(Photo: Daniela Paola Alchapar on Unsplash)
They took the temperature
Of the crowd,
And realized they could
Twist skeins of truth into
Great blobs of knotted lies,
Then sell
As remedy
To now a fevered mob,
A distorted gospel
Bloated with melodramatic
Sighs.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Temperature in 37 words
(Photo: Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash)
There might not be an end to this, she thought.
It broke her heart to even think it. For she did not recognize herself in this thought. This worry.
Hardship was a familiar thing. She understood struggle. The effort of building muscle against force.
She knew suffering.
But not this. Not the deliberate harm.
Not the anfractuous path of sorrow inflicted purely for the sake of pain.
She knew not what to do with that.
Other than build a barrier around her soul to protect what was left, grieve for the need to do so.
And hope.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: anfractuous in 97 words
She’d see it on her way to school. A shell of itself.
A bit like her it was, she felt. Unprotected. Exposed to the elements.
Years later she returned to do her duty by those who birthed her. She took a walk, eager to escape the cloying empathy of people who knew exactly why she’d left. She saw it. Still a shell. But now a possibility.
“I’ll build you up,” she said. And did.
The thick walls welcomed her, insulating. The roof salvaged old beams into current protection.
A home at last. For old times sake. For new beginnings.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Susan Rouchard
(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.”
Prosery prompt: “I was where I am
When the snow began”
From “The Dead of Winter” by Samuel Menashe. Full poem here.
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
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
(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.
(Photo: Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash)
They were drawn in, unsuspecting,
By tales of glory finally
Being restored,
From a manufactured time of
Old.
Then kept in even when doubting
To go on,
Stuck, as it were, in
The eye of a hate filled
Maelstrom.
Spun, they were,
In webs of lies.
To leave they would
Need to give up
Pretended lives.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Maelstrom in 56 words
“It will have everything in it!”
Molly’s eyes shone in the dark and Gary was reminded of other eyes they’d seen reflecting in their torch beam. He shuddered.
“It couldn’t possibly have every thing,” he tried, just for the sake of argument.
She slapped his leg with her bare foot. “Don’t be daft. You know what I mean.”
“Chocolates?” A peace offering.
“Of course! Every kind of sweet!”
Molly’s stomach grumbled, and his answered. They were both of them hungry. At least the rain stopped so they weren’t quite so cold.
Perhaps tomorrow they’ll beat the garbage trucks to the bins.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Roger Bultot
“Remove these place settings.”
Michael felt his eyes widen, but he lowered his head in silent deference. Mister Cole was Boss. And what Boss said, went, kind or not, right or not.
There will be no seating of the couple who just walked in, dressed in their no-doubt-best, stars glowing in their eyes for each other.
Wrong skin.
“We are booked. Perhaps another place.” Mister Cole’s false-polite voice. Reserved for any he thought strayed out of their lane.
The woman stared pointedly at the empty table, at Michael’s dish-laden hands.
“Pity,” she said.
Shame burned Michael’s cheeks. The plates turned lead.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Sandra Crook
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