Suspension

February 28, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Beyond repair, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro Fiction, Out of commission, Photo prompt, Suspended, Too late, Vehicle 40 Comments

“It cannot be saved.” The mechanic stuck stained hands in blackened pockets of oily coveralls.

Shelly tilted his head in bewilderment.

“Perhaps a new suspension…” he chanced. “A bit of wax or paint job.” Shelly could not recall the last time that the car was operational, nor how to do a thing on its behalf, but surely all that the conveyance needed was an odd term or two and the tinkering of a sufficiently grimy man.

“The only suspension that can help this pile of rust,” the mechanic muttered, “will be one that suspends it en route to wrecking.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Fleur Lind

Aloft

February 21, 2024February 21, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, Micro Fiction, Migrant Children, Migration, New Beginnings, Wagon 47 Comments

It was the opposite of everything. No more the steady breath of fire in the hearth. No more the solid oaken walls that Grandpa hewed and Grandma charred. No more the steady view that only seasons marked.

She was aloft atop the bedding, swaying on the ruts, the creaks of wooden wheels squeaking out of step with the team’s heavy clip-clop.

Another place awaits, Ma says, though where or what Faith couldn’t tell. How when all who’d gone before hadn’t returned?

Pa’s steady shoulders hitched with the reins. “Prepare,” he said. “We’ll circle wagons and there’d be chores ‘fore long to tend.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Alicia Jamtaas

For Old Times

January 31, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Childhood Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Home, Making meaning, Micro Fiction, Overcoming, Repair 32 Comments

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

Gamma’s Note

January 20, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Drive, Family, Flash Fiction, Micro Fiction, Note, Summoned, travel, Weekend Writing Prompt 11 Comments

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(Photo: Jonatan Balderas Cabañas on Unsplash)

They didn’t know what they’d find when they got there.

The note only said to, quote: “get your backsides to my place without a dally.”

One didn’t dally when it came to Gamma. Didn’t stop their speculating, though. The whole seven-hour drive.

They didn’t try to call. Gamma abhorred phones.

“The Devil’s in them things,” she said.

One didn’t argue. Now no one would.

She was in her chair. Waiting. Already cold.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Note in 72 words

Unmovable

January 18, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Fair, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hardship, hope, Micro Fiction, Siblings, Things Kids Say, Things Moms Say 33 Comments

“She’ll never,” Howey said.

“Still, she might,” Ron argued.

Howey shook his head. No use arguing. Ron couldn’t see what he chose to ignore.

Much like Mom, Ron was, if less pessimistic. Though Howey did worry that Ron, too, would ossify with hardship and time.

“If we did all the chores, perhaps?” Ron offered.

“She’d see that as us doing our duty,” Howey noted.

Ron’s face fell. He so yearned to see the fair!

“Maybe if we patch that roof she’ll thaw a little,” Howey added, seeing his brother’s disappointment.

“Thaw who?” Mom thundered. “Wash up. We go to town!”

For Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Jennifer Pendergast

Memory Lane

December 4, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Childhood trauma, dVerse, Flash Fiction, Memory Lane, Micro Fiction, Overcoming, Prosery, winter 16 Comments

(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.”

For dVerse Prosery challenge

Prosery prompt: “I was where I am
When the snow began”

From “The Dead of Winter” by Samuel Menashe. Full poem here.

The Enlightened

November 8, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Assumptions, Current events, End hate, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, History, Never Again, Students 26 Comments

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

Granny Gray

October 6, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Ancestors, Dreams, Flash Fiction, Flashback, Friday Fictioneers, History, Knitting, Micro Fiction, Witch Hunts 25 Comments

It was the hood that did it.

Toppled time.

She stood and stared. The store around her ebbed into a surf of sounds that no longer carried any meaning. The colors drained. Rainbow into monochrome.

Like the hood.

Devoid of dye. Just like Granny Gray’s.

Someone bumped against her arm, then tugged. A voice called. There must have been words. But they were drowned.

Like Granny Gray. When they had come for her.

Way back when. And in Greta’s dreams ever since she had taken on knitting.

“Like Granny Gray,” they said. “The child has the fingers. And the eyes.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Oceana

September 29, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Childhood Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Making it work, Micro Fiction, Nostalgia, Ocean, Sailing 23 Comments

They never understood, when they “put her into care,” that she already had all she needed: a trundle, a trunk, a life-vest, as many friends as any needed. Sure, she’d fallen overboard, but only in stormy weather, which meant all hands on deck to sound the “Lassie Overboard Alarm” and save her.

For years she pined. For the salt air. The open space. The freedom. Even for the callouses that Papa said were part of a sailor.

Now grown, and anchored by children of her own, the sea remained away.

But she could bring it home.

Create her Oceana.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers