcome,

Nor the hurting of children

In ‘payment’ for what someone has done.

I cannot see a space where rape or massacre,

Are ever, ever, a moral ground.

Heartbreak is not a zero-sum game.

Inflicted pain is not a battle won.

‘Collateral’ is not a term,

For anyone.

Babies aren’t worth less,

In another’s arms.

Granny Gray

October 6, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Ancestors, Dreams, Flash Fiction, Flashback, Friday Fictioneers, History, Knitting, Micro Fiction, Witch Hunts 25 Comments

It was the hood that did it.

Toppled time.

She stood and stared. The store around her ebbed into a surf of sounds that no longer carried any meaning. The colors drained. Rainbow into monochrome.

Like the hood.

Devoid of dye. Just like Granny Gray’s.

Someone bumped against her arm, then tugged. A voice called. There must have been words. But they were drowned.

Like Granny Gray. When they had come for her.

Way back when. And in Greta’s dreams ever since she had taken on knitting.

“Like Granny Gray,” they said. “The child has the fingers. And the eyes.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Ted Strutz

Starburst

September 30, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Birth, Energy, Imagery, New Beginnings, Poetry, Radiate, Star, Universe, Weekend Writing Prompt 4 Comments

(Photo: Casey Horner on Unsplash)

They gathered in formation. Pressed close against each other, every atom tight, compressed, readied for flight.

The energy reverberated. Excitement climbed.

“On your mark!”

They huddled to the center.

Bright. Bright.

“Let go!”

Radiate out!

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Radiate in 35 words

Oceana

September 29, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Childhood Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Making it work, Micro Fiction, Nostalgia, Ocean, Sailing 23 Comments

They never understood, when they “put her into care,” that she already had all she needed: a trundle, a trunk, a life-vest, as many friends as any needed. Sure, she’d fallen overboard, but only in stormy weather, which meant all hands on deck to sound the “Lassie Overboard Alarm” and save her.

For years she pined. For the salt air. The open space. The freedom. Even for the callouses that Papa said were part of a sailor.

Now grown, and anchored by children of her own, the sea remained away.

But she could bring it home.

Create her Oceana.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers