Photo: Dikla Nachmias
Ladies of the borrowed time,
Mistresses of undemanding,
Mothers bearing down the twine
To faithful understanding,
Sisters of this Earth and sky,
Daughters threading needles of
Life verifying,
Girls who hearts ignore —
I hear you roar.
Do know:
Together we’ll weave words
From crying.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: roar
Photo: Mihai Surdu on Unsplash
It was partially because they needed to find something to focus on, and the months ahead stretched barren of anything worthy of looking forward to; and partially because they believed they had some yet-to-be-discovered organizational talents and this could be a good way to shine a little spotlight on them; and partially because they knew it was the last thing Mayor Perry would expect. The latter reason alone was worth the effort. Especially when it would be something he won’t be able to admit he was against and may even end up having to endorse.
So they planned a parade.
They enlisted friends’ cars for floats and roped in small sponsorships by neighborhood stores and minor celebrities. They tempted bands and cheerleaders from local middle-schools with free exposure and offered same for the martial arts students from George’s Judo (which, not to be outdone, was followed by the dancers from Teens’ Tap and Ballroom Ballerinas). They raised money (and attention) by holding bake-sales on stoops and organizing a popup donate-your-merchandise shop on the sidewalk in front of the library. They printed flyers and pinned them to bulletin boards then convinced store owners to tape some into their display windows, by telling them every one else already had.
Peer pressure worked.
Most people didn’t ask too many questions about why a “Celebrate Ourselves” parade was necessary, where it had been born or by whom or to what end. The general theme seemed good enough, and it probably didn’t feel right to be against celebrating who one was and what they belonged to and were included in.
They ordered “CO” shirts, stickers, and visors in neon-green, complete with an abstract sketch of a float-turned-banner-turned-thumbs-up to ‘carry’ the letters as the parade’s logo. They uploaded photos of themselves handing shirts to firefighters, visors to grinning grandmothers in the park, and an assortment of the stuff to slightly bewildered parents at the playground. The stickers were a hit with the kids.
They videoed themselves delivering a shirt to the mayor’s office, then sent the video to the local news, who shared it under the title: “The Mayor Celebrates ‘Celebrating Ourselves.'” Social media amplified it.
By the following morning the mayor was accosted by a reporter on his way out of the gym. The insistent young woman shoved a microphone in Mayor Perry’s face and asked whether he’d been asked to be the Grand Marshal.
“Not yet,” he mumbled.
An hour later they were in his office, neon-green shirts on, tailed by the reporter they’d tipped ahead of time for an “exclusive follow-up scoop.”
Soon enough a statement was issued and the news headlined: “Mayor Perry to Lead CO Parade.”
Sponsorships streamed on: The gym the Mayor belonged to. The bank. The local hospital. The Aerobatics Club.
Requests came in for satellite parades in nearby towns.
The national news picked the story. Talking heads nodded and argued the pros and cons.
Mayor Perry marched, neon-green shirt and forced smile on.
By the following year they ran for office, with the CO logo strategically in the background.
Celebrating themselves was fun.
For Linda Hill’s SoCS and JusJoJun writing prompt
She could feel them.
That’s why she came.
Why she took every opportunity she could to escape the drudgery of sewing and hoeing and weeding and feeding and washing and threshing and mending and tending and all the multitudes of tasks that never seemed to end and somehow only multiplied.
“It’s life,” her mother had sighed, when as a young child Mayra had burst into tears of fatigue and frustration when yet another basket of wash needed to be scrubbed. “We rise, we work, we eat, we sleep.”
Mayra, a dutiful daughter, had just nodded and sniffed and bent to her work. But inside her a restlessness rippled. She was expected to grow up to be like her mother: solid and stolid and capable. The capable part she was on path to mastering, if painfully slowly. But solid she wasn’t, in her wispy willowy frame, and stolid she could not be, when her feelings and thoughts bubbled in her mind like an ever boiling pot that used embers as if they were coals.
She would boil over. She would.
If she didn’t manage to find a chore that allowed her to put some distance between herself and the village and to reconnect with the souls amidst the stones.
They calmed her. They reached around her with fingers as wispy as her hair and plucked the edges of too-sharp words and smoothed rough irritation off of her being.
Most people avoided the stones. “They are haunted,” they whispered, as if that was a bad thing.
Mayra said nothing. Perhaps it was something in her that needed ghosts to sooth the places that she felt would otherwise burst and cause harm. Perhaps her difference drew her to what others knew to keep away from.
Still she came.
In secret. To avoid blame.
It was only when she was about to wed that she realized it had been her mother who’d conjured errands out of thin air for her, so the child could manage some relief.
“For some, this is life, too,” her mother smiled.
It was a rare transformation of the face that often showed so little beside focus on the thing at hand, and suddenly Mayra saw the girl her mother had been, reflected in the sky-hued eyes.
“You, too?” Mayra whispered.
Her mother’s eyes twinkled. The berries. The mushrooms. The bark. The herbs. The kindling that could not wait till the morrow to collect. All those times when her own pot was set to almost overflow atop life’s embers, hot as coals.
“I did, and I do. It is our grandmothers there, helping you.”
