Boxed In

September 25, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Beach, Finding a way, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, Inequality, Seaside, Stubborn, Things Kids Say, Women's rights 28 Comments

It took all afternoon, but she managed to not be discovered.

Rose had said that it could not be done. It only made Marina more determined.

“It isn’t proper,” Rose had said.

Well, what wasn’t proper was that lads went. Why would the lassies not?

She was supposed to be at the hotel’s library, peering daintily through lace windows at the expanse of sea.

Instead, she hid in the tiny cabin, inching it toward the water, hoping for tide’s help.

At last her bare toes touched a tongue of foam. It was worth the lashing she’d get once back home.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Sandra Cook

Patience

May 18, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Life and love, Muse and Flow, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, light, Micro Fiction, Patience, saying goodbye, Things Kids Say, Waiting 21 Comments

“How long will you be away?”

Pa patted Patience’s head. A rare affection from someone whose love was measured in ensuring there was grain and cloth and warmth enough for the lot of them.

“As long as the Lord deems right,” Pa responded.

“Hopefully the Lord deems it right quickly,” Patience blurted, bracing for reprimand. Children ought not question God’s plan.

“Amen if so,” Pa murmured, surprising her. He shouldered his rucksack, touched her head again. “You are the eldest. Help Ma and tend your siblings. And,” he added, “keep the tower lit, may its light lead me back home.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Dale Rogerson

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

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

Albatross

July 16, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Dejected, Difficult times, Dreams, Flash Fiction, Growing up, Historical fiction, Micro Fiction, Missing out, Weekend Writing Prompt 2 Comments

(Photo: Duncan Kidd on Unsplash)

They were all of them going to the fair. But her.

She had to stay home. Tend the fire. Knead the dough. Rock the cradle.

She still recalled her dreams of growing up. The independence.

The folly.

She went from burdened by her folks, to burdened by her husband.

The dream now an albatross.

A wail rose from the other room. The baby.

Could have been her own dejected cry.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Dejected in 70 words

Gateway

April 2, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Carving, CCC, Flash Fiction, Gateway, Historical fiction, Horses, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Namesake, Photo prompt, Timeless 25 Comments

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She pulled the reins gently, but Mathilde was already slowing. Perhaps the mare knew where to stop. Perhaps she understood Elana’s shift in the saddle.

The horse tensed under her thighs.

“I know you want to gallop,” Elana patted Mathilde’s sable neck. “We’ll just stop here a minute.”

Mathilde snorted, then lowered her head to nibble on a cluster of dandelions by the gatepost.

“It’s been too long,” Elana whispered. To herself. To the plaque the ancestor she was named after had placed at the property’s threshold. A crest. A warning. A gateway.

Elana reached and Mathilde pranced sideways, bringing them flush with the square of gray granite. “Thank you, Em,” Elana breathed.

Her fingers traced the carvings and rested on the wheel of time.

The air around them shimmered. Bent. Restored.

The pasture rippled in the sun and she heard a clash of swords. Laughter.

“Let’s go visit Great-Grandam!”

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

A Matter Of Scope

October 12, 2020October 12, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Quotes, Reflections, Writing Tags: Arts and Crafts, Botany, Creative writing, dVerse, Flash Fiction, Historical fiction, Making it work, Micro-fiction, Prosery, Quote, Relationships 35 Comments

(Photo: Anna Sullivan on Unsplash)

“It was never a matter of reach, but of scope,” Morris mouthed the words around his pipe.

Ethel harrumphed under her breath, but gently. She had to take care to not move the petals or she would have to restart the lot, and there was nothing she disliked more than having to redo tediousness. Be it in business or in marriage.

“Cannot see what you find in him,” her mother had criticized her daughter’s choice of man.

“Perhaps we look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,” her father had chuckled in knifing disapproval.

“Too long a telescope it must be,” her mother had deadpanned.

Her parents were both gone now. To the shorter end of cholera. Left Ethel and Morris the house. And a failing botany business which they were slowly but assuredly pressing into sought after art.

Prosery quote: ‘We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time’ (Hummingbird, D.H. Lawrence)

For the dVerse prosery challenge

Another World

September 2, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Childhood Adversity, Choices, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Historical fiction, Micro-fiction, orphanage, Street life, Urchins 59 Comments

“See the lamppost?”

Nick nodded.

“See that reflection?”

Another nod.

“You walk into that store and you’ll be in another world.”

The younger boy shook his head, hair so severely cut it almost looked shaven. Ruben fed him, but everything had a price. True in the orphanage. True on the streets.

“Your loss,” Ruben shrugged. “If you prefer life as it is now …” he drew the last word out.

Nick tried to see through the window. It was like a mirror. He didn’t like what he saw.

“I’ll go,” he said.

“Hat on. Bring out something good. Don’t get caught.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Brief Impact

August 22, 2020August 22, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Flash Fiction, Historical fiction, hope, Impact, Micro-fiction, Opportunity, Seeking help, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 19 Comments

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Photo: Esperanza Algaba Davila on Unsplash

They didn’t think they’d leave such an impression. After all, they were only passing through, a transient band of transients in a town built on foundations set in stone.

And yet, as they left, colored wagons clattering on paved roads not made for wooden wheels or tender hooves, they were followed by a line of children.

Like a piped piper for the unloved. Seeking a better home.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Impact in 67 words

Everything She Needs

August 7, 2020August 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancestry, CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Historical fiction, Memory, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Preparations, Searching, Witch Hunts 16 Comments

shadowed-me CrispinaKemp

She took one last look around, another in the mirror.

Waterproofs. Umbrella. Boots. A change of clothes tied around her waist. A utility apron with ration-filled pockets. Some necessaries. Her pen and notebook. Basic first aid. Matches. Tarp. The photo. And her courage, tightly wound into the center of her chest.

She was ready.

There were no roads or maps where she was going. She’d hike up then use her wits and hopefully the scent of memory, awakened, to find the place. She didn’t know how much the faded photo would help, with the quarry and the landslide and the decades passed since the plate was exposed. Still, she took it. Her soul told her that the photo did not wish to be left behind.

She walked into the dawn. She had everything she needed.

If fates smiled, she’d find the ruins of Witch Wilma’s home. Her great-great-grandma’s tomb.

For Crispina Crimson’s Creative Challenge