The Third Drop-Off

July 2, 2025Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Childhood Adversity, Childhood trauma, Finding a home, Flash Fiction, Foster Care, Friday Fictioneers, Micro Fiction, Social worker 57 Comments

“Is that it?”

The girl’s face remained pressed to the window.

“Yes,” the woman nodded. This was the third drop-off today and it better be less dramatic than the previous two. It was late, and she still had reports to write.

She thumbed the folder to remind her of the names, exited the car and walked around to open the child’s door. It could not open from within. For safety. Some kids escape.

“Come,” she said.

The child blinked, swallowed hard. “It looks nice,” she managed.

The woman’s eyes softened. “Yes. It does. I hope this foster placement works out.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © David Stewart

For Humanity

May 7, 2025Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: #NotOkay, 100WordChallenge, Experiment, Exploitation, Exploration, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Human Rights, Micro Fiction 22 Comments

A cage is a cage is a cage.

It doesn’t matter that they put colors and cute things and soft lights and children’s music. Nothing could mask the fact that they could not get out, that there was always someone watching, that there was no place to hide.

An experiment, they said. For humanity.

As if that made confiscating liberty a palatable thing. The withholding of sunlight. The absence of the outdoors.

They hadn’t given permission to rob their present as justification for the planning of others’ future.

But they were orphans. Disposable cogs in the wheels of interstellar travel hopes.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Lisa Fox

The Way Down

April 26, 2025Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Bridge, Depression, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Intergenerational Trauma, Loss, Micro Fiction, Mist 27 Comments

“The way down is longer way than it seems.”

Mama’s words echoed in her head, soft warnings or an encouragement, she never really knew. Never did ask.

Not even after.

Because she understood.

Every time the fog rolled around.

The wonder. The urge. The pull of the opaque. The damp air on her face, her heart, her bangs.

It was, perhaps, something in their blood that called their soul to enter mist.

And yet.

Torso pressed against the bridge, her city’s pulse drowning all sound,

She did not dare repeat what Mama had done.

Abandon.

Her daughter. Her young son.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Roger Bultot

Unbowed

April 13, 2025Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Abuse of power, Defiance, Determination, Finding a way, Poetry, Strength, Tenacity, Trauma, Weekend Writing Prompt 10 Comments

Photo: Khamkéo on Unsplash

She squared her shoulders

To the wind

Words spinning past

Her ears,

And stuck her chin

Out

To the freeze,

Refusing to

Bow

Or flinch.

“So fierce,” he chuckled,

Unamused.

Survivor, she thought,

Of your abuse.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Fierce in 36 words

Encircled

October 30, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Domestic Violence, Dysfunctional families, Finding peace, Friday Fictioneers, Micro Fiction, Seeking safety, Stop abuse 61 Comments

She set the biggest log in the center, then added odds and ends of driftwood to encircle it. The seagulls kept watch. Perhaps accusatory of her use of feathers.

“I’m sorry if it is one of your cousins,” she said.

A gull called. Her apology accepted?

She sat herself amidst the constellation, snuggled closer to the angel log, and drew her knees up to her chest.

“Sometimes a woman needs a circle of protection,” grandmother once said, a black eye contradicting or warning against errant timing.

“I am encircled,” she breathed into her knees. Her swollen eye throbbed.

***

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Lisa Fox

The Math

September 29, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Calculate, Current events, Endurance, Finding a way, Hard times, Math, MicroFiction, One step at a time, Tenacity, Weekend Writing Prompt 11 Comments

(Photo: Crissy Jarvis on Unsplash)

It was all about the math, he knew.

The breaths, the bites and chews and swallows, the number of small steps one takes, the flickers of their eyelids.

The sum of heartbeats.

It all seemed endless, but

He only had to endure one breath at a time.

A step after the other.

A blink. Each flutter against his ribs.

He dared not calculate, but still he knew it added up.

To when the awfulness will pass,

And life came back.

For the Weekend Writing Prompt of Calculate in 80 words

The Thing To Make All Things

September 15, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development Tags: Creativity, imagination, Micro-fiction, parenting, Poetry, Through children's eyes, Weekend Writing Prompt, What Not To Do 11 Comments

(Photo: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash)

It was going to be the thing

To make all things

Everything that they were meant

To be.

A remedy

For all the wants

And dreams.

“Ah, but you will surely bungle it,”

His mother said.

And crushed his dream

Instead.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Bungle in 41 words

Auctioned Off

September 9, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Auction, Current events, Distortion, Division, humanity, Righteousness, Truth, War, Weekend Writing Prompt 13 Comments

Photo: Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

It has become

A flag

To wave.

An identity to wrap oneself with

As permission to denounce

The Other.

Casting off compassion for some

As if it would occupy the space needed for

Zero sum care.

History versions, auctioned

To the highest bidder.

Adulterated variations for a fee

In ratings, rage, and righteousness.

The molested Truth

Auctioned off.

Her hands bound

Her essence starved

Of air

And light

Or hope.

Her very humanity

Splayed

Vulnerable,

On the block.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Auction in 78 words

Topsy

May 29, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Amusement Park, Everything's relative, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Micro-fiction, Not Recommended 35 Comments

She never understood the urge to willingly turn one’s world upside down and put one’s fate in the hands of minimally-maintained machines in the hands of minimally-trained college students who were likely more intent on ogling potential mates than on guaranteeing an in-one-piece return to gravity for riders.

Life was plenty adventurous enough without deliberate topsy-turvy.

And yet, there they were. Lining up to shell small fortunes for misery.

She stood at her window, nursing the weak tea that would have to do till the end of the month, and watched the roller-coasters hurl a screaming world around.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers