(Photo: Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash)
He drooped as hours
Lingered
Without any
News.
He tried to read but
Worry clogged his
Views.
He paced awhile but
Found his feet too heavy
As his hope grew
Weak.
The moments stretched
Their languid
Endless
Streak.
“It’s done,”
A soft voice filtered
To him
Through the mist.
“She’s resting comfortably.
So is your newborn son.”
For Sammi‘s Weekend Writing Prompt: Languid in 57 words
“Not every elf can be on a shelf.”
Elfie heard this all his life. From his teachers at the Santa Academy. From his parents, Elfonso and Elfinia. From his judgy Aunt Elfisia. And now from his insufferable brother Elfonso Junior (who everyone called EJ), who just had to rub in the fact that he had gotten into the EFS (Elves For Shelves) program, while Elfie did not.
“But what if I want to be an elf on a shelf?” Elfie protested.
“It’s not about what you want,” his mother scolded. “It is about your Efltitude Score.”
“…and,” EJ added with an elfin smirk, “as we all know, you don’t quite measure up.”
If it weren’t for his mother’s presence, Elfie would have tossed EJ under a reindeer.
Thinking of reindeer. And reins … gave him an idea.
No shelf? No problem.
He’d hang out as an elf by himself.
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
“This is the stuff of nightmares.”
Nina grinned and admired her handiwork. “This is the idea.”
Daniel shuddered. This thing was creepy even in full daylight. He could only imagine how it would appear in twilight or moonlight or through a flashlight’s beam. “Did you have to make it so KKK?”
Nina’s grin slipped and quivered but returned. “Not the intent, but perhaps the effect will nonetheless be meaningful.”
Daniel scratched his afternoon whiskers. Itchy stuff, all that growing up. “How so?”
“A dilapidated, pathetically-desperate-for-a-shower bully racist figure protecting a multi-racial, pluralistic graveyard is perhaps quite apt. Don’t you think?”
Photo prompt: © Sandra Crook
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
(Photo: Stéphane Juban on Unsplash)
When the cold gripped hard
And pulled life from the sinews
Of the earth,
And when the wind screamed wild
Among the emptied branches
Overhead,
She’d seek the warm embrace
Of the inglenook’s fireplace
And write a book
Of summer’s heat
Inside her
Head.
For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: Inglenook
“Hey! At the bottom of the cliff to the right. What do you think this is?”
Lisa adjusted the focus on her binoculars. “Can’t tell. A bit of junk?”
They were supposed to be cataloguing the different bird species they could find along their stretch of beach, but the seagulls were tiresome, and the sandpipers were too fast, and the wind had whipped so much sand around that she would certainly be carrying another pound of it just in her hair. Lisa wanted to go home. She wanted a nice bath, dry clothes, and a hot cup of tea.
“Perhaps a miners’ rail box.” Deena, binoculars glued to her face and hair tucked under a maddeningly practical cap, seemed oblivious to the stinging sand or Lisa’s rumbling stomach.
“Not a bird,” Lisa tried.
“No, but sure is a mystery!” Deena rose and pointed at the narrow trail. “Let’s go investigate!”
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
He left the house each morning as he always had, a bag with his lunch slung over a shoulder.
The harbor was no longer where he had to be, but work never was just an employment. It had been his world. Even more so since Marissa left to roam the realms beyond this world.
To him her current travels were as real as the ships that left for unseen places only to return with goods that others had stacked for his crane to unload.
One day he will sail to where Marissa was.
Till then, he watched each day unfold.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: © Roger Bultot
(Photo: Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash)
She was shaking when I entered the room. Hands wringing, lips trembling, her eyes a shade of numb I had rarely seen.
Mary had called me. She had come to check on her and bring a midday repast. Mother being too proud to ask for help, even though her legs no longer held her sturdily or long enough to cook herself a decent meal.
Appearance and stoicism were Mother’s barometers of standing.
Socially and otherwise.
Not that you’d know it from her mascaraed cheeks.
She pointed to the antique book I had gifted her the previous evening.
“I understand, therefore I’ll live,” was scribbled in the cover. “R.B. 1941“
Mother pressed a notepad on me. Scribbled on it were the same words. Same letters. An older hand.
“I forgot,” she whispered, caressing her initials. “But reading what I have just written, I now believe.”
Prompt quote: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe.” (Afterward by Louise Gluck)
For the dVerse prosery challenge
“This won’t do,” Tina sighed. “You have got to sniff better.”
Spinner tried, but there was nothing. Or at least, nothing he could make heads or tails out of. And making tails was the whole idea.
He shrugged and spun around. Perhaps he’ll glean a clue from his surroundings. Perhaps it’ll settle the tension that trying to sniff things often awakened.
Tina groaned. “Mama was right. You will never amount to anything.”
“Hey!” Spinner whined.
Tina lowered her head. That had been below the belt. Still, it was true, and someone had to confront Spinner now that Mama was no longer there to instruct them.
“Look, Spin,” she tried to soften her frustration with a bit of guilt. “It really shouldn’t be so hard. You sure there’s nothing wrong with your sniffer?”
“I think it’s broken,” Spinner whispered, shamefaced. “What kind of a dog can’t tell the smell of poop?”
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Note: Anosmia, or the lack/loss of sense of smell, is a real condition that was made famous by the pandemic but is certainly not limited to the current virus. Nor is Anosmia limited to humans. Like humans, dogs can live without a sense of smell, though for many of them it carries a significantly higher ‘sensory price’, because their sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 more acute than that of humans.
“Aha!”
Nate looked at Mr. Banks. The tall man was bending forward, willowy limbs almost touching the pavement, round-rimmed glasses testing gravity.
“Aha, as in what?” Nate asked.
“As in I believe we have a lead.”
Nate felt his eyes fill. False hope was the worst. The desperation with which he clung to the possibility.
“And?”
The detective straightened. He pointed at the photo, then the pavement. “See her ponytail? See this? Her hair tie broke. Runaway or not, she would have tried to get a replacement. The pharmacy across the alley is the closest. They may well have footage.”
Photo prompt: © CEAyr
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
(Photo: Brunno Tozzo on Unsplash)
There were no two ways about it. The situation was dire.
He pressed his weight onto the box to seal it.
Nailed it shut.
He stood back then to admire his handiwork.
A wall of boxes. Most of them no longer wiggling.
It was do or die.
And it wasn’t going to be him who did the dying.
For Sammi‘s Weekend Writing Prompt: Dire in 58 words
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