For Sue Vincent’s Write Photo challenge
Photo: Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash
It was to be a fervent
Vow
For all the things their souls
Allow
For hopes and dreams, and yet
Somehow
The time and place did not
Allow
And left them both perplexed,
What now?
For Linda Hill’s SoCS (and JusJoJan) challenge
Photo: Diego PH on Unsplash
I heard her wish
Upon a star
For what she hoped
Life’s tears won’t mar.
“May it be a
Stellar year,
Where future skies
Shine bright and clear.
Where truth holds sway
Where justice weighs
Where children can with parents
Stay.”
I heard her wish
Upon a star,
And prayed it echoed
Wide and far.
Thank you to the Ragtag Daily Prompt team for this apt prompt – I hadn’t participated as frequently as I might’ve wanted to, but I always enjoyed it when I did, and I hope to continue to do so in 2020. Also thank you all in this lovely WordPress community, for the many other prompts and company and comments and delight and creativity through the year! I’m so grateful! Wishing you all a happy, healthy, just, joyful, hopeful 2020, and may it herald a better decade than the one just closing.
For the RDP Tuesday Challenge: Stellar
As chores went, this was her favorite.
Granted, she made sure to keep her face flat and convey just enough tremulousness to allow it to be seen as challenging. Her superiors liked giving her challenges that needed overcoming. Especially when those could be served along with mundane duties.
She wasn’t supposed to have any, so she hid her preference. Yet inside her she rejoiced every time she was assigned the task. She was expected to approach every detail with utmost diligence, no matter the dexterity required. And at any height. Even on a rickety ladder.
Others trembled doing this, too, but hers was with pleasure, not fear. It felt like flying. She took her time, and the results were pleasing enough to be noticed. Or perhaps it was the added bonus of not having candle-wax drip onto one’s head mid-prayer.
Because before long she was made Keeper of the Chandeliers.
For Crispina’s Crimson Creative Challenge
“It says this way to the manor,” Doug tugged Lily’s sleeve.
“I know,” she shrugged to release his hold. At thirty-four, he was really quite too old to tug on clothing for attention.
“So why are we going in the opposite?”
She wondered how it was that there was a time when the nasal tone of his petulance didn’t bother her. Had she simply ignored it in the beginning, when infatuation took precedence to logic? Doug was still easy on the eyes, but her heart had become wiser.
“Because the manor will still be there later, while this Farmer’s Market stall might not.”
“What’s wrong with Big-Mart?”
Her lips tightened. She couldn’t believe he actually whined. “Big-Mart has no proper food. Everything’s processed. And anyway, I’d much rather support local farmers than corporate executives.”
She cringed at the sound of her own voice. She’d become her mother. To her boyfriend.
For Crispina’s Crimsons Creative Challenge #57
They were cold to the bone, but it did not matter once the light broke out to illuminate the edge of clouds.
“We’ll be home soon,” he breathed into her neck.
“I know,” she whispered, her teeth no longer chattering. She’d stopped feeling her toes so long ago she almost forgot she had ones.
It would have worried her, in the past. The risk of frostbite. Amputation. Loss of the ability to walk.
Not anymore.
They were beyond all these things now.
They were going home.
For the rest of time.
“How long?” she asked, fretting a bit in spite of herself. She never found transitions as easy as he had. Especially such big ones. Especially those that were irreversible.
“Soon,” his voice was barely audible but she felt it reverberate through her chest. The finality of it.
The knowledge.
His strength.
She sighed, and though he did not move she knew that he was smiling.
Another moment passed. Or perhaps it was an hour. She’d lost track of time now that it made no difference.
As her body chilled, her eyes stayed focused on the shimmering curtain of light. Its movement became the backdrop to the last views she will ever have of Earth.
Before it neared enough to carry them.
Home.
For all the eras yet to come.
For Sue Vincent’s Write Photo Challenge
Photo: Cristian Newman on Unsplash
To hug or to press
To hold and caress
To dismiss and impress,
To allow or forbid
To prevent or insist
To farewell and to greet,
To disrupt or respect
To allow or reject
To indulge or inspect,
To stop or invite
To instruct and ignite
To appease or incite,
To disarm and to heal
To pray and reveal:
Hands speak truth
Or conceal.
Inspired in part by Steve McMurry’s: Silent Language of Hands
Photo: Ofir Asif
She ran into the camp,
Braids streaming behind like ribbons
In wind,
Determined to be
Unbound
For a time.
The women raised their heads,
Weary from tending to
Crops and overtired babies.
This time of year was plentiful in many things but
Not in time.
“What is it, child,” her elder asked,
The rhythm of rocking the cradles of milk
And infant
Adding a lilt to her aged voice,
Raspy from smoky fires and chaff
Of time.
“Help,” the young one breathed,
And stalled,
Needy of air and flooded by sudden doubt.
“Speak up, child,” her mother snapped,
Tight with worry for a girl-child
Chased home,
And the shadows
of another time.
The camp stilled.
A baby woke in cry.
“Come help,” the lass repeated, indignant,
No longer shy.
“The creek rises and a cow is screaming
Across the arroyo.
We have no time!”
For the dVerse prosery challenge
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