The Marianna

November 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Boat life, CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Home, Loss, Micro-fiction, New Beginnings, Photo prompt, Relationships, Sailing, Siblings 13 Comments

He did it. He’d pared it all down and tucked it all in and stocked her all up.

He was down to one set of waterproofs, two pairs of jeans, three tees, four pairs of socks, five undies, six favorite CDs, seven books.

He was going for eight apples, nine carrots, and ten bananas, but he ate two bananas walking back from the store. So there was that. In any event, there were many other odds and ends he didn’t count but that counted just as much: sleeping bags, towels and dishes and batteries, the manual pump. All the things that would make it home.

For it was going to be. Home. The first he’d ever owned.

This boat: The Marianna.

His little sister had always dreamed of living on one, and her yearning settled in him after she died.

He smiled at the sky. “Welcome aboard, Marianna. Let’s fly.”

For Crispina’s CCC #53

Slivers Of Dreams

November 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Childhood memories, Creative writing, Dreams, No More War, Poetry, Posttraumatic Stress, Sleep, SoCS, Soldiers, Trauma, Writing prompt 8 Comments

Photo: Marina Shatskih on Unsplash

All those dreams that he had

As a child

Snug

Under covers

At night,

His tattered teddy

In arms.

His dreams

Parsed out

Into slivers

When

Under stars

At war,

His battered rifle

The only thing

He could

Hug.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Dream

In The Shallows

November 14, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Breathing Space, Clarity, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Lake, life, Looking Glass, Meditation, Micro-fiction, Mirror, Poetry, WritePhoto 11 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

There was beauty in the shallows.

The mirror of the skies. The crystalline water in their unabashed reveal. The bottom — old and newer bits together — inviting her to step in and stir the quiet till it rises soft between her toes to momentarily obscure all things.

Opacity reassured her.

Like the enveloping from clouds when they leaned in close in misty acknowledgment, it held reminders:

That life was often muddy.

That clarity was temporary, hard won, and easily disrupted.

That fog spread quickly and lifted slowly, leaving damp disorientation in its wake.

That even shallows could reflect upended bowls of heaven and earth.

As if it heard, the water summoned her and she stepped into the silt. Wavelets nipped at her ankles, snapping cold against her skin.

Her toes disappeared, and she thought how apt it was to have her foundation hidden underneath a swirl of settling.

She breathed and closed her eyes and stilled and became one with the water, one with the sediment of time and the detritus of being.

Slowly, both the lake and her mind cleared.

She heard her spirit whistle on the wind.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto

Unspoken

November 9, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Clues, Creative writing, Current affairs, Flash Fiction, Messages, Micro-fiction, Refugees, Relationships, Secrets, Weekend Writing Prompt 15 Comments

Photo: Kelli Tungay on Unsplash

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

Instead he left breadcrumbs. Glowing pebbles on a midnight road.

Receipts. ‘Forgotten’ notes. His boots in the garage, muddy though the yard was not.

Liminal clues in hope she ask him where he goes …

Refugees sheltering in the woods.

Perhaps she already knows.

The mud this morning on her shoes.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Challenge: Liminal in 57 words

What She Ought

November 8, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Ditty, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Ought, Poetry, Rhyme, Silly, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Vegan 7 Comments

Photo: Monika Grabkowska on Unsplash

She looked so fraught

I thought she fought

For what she brought.

She apparently did not

But then still she almost forgot

To tell me of some fish she’d caught

And how distraught

The worms she bought

Were at the thought

That she decided that she ought

Just put potatoes

In the pot.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS challenge: “ght”

All Caught Up

November 4, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Oh-oh, Paperwork, Photo prompt, Relationships, Surprise, Unexpected, Writing Challenge 18 Comments

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She leaned back, took a long look around, and sighed in satisfaction.

He’d love it. She was sure he would.

It took three full weeks and dozens of hours, but now every piece of paper he’d ever owned was alphabetized and catalogued. The photos organized by color, location, and main character. The receipts tagged and ranked by preference: favorite things first, the things he’d never order again, last.

He was due home by nightfall. She could only imagine his delight.

