4T

July 24, 2020July 24, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Allegory, CCC, Corruption, Current affairs, Discrimination, Dystopia, Flash Fiction, Government, History, Micro-fiction, Persecution, Photo prompt 25 Comments

max-headroom CrispinaKemp

Luke eyed the sign ahead.

“I won’t be allowed in,” he sighed.

Sarah scrunched her forehead. “Maybe they won’t notice?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. He was 6’8″.

Of course they would notice. It was a stupid thing to say. She blushed. “I’m sorry, Luke. I mean, it’s just so unfair!”

He nodded. Such rules often were. Still many tended to accept, even embrace, ‘patriotic regulations’ … until caprice hit close to home. Or in his case, on the way back to it.

He had pooh-poohed the risk. What folly.

He wouldn’t be allowed into the City. Even though he’d been born and raised and lived there. Had committed no crime. He was banished. They’d expel him if he were still home.

The militia could shoot him on sight. Neighbors would be expected to report his presence. As of that morning, anyone above 6’6″ feet was considered a 4T security risk – Too Tall To Trust.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Not Welcome Here

March 20, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: COVID19, Current events, Gaslighting, Government, humanity, No More Hate, Pandemic, Poetry, Society, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Truth 12 Comments

Photo: Franck V. on Unsplash

You are not welcome

Here,

With your

Contaminated fear.

You are not welcome

Here,

With words that hurt

And terms that mean to harm, divert,

Self-aggrandize, and

Smear.

There is a bigger risk

In hate

Than in keeping

Near.

You are not welcome

Here,

If you weaponize worry

To steer

Away from empathy,

Away from truth,

Away from the real challenges we share

As we ride great distances

On this one

Sphere.

Call this by its name.

Not by the rhetoric

Of racist,

Misinforming

Jeer.

Address it not in

Murky swamps

That deliberately

Throw mud into the

Gears.

Humanity is better

Than your insatiable need

To infect the

Atmosphere.

We’re on to you.

We see.

We hear.

We will hold steady to what

Matters.

We support the hardworking, factual and

Compassionately

Sincere.

But you?

You are not welcome

Here.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Welcome

Shattered

February 1, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Betrayal, Creative writing, Current affairs, Government, Injustice, Looking Glass, Oath, Poetry, Politics, Tyranny, Weekend Writing Prompt 10 Comments

Photo: Jamie Street on Unsplash

The hammer rose, the gavel dropped

As justice found no peace.

Corruption forced doors closed

And barred.

The records sealed.

The future scarred.

And through the shards

Of looking-glass

Died efforts made for

Governance.

The People found

Their oaths destroyed

By those fawning

Over naked

Emperors.

The tatters of longstanding laws

Reduced to rags under the feet

That now dance

Only to

Heil deceit.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Looking-Glass in 64 words

After-Party

September 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Allegory, Assembly, control, Current affairs, Flash Fiction, Freedom, Government, Micro-fiction, Sculpture, SPF, Sunday Photo Fiction, Tyranny 14 Comments

Prompt photo: Pixabay

They were going to put them there to remember, they said. To frame the recollections of the community, so none of what had happened be forgotten. That’s what they said.

It was meant as a memorial of sort, they said. A referendum of the eye. Intended to draw the faces upwards and lend a sense of a somber chaos, carefully controlled.

Perhaps it was all that. Yet it was so much more.

For the installation was also meant to keep the chairs out of reach. To take away the possibility of seating. To have people stand and look and move on, rather than linger or make themselves oh-too-comfortable. Again.

Because it was the idleness – those in power believed but did not say – that had led to the gatherings and speeches and protests and that weekend party-turned-riot. People got too comfortable in using public spaces as if those were a right rather than a privilege. They sat. They lingered. They huddled together and began to think they should have the power to decide how they passed their spare time, where and who with they sat. Mutiny, it was.

The police were sent to squash it.

And put all the chairs up.

For Donna’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

Emperor’s New Clothes

June 7, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Current affairs, Ethics, Government, honesty, Loyalty, Poetry, SoCS, The Mueller Report, Truth, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 19 Comments

Nata Silina at Supercoloring.com

“I expect loyalty,” he stated.

A silence followed.

Shock or perhaps because

There was

No honorable way to respond.

“I need loyalty,” he repeated

With the implication clear:

You bend the knee

Or you are gone,

Swear fealty to the man

Or you’re a traitor

And an enemy to be scorned.

“You will always get honesty from me,”

Came the measured return.

“That’s what I want,” twisted the retort,

“An honest loyalty.”

As if there was such thing

As honest loyalty

To one who deemed acceptable

Only what offers

Praise and supplication,

And allows no room

For truth,

Let alone for the calling out of

The Emperor’s bare bottom

Of the barrel

Governing

Or his disregard for honor

As he dons repeated sets of

Non-existent,

Yet much lauded by him,

‘New Clothes.’

Note: As it happens, the book I’m reading and which was right by my elbow as I read the prompt … is “The Mueller Report” (w/ commentary by the Washington Post; page 296 of the book, page 35 of volume II in the report). … And the rest, well, is history. And what will be …? We shall yet see.

For Linda Gill’s SoCS: open book, point, write