All Things Considered

January 7, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Anxiety, Desk, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Loss, Micro-fiction, Order, Organizing, Poverty 46 Comments

All things considered, she had everything she needed.

More than she thought was there, really. More than some might consider necessary.

She leaned back in her chair, then leaned forward to straighten a stray implement. Adjust another.

“Orderly desks make orderly minds,” Papa always said. Pointedly.

She might not manage to get much order in the latter, but she sure could try to tame the chaos of the former.

And it did look better organized, she had to admit.

Now, if only the desk could fill loan applications. Or order funds to her account so she could pay the bills.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Jan Wayne Fields

Take No Chances

September 23, 2020September 23, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Anxiety, Cooking, Creative writing, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Garlic, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Precautions 60 Comments

It was best she took no chances. She knew how it could all turn on the smallest thing. The tiniest omission could spell disaster. Wait, better not even say that word. Best not forget the salt. She did not want to let misfortune in.

She hurried to and fro, assembling, braiding, tossing, turning. Now, where was that garlic? Best peel a few more cloves.

Whatever bad things had potential to upset this, she was not going to allow them to. Not on her watch. Not in her house.

Not when her in-laws were coming to dinner for the first time.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Top Dweller

June 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Animals, Anxiety, caregiving, Climbing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just because, Ladder, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Rescue 61 Comments

Photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

She peered anxiously through the glass. He should have called someone. Who climbs up metal ladders in this frost? What if he falls? Breaks something? Who would care for him? Care for her?

She pressed a knuckle to her mouth, too afraid to call out lest her voice startled him.

“Aha!”

The sound came with a ladder-wobble and she almost screamed. How can he do this to her? He knows she cannot stand to be stressed!

A moment later his foot descended.

Wobble.

Stop.

Wobble.

Next.

Then his elbow.

With a miserable-looking kitten cradled in the crook of his arm.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

The Bubble

March 17, 2020March 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Anxiety, Being in the moment, Biology, Crisis, Emergency, Flash Fiction, Just because, Just for fun, Kreative Kue, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 17 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

“It is the only way!” he insisted.

She shook her head. She understood his urgency but he’s been going on about a string of crises for the last two hours, and her bladder was threatening to win the Battle Of Emergency.

“Are you even listening?” his voice rose, reedy with strain.

She took a breath, curbing the depth of it as to not add to the internal pressure. There was no rest-stop in sight. She began wondering if the wall of a nearby metal shipping container would have to do. With any luck, no one would be peeking out their window or strolling by or who knows.

“I really have to go,” she tried.

He exploded. “Can you stop thinking about yourself for a moment and actually take this in?!”

Her bladder cramped. Did he seriously just say “take in”?!!

He was known for working himself into a tizzy, but his anxiety and whatever issues the current times awoke in him, did not give him license to be disrespectful. “Start the car,” she bristled. “We’re leaving.”

He glared at her as if she grew antennas, which she thought was hilarious given the circumstances and his ideas. Laughter began to bubble in her belly, but she didn’t think her pelvic musculature could manage the added demand.

“We can talk more about building your floating sphere,” she added, regretting her choice of words almost as soon as it left her lips, yet finding herself unable to conjure any other imagery. “But if you don’t get me to a bathroom in the next three minutes, you’ll have to wade through bigger waters than what this world saw during Noah’s flood.”

For the Kreative Kue challenge #254

The Sounds In The Silence …

February 15, 2017February 15, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adopted Children, Anxiety, Current events, Immigration, Silence, speech-language-pathology, The Daily Post, The Sound of Silence, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development 2 Comments

“Hello darkness,

My old friend,

I’ve come to talk to you again …”

The song plays incessantly in my head, sparked awake by the words of a pre-teen who shared her nighttime worries with me.

She finds it difficult to sleep. Her ears strain to pick up any errant sound: A car’s brakes, a slammed door, people’s voices, steps, a distant bark. She’s afraid they’ve come.

She’s been told she shouldn’t worry. She’s done nothing wrong. Yet there are those who hadn’t, and still had loved ones taken. And she’s not from here. Not really. Not from birth, anyway.

What if the rules change and she’s deemed “returnable”?

What if they keep her away from her parents, send her back to where she’d come from? What if she cannot find the words, if they not let her explain that she is finally, finally, home?

She lies in bed at night. Listening. Making and discarding plans. Fretting in the dark.

Maybe she’ll hide. But where? Someone at school said they sometimes have dogs. She loves dogs. Police dogs — beautiful and focused and proud — never used to scare her. They do now. At their handlers’ command, they can hunt her down. She’s seen it. On TV. In her mind. Now her dreams.

“I listen to the sounds in the silence,” she whispered, eyes bright. “And I wait. Even in my dreams, I listen … and I cry when they come.”