The office was transformed. So was the garage. She even organized the nets and oar for an artistic touch. Bronzed all his mementos so they matched.

No more desk and drawers. No more folders. No more boxes with a mishmash of photos and cards. Goodbye to letters stacked together by arbitrary designations of correspondence, when they could be more logically sorted by zip code (or when there was none noted, ordered alphabetically by addressee’s given name and divided by paper-type).

It had been a Herculean task, but she was undaunted. Who but her would take it on to help him out?

She couldn’t wait to show him how she’d got him all caught up.

For Keith’s Kreative Kue #236

The Biggest Yield

November 1, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Generosity, Hard work, Harvest, Micro-fiction, Overcoming, WordOfTheDay, Writing prompt, Yield 11 Comments

Photo: João Silas on Unsplash

They never expected it to turn out as it had.

Sure, they hoped their hard work would bear fruit. Of course they put all they had into it. They needed sustenance, which — without gold or title or power or support or skill — meant they had to find a way to raise it.

Through thick and thin and cold and rain and mud and sun.

Some of it with bare hands. Some literally blindly, given their bad eyes.

They did what they felt they had to do. They just never expected to manage quite so well.

Not when all they’d ever been told was how unworthy and incompetent and incapable they were. A burden on others. Unproductive mouths to feed.

They’d soonest have believed they’d amount to nothing than that they’d amount to so much. Or have such plenty.

Enough to get through the winter and the early spring. Enough for next year’s planting. Enough even to give.

They had the biggest yield anyone had seen in years.

They never expected it to turn out as it had.

To have so much to eat, to be able to be those who feed.

It had to be the fairies, dusting magic onto their field.

For the Word of the Day Challenge: Yield

Nuts About Her

November 1, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Accommodate, Creative writing, Just for fun, love, Nuts, Poetry, Relationships, Sacrifice, SoCS, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 23 Comments

Photo: Herrmann Stamm on Unsplash

He does not like the new way the kitchen’s been done.

He does not like the curtains she’d chosen.

He cares naught for the way she turned the couch around

Or how she leaves the garage door open.

He will never get used to the stuff on her nails.

He detests hosting all of those book clubs.

He’s did not want his Foosball exiled downstairs

Or pink bottles to take over the bathtub.

Some days he thinks it had been better before

She showed up to give life a stir,

But she does make him laugh and he cannot ignore

The fact that he’s just nuts about her.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Nuts

Apple Picking

October 29, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing, Yummy Tags: Apple Picking, Autumn, children, Creative writing, Description, dVerse, Fall, Family, Poetry, Senses, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 38 Comments

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

He saw the gnarled trunk and the orbs

Round

And red

And green,

Undulating in the breeze that

Caressed his cheeks and flipped the end

Of his shirt up

Cool

On his tummy

When he ran.

He heard the crunch of grass-blades

Succulent

Under the smooth soles of

His shoes,

Each step sinking slightly into the

Soft

Saturated

Ground.

The thump of apple

Fallen

Filled his ears,

Alongside his own breath

Fast,

Excited

In his chest,

And the sound of his family

Drumming apples

Into their

Rustling plastic bags

And creaky wooden crates

And pinging metal pail.

He smelled the crushed grass,

The too-sweet scent of slightly

Rotting apples

On damp ground,

And a whiff of the caramel

That promised

One on a stick

For later on.

He stretched

To reach

Around the fruit,

The sky in his eyes and

The taste of last year’s

Treat

Faint and candied

On his

Tongue.

For the dVerse challenge: senses

Life’s Cliff

October 28, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Challenge, Courage, Creative writing, Dreams, Finding a way, Jagged, Poetry, WordOfTheDay, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 13 Comments

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

Until you manage to get

Past the jagged edges

Of life’s cliff,

You’ll dream of rivers

Soothing through

The valleys

Of What If.

Till then you’ll hold on

To old anchors

That keep you

Safe from doom,

And luxuriate only

In dreams of

Rappelling out

Of your fear’s womb.

For the Word of the Day Challenge: Jagged

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Photo: Sue Vincent

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