Aloft

July 9, 2025Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Hard times, hope, Micro-fiction, New Beginnings, saying goodbye 43 Comments

“When, Mammie?” Sally fidgeted on Bella’s lap. Bony butt on bony thighs on a hard bench. It hurt, but Bella ignored the discomfort.

“Any second now,” she responded. The crowd’s hum amplified the thumping in her chest. Heart to ribs. Heart in throat.

A rumbling started. Imperceptible at first, then a rattling that shook the ground, and a moment later, sound.

Two beams shot up. Lit the night sky.

“Goodbye, Eric,” Bella mouthed, tears overflowing. She held Sally so tightly that the child protested. “Find hope, my love. Find life. Then come back for the rest of us.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Roger Bultot

The Thing To Make All Things

September 15, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development Tags: Creativity, imagination, Micro-fiction, parenting, Poetry, Through children's eyes, Weekend Writing Prompt, What Not To Do 11 Comments

(Photo: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash)

It was going to be the thing

To make all things

Everything that they were meant

To be.

A remedy

For all the wants

And dreams.

“Ah, but you will surely bungle it,”

His mother said.

And crushed his dream

Instead.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Bungle in 41 words

Topsy

May 29, 2024Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Amusement Park, Everything's relative, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Micro-fiction, Not Recommended 35 Comments

She never understood the urge to willingly turn one’s world upside down and put one’s fate in the hands of minimally-maintained machines in the hands of minimally-trained college students who were likely more intent on ogling potential mates than on guaranteeing an in-one-piece return to gravity for riders.

Life was plenty adventurous enough without deliberate topsy-turvy.

And yet, there they were. Lining up to shell small fortunes for misery.

She stood at her window, nursing the weak tea that would have to do till the end of the month, and watched the roller-coasters hurl a screaming world around.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Mr. Bink

A Table For Two

June 17, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Best friends, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just for fun, Making do, Micro-fiction, New Beginnings, Photo Challenge 24 Comments

She placed the heavy chairs just so. Added a table that was dumped in front of the Crumble Cafe when the owners changed and the new management did away with all the old stuff. Staff included.

All of them kicked to the curb.

She had no job, but could be a foster mama to a table.

Especially as she had already two chairs waiting. Cast iron to pair with the castoff.

“A table for two,” she told Harriet.

Harriet made herself comfortable. On the table.

“Really?” Mattie laughed.

Harriet swished her tail in feline approval.

Cream and crumpets.

Perfect pair.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Rowena Curtin

Palm Pay

February 2, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, City life, Delivery, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just because, Micro-fiction, Near Future, Photo prompt, Problem Solving 51 Comments

Miranda’s concentration was broken by the distinct whistle. She paused the script and ran to the window.

A man was peering at a tiny screen on his wrist.

“Hi!”

He looked up. “Miranda?”

“Yeah, that’s me!”

He tapped the square. “Package by Ele-Vator.”

“Thanks! Palm Pay okay?”

He nodded. “Try. They got range issues today.”

“No worries,” Miranda smiled. “Lemme pop out.”

She slipped a leg out to straddle the sill. “How’s that?” She lifted her hand.

The man raised his.

A small buzz in her palm.

He checked his screen. “Perfect. Done. Ele-Vating package now. Have a good one!”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Alicia Jamtaas

The Right Thing

January 25, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Building, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, love, Micro-fiction, orphanage, Photo prompt, Project 50 Comments

“I’ll take the summer off and get it done,” Meyer stated.

“It will take more than a summer,” Bette pointed out. She loved his enthusiasm. She liked half-done projects less. And this one mattered. Immensely.

Meyer’s intended retort fizzled at the look in his wife’s eyes. Love lived there. Love will have to live here, too.

“It has good bones,” he said instead.

“All it is, is bones,” she chuckled. “More likely we’re looking at two years.”

Meyer nodded. “We’ll liquidate other holdings.”

He wrapped an arm around his wife. “It is the right thing, Bette, to build this orphanage.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll

A Word In

January 21, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: Banter, Dialogue, Family, Flash Fiction, Just for fun, Loquacious, Micro-fiction, Projection, Relationships, Weekend Writing Prompt 22 Comments

(Photo: Hal Cooks on Unsplash)

It’s not my fault

That she won’t stop

Talking.

My side of the family has never been a

Chatterbox.

My papa says nary a word.

My mama can hardly be called

Garrulous.

It is your relations who are incessantly

Loquacious.

With them one cannot get a word in sideways.

A dinner lasts three weeks.

A quarrel, half a century.

So do not come to me

Complaining

About Junior’s wordiness.

“You should listen to yourself,” you say?

Shifting blame is something

Else

Your whole family does

Pretty much endlessly.

For Sammi’s Weekened Writing Prompt of: Loquacious in 88 words

Space Saver

January 19, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Creative solutions, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Laundry, Micro-fiction, Sisters, Space saving 55 Comments

small-load NaamaYehuda

“It won’t fit.”

Sandra looked up from kneading. Mollie’s face was red with exertion.

“What won’t?” she asked, resuming the stretch-fold-stretch-fold rhythm. Working dough relaxed her. The knowledge that each pull and press moved energy from her muscles into what would later feed them. The cycle of it.

“The laundry. Nothing fits.”

“That’s odd,” Sandra noted. “I washed linens in it just the other day.”

“But nothing fits!” Mollie’s voice shook. “Not a sock!”

Sandra paused. She forgot how easily her sister got flustered even by simple things.

“It’s a Space-Savor model,” she offered. “Have you tried shrinking the items first?”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Not Unprepared

January 14, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Dawn, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Nighttime, Poetry, Preparation, Script, Sleepless, Weekend Writing Prompt, Words 15 Comments

(Photo: Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash)

She was up all night.

Words crowded her mind. Piled atop each other, they kept coming

Impatient. Wanting to be picked.

Even the discarded ones pressed behind closed lids, trying to repeat.

A few slipped, surprising and lubricated by unexpected tears.

Of worry.

Of hope.

Of fatigue.

She tossed and turned. She wrote. She paced.

And still words tumbled. Filling every space.

In the small hours she ran the tub.

Soaked.

Prayed to soften the callouses

And the rough edges

Snagging nonsense

In her mind.

As dawn rose, she was bare.

Exhausted.

Script mulled.

Not quite ready,

But word lulled.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt of: Script in 100 words

Just To Rub It In

January 13, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Arguments, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Glitch, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Relationships, simulation, Taking directions 29 Comments

“You should have let them check it first.”

“It’s not that bad,” Stephen tried.

“You always act as if you know everything,” Martha pressed. “Five more minutes and they would have found the glitch.”

Stephen shrugged. “I’ll fix it.”

“Like you did the hole in our sky?” Martha retorted, satisfied with how his hands tightened on the steering wheel. At least he was getting a taste of the frustration he was causing.

“Now our daughter will have to grow up with a partial simulation,” she added. To rub it in.

“Our simulated daughter.”

He always did get the last word.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers