Photo: Adi Yusuf on Unsplash
“It is my destiny,” he insisted.
“It is laziness,” they countered.
He shrugged and hoisted his belongings.
They wrung their hands and shook their heads and offered dire endings. Yet there was little they could do, short of straitjacketing. And they’d been down that road with others years ago and found it sorely lacking.
Settling down suffocated him. He was Nomad born. He could heed only that calling.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Nomad in 68 words
It wasn’t an easy thing for a Bottom-Feeder to achieve Topper status. Most born to the Lower Gradients remained in the dank shadows of the towers, foraging for what could be found.
But Bronson never took the easy route. Not in birth, where his footling position had almost killed his mama and had left him only one usable hand. Not in growing, when he was often the last to be fed and the first to be beaten. Not in young adulthood, when he decided that wit and perseverance would have to do what his physique could not.
He lurked. He flattered. He kept abreast of Toppers’ visits to the LG’s for the vices, and used his nonthreatening appearance to offer guidance, and sometimes, services.
When Lorena’s ankle broke on twisted pavement, he lent a shoulder, led her home, and stayed. Life was better at the Tops, even as a pet.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
She always saw the half-full of the cup. He always saw the empty.
She saw the rain’s potential. The green to manifest. The flowers. He saw mud and wet and ruinous showers.
She saw the sun and warmth. He saw the cancer.
She pointed out the good. He, the plausible con-men in every alley.
She laughed. He frowned.
She hugged babies and puppies, while he kept both at warning distance.
“We’re like the rainbow,” she explained, when others wondered how she kept sane in the face of constant pessimism. “Our perspectives of mist and light blend a full spectrum’s beauty.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Crispina Kemp
It had been their favorite place to play as children. Filled with old tools and lopsided shelves. A leaky roof that hindered the rain from soaking them when the weather turned and they had misjudged the time.
She never would have thought that the shed would become a shelter from a lot worse than the rain. And without end. For there was no place to return.
There will be no welcome in the farmstead. Not anymore.
No warm soup waiting. No blanket. No fire to steam wet clothes as fingers thawed. Instead of comfort, they’d likely send the dogs.
She still could not quite understand how quickly times had changed. How she’d gone from part-of to pariah.
Was she the same? How could she be, when the patch she was made to wear now defined her?
A jew, she was their plague. How long would the shed conceal her?
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Photo: JK Monument, Brasilia; Maurilio Quadros on Unsplash
“Why is he up there?” Santiago shaded his eyes against the glare.
“To be close to the angels,” A-avó said.
“Isn’t he already dead?” the boy asked softly. He didn’t want to offend his grandmother, whose age seemed close enough to dying.
“Ah,” A-avó shook her head with sorrow. “He is with Jesus now some years. But he kept many from joining Heaven too early.”
The boy’s eyes lit with curiosity. “Did he do magic, A-avó?”
“In his way,” the old woman nodded. “Magic enough to me. Your O-avô would not have lived if it weren’t for President JK bringing medicine to us who lived in the country. The malaria and the tuberculosis would have taken your O-avô. As they had taken mine.”
Santiago thought of how it would be for him to grow up without the man he loved. “Obrigado,” he bowed to the statue.
“Good boy,” A-avó smiled.
For What Pegman Saw: Brasilia, Brazil
Photo: Yunming Wang on Unsplash
He said the world’s come to an end.
“Not quite,” she noted,
“For it keeps revolving.”
Her hand stayed warm
On his chest.
“Uninterrupted sun and set,
The dawn and birth,
Are their own continuity.”
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Continuity in 35 words
Photo: Crispina Kemp
“We’re gonna have to scale things down,” The Earl noted.
“Yep,” Monterey scratched the stubble that sprouted, stubborn, on his chest. He was going to refuse the grooming nonsense next time.
“Got the shrink?”
Monterey nodded. He’d put up with the thumping for the last bit of journey. Annoying though it was, the noise did save him the trouble of going into the back compartment to check whether the cargo was still alive.
“Have him at it, then.” The Earl turned and strode back into his cab.
Monterey waited till The Earl disappeared from view before bending to rummage through the vehicle’s boot. He plucked the squirming figure out of its perforated container and held the furious man between finger and thumb.
“You’re a shrink,” he rumbled, pointing another hand at the air-ship’s anchor and chains. “These are too big. Can’t have’em stay this way. So you best shrink this.”
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
It took him months, but he stuck with it.
It took a lot of coffee, and a great deal of wine, and a good bit of yelling at the keys and cursing at the window, and a heap of crumbled sheets of paper flung across the floor in balls he sometimes let stay there, staring dejectedly at the ceiling as he wished to do, too.
A million times he wanted to give up.
He didn’t.
Not when he had promised her he’d write her story.
One finger at a time or not, he was going to learn how to type.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: Amit Jain on Unsplash
She could not have guessed
What is right
What is wrong
So she just muddled
On.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Muddle in 16 words
Photo: Sue Vincent
They filed into the toothy circle, a long double line, holding hands over the green strip that split them apart.
The stone pillars stood, immobile, ever present, waiting.
There have always been golden fields in all directions. Wild, then cultivated. The rustling of the ripened plants replacing a hush that would otherwise feed unease.
For there will be no voice heard.
No word.
No song.
No shout.
Nothing said.
Just a long line of humility, stepping up the path and through the eye of the ancient circle. Waiting to be cleansed.
To be whole.
To be seen.
To walk on.
Ahead.
Out the other side and down the second path where a widening triangle fanned into the distant horizon, mirroring the measure of relief.
And from the far far spaces, well beyond the hills, the sound of voices, whispers freed, a humming on the breeze.
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