Bill’s Bull

July 27, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adventure, Cousins, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Jealousy, Making the most of it, Micro-fiction, Midas Touch, Opportunity 26 Comments

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“What a dump.” Larry kicked at a holey plastic disk on the dusty ground.

“Perhaps,” Bill acquiesced. “But it is my dump.”

“Fit for a match,” Larry snickered. The place stunk.

Bill regarded his cousin. He recognized the green-eyed monster behind the hooded eyes. “Perhaps,” he replied finally, “but I foresee another kind of match.”

“Like what?” Bill had the Midas Touch. It drove Larry nuts, but maybe this time he’d get some of it to rub off on him. Could use some green.

“Plastic sheeting, sprinklers, plants.”

“Bullshit.”

“Already got plenty here!” Bill laughed. “Used to hold animals, that.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Bill Reynolds

Into The Void

July 20, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Current events, Discovery, Endless, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, friends, Micro-fiction, Mystery, Universe 61 Comments

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“What are you staring at?”

Tallulah did not move.

“Earth to Tallulah!” Maritza hissed. This professor had antennae in the back of his head, and she did not wish to flunk. Again. Also, if Tallulah had the audacity to skip class, and for vacation, no less, the least she could do is entertain her bored-to-death friend.

“It’s endless,” Tallulah whispered. Her eyes appeared locked onto the cafe’s table.

Maritza shuddered. “What exactly did you order?” Tallulah was so maddeningly naive that who knows what ‘house special’ she might agree to try.

“The universe,” Tallulah breathed. “The lights in the deep.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Fleur Lind

Tall Tell

July 13, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Dessert, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Humor, Just for fun, Lamppost, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Relationships 23 Comments

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“Why this thing?”

“They don’t like pancakes.”

Stella frowned.

Stephan chuckled. Too serious for her own good.

Her stare continued. He wanted dessert. He demurred.

“Bad accident last year. Someone got run over.” He slapped his palms for emphasis. “Totally.”

She kicked his shin.

“Ow!”

“Not the Stop sign, the lamppost! Too tall.”

Stephan’s eyes traced up to her manicured nail.

“Ah, they had to.”

Stella lowered her glasses. Warning or curious? He couldn’t tell.

“That family of giants down the street? Any shorter and the lamp ignites their hair.”

Forget dessert.

Her glare incinerated what chance he had left.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo by: © Dale Rogerson

Bronzed

July 10, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bullet ants, CCC, Coming of age, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Getting through, Micro-fiction, Ordeal, Photo prompt, Ritual 23 Comments

“How will I know it’s over?” Marika fretted.

“You will,” Jurena assured. A month older, she was already Bronzed.

“But …”

“But nothing …” Jurena lowered the edge of the tent and stole away. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Marika. Especially not tonight.

Marika listened to the silence. She shivered and tried to not think of Undine, her neighbor, who had never reappeared. Not all did.

The darkness filled her, thick as molasses. Her limbs grew heavy. Her ears began to ring.

Perhaps it was the magic.

Perhaps it was that drink.

Shadows entered, and Marika’s mind filled with molten spears, lava on dried grass. Encroaching. Coming near.

The fire lit her from within. The biting ants. The heat. The pain.

She screamed.

Perhaps she dreamed.

By dawn the elders had removed the gloves. The bullet ants were still.

Marika’s hands were bronzed with stings.

An adult’s.

Her childhood scoured clear.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Note: I don’t know why this photo brought up the image of a years-ago-seen video about Initiation With Ants video, filmed by National Geographic. But for some reason it did, and so I let it take me where it wanted to lead.

Restashed

July 9, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Difficult decisions, Dreams, Flash Fiction, Going back, Micro-fiction, On hold, Poetry, Return, Weekend Writing Prompt 15 Comments

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She packed her bag and stashed

Her dreams into the

Locket

That held them

In the past.

She shut the door

And sighed.

She must

Return to what she’d left

Behind.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Return in 31 words

A Hundred Sleeps

July 6, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Sleeping Beauty, Spindle, Spinning Wheel, Stories 41 Comments

(Photo: © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields)

It will only be a hundred sleeps. They said.

What length a sleep would be, they didn’t speak.

She will awaken once the sleeps are done. They said. With eyes that darted and rounded shoulders that hid words and fingers that kept fiddling with the thread.

Nothing, she observed, of how she’d be upon awakening. What she might become. Who would tend her.

If she’d dream.

Will she still know herself? Know them?

“Only a hundred sleeps,” they said.

She turned sixteen.

They pressed her finger to the quill spindle.

Blood bloomed. Dark came.

The curse.

A yarn. A spin.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Not His Kind

July 2, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Finding peace, Flash Fiction, healing, Home, kindness, Micro-fiction, Relationships, Starting over, Weekend Writing Prompt 33 Comments

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(Photo: Daniel Diesenreither on Unsplash)

When he first saw her, he thought, no way!

After all, he preferred the quiet kind who’d let him listen to the crackle, to the silence, to the breathing of the cabin’s logs.

He thought her flippant. Voluble.

Disrespectful of tranquility. Wasting words.

But she’d been sent, and his household needed a woman.

So he endured.

Till he heard her soothe a monologue of comfort into his orphan’s ear.

And his heart turned dear.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of Flippant in 74 words.

The Lost

June 30, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, CCC, Cult, despair, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Rescue, Trauma, Tyranny 9 Comments

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It wasn’t the hunger. Or the cold. Or the worry that their bruises won’t have time to heal before another layer made lace of the colors on their skin, to serve a lesson in horror and morals for their kin.

It was, more than anything, the despair.

The utter loneliness within.

The feeling that there will never be another way to be. Another way to live. Another place to be.

For the Commune was The Law, and The Law was The Faith, and The Faith was the whip and the rope and the cellar’s dirt floor.

The Law was everything.

Until.

That day when someone – who some later said was of the lost who were forbidden to be let back in – breached the fences. Ignored the “No Entry” sign circling the fields. Climbed through the grasses.

With a lens. And later, with the law.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Bookended

May 11, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, adoption, books, Childhood Adversity, Finding a home, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Getting ready, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Support 46 Comments

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She stood back to appreciate her handiwork.

A mix of tidiness and lived-in disarray. The books. The pillows. The cozy afghans on the couch.

“She’ll love it,” he said from behind her, and she jumped. She hadn’t heard him enter.

She leaned against his chest. Felt the thrumming of his steady heart.

“How do you know?” she fretted.

“Because it’s not about perfection, but about having enough support so that no matter how you wobble,” his hand rose toward the bookshelves, “you’re bookended by love.”

She kissed his palm.

“Let’s go get our new daughter, then. Bring her home.”

For Rochelle’s FridayFictioneers

Photo: Dale Rogerson (thank you for the homey, inviting photo prompt inspiration! This room makes me wanna curl up with a good book on the couch. xoxo, your NYNF)