The Ride Home

 

brendas-double-decker-bus

(Photo prompt: Brenda Cox)

 

She saw the red bus nearing. Her eyes stung. Must be the jet-lag and little sleep. Home seemed far. Unreal, almost.

Or was this home?

She pressed her bag against the fullness in her chest.

This question was part of what she’d come all this way to explore.

The crush of people carried her onto the vehicle. Up the staircase. To the top.

She leaned into the seat and let the sounds of a language she’d forgotten wash through her. Awakening belonging. Remembering despair.

She’d been four when her adoptive parents came.

One day she belonged here. The next, nowhere.

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

 

The List

 

“Are you sure about this?” Raymond wrinkled his nose at the parcel.

“Surer than sure!” Mara squared her shoulders. She will fight him, if need be. This was not something she was willing to back down from.

“It is morbid,” Raymond huffed.

“Yet it says so right on his bucket list,” Mara soothed, recognizing her brother’s retreat. “A coast-to-coast trip.”

“But …” Raymond shook his head in confused surrender. “I don’t think he meant to do so in an urn.”

Mara petted the label. “I’d rather err on the side of caution than be haunted by his restless ghost …”

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Ted Strutz

 

Skyward

(Photo: Na’ama Yehuda)

 

They rose in steady hum of

Motors aiming to break

Clouds

And dispersed the waves upon the

Sand as life skittered

Aground.

They pointed nose into the

Sky with souls holding on well

And fast

As engines revved anew

And headed home

At last.

 

For the dVerse quadrille challenge: sky

 

Journey Back, Journey On

 

As you travel paths of current days, new plans … remember times of past: The journeys never taken, the ones you had and wish you hadn’t, the ones you had and would again, the ones still left to seek and find.

Recall the feel of face against the window, the mist of breath on glass, the passing scenery, the whoosh of trucks, the sway of train, the rock of boat, the hum of plane.

Revisit muted conversations, real or invented, arguments and whining, complains and “I spy” games, “she’s touching me” and “99 bottles” songs.

Sensations, shared or private. Fall-asleep-legs, sticky vinyl against summer skin, hair in eyes, road grit, sweet treats, cold drinks. The heaviness of someone’s slumber on your shoulder, the lull of road weighing your own lids down.

And music. Radioed or piped through earphones. Sang loudly, hummed, internally known, ignored. The way the beat or words or both matched blur of blacktop under wheels or rain on windshield; the way it sometimes did not match at all.

Be still. Be rocked. Be moved. Be carried.

Allow yourself to be transported, taken back, imagined forward.

On this journey, your commute through life.

 

For The Daily Post

The Line

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Photo by: A. Barlev

 

They walk the line as morning comes

As new day draws its dawn,

They walk as night approaches close

And sunset sinks alone.

They walk the line of now and then

Of sand and rock, death, growth,

They walk as footsteps mark the soil

And press it deep with hope.

They walk where many walked before

With others not yet born,

They walk in dust of those who passed

Of stories told and torn.

They walk to sew new roads to life

Connections old as time,

They walk a line of young and old

Their hearts as close as mine.

For The Daily Post

A Far Away Home

 

far away home

imgur.com

 

 

May there be a home for you,

At the end of every journey.

May there be a home for you,

No matter how far you’ve gone.

May there be a home for you,

At the pause of every breath.

May there be a home for you,

In the remotest place.

May there be a light left on for you,

To help you walk through dark.

May there be a warm hearth greeting you,

And love to bloom all sparks.