Color Me Home

March 19, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Beach, CCC, Flash Fiction, Hiding, Home, Homelessness, Making do, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 9 Comments

It would be the last place anyone would look, and the first thing everyone would see.

It made it perfect.

She always gravitated toward hiding in plain sight. There was equity in the blinding effect of what people learned to not see or did not know could be there in the first place.

How long would it take, she wondered, for her cover to be blown?

The longest had been almost four weeks. The closest call had her discovered before the first patch of paint dried. She’d almost lost everything that day, and the consequences were brutal, but she’d learned from it. As she had from every challenge and obstacle. Even those that were not meant to be instructive.

That was how she rolled. How she wrest back some control.

For now, this box of aqua perched on sand, seasonally emptied of its contents, was home.

The surf a lullaby.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Taking Off

March 18, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Leaving, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Plans, Secrets, Takeoff, Writing Challenge 39 Comments

Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll

He packed his bags late at night, tiptoeing around the sleeping figures of his flatmates. His plan would only work for one.

Well, two, perhaps … But much as he wanted company, he knew from experience that the only person he could truly rely on was himself, and he couldn’t afford to add the caprice of another human into an already iffy situation.

He made his way through quiet side-streets, ears perked and eyes peeled. He would approach the lot from the back, scale the pole, rope and lug his luggage up, distribute the weight, check the dials.

Takeoff before dawn.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

The Bubble

March 17, 2020March 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Anxiety, Being in the moment, Biology, Crisis, Emergency, Flash Fiction, Just because, Just for fun, Kreative Kue, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 17 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

“It is the only way!” he insisted.

She shook her head. She understood his urgency but he’s been going on about a string of crises for the last two hours, and her bladder was threatening to win the Battle Of Emergency.

“Are you even listening?” his voice rose, reedy with strain.

She took a breath, curbing the depth of it as to not add to the internal pressure. There was no rest-stop in sight. She began wondering if the wall of a nearby metal shipping container would have to do. With any luck, no one would be peeking out their window or strolling by or who knows.

“I really have to go,” she tried.

He exploded. “Can you stop thinking about yourself for a moment and actually take this in?!”

Her bladder cramped. Did he seriously just say “take in”?!!

He was known for working himself into a tizzy, but his anxiety and whatever issues the current times awoke in him, did not give him license to be disrespectful. “Start the car,” she bristled. “We’re leaving.”

He glared at her as if she grew antennas, which she thought was hilarious given the circumstances and his ideas. Laughter began to bubble in her belly, but she didn’t think her pelvic musculature could manage the added demand.

“We can talk more about building your floating sphere,” she added, regretting her choice of words almost as soon as it left her lips, yet finding herself unable to conjure any other imagery. “But if you don’t get me to a bathroom in the next three minutes, you’ll have to wade through bigger waters than what this world saw during Noah’s flood.”

For the Kreative Kue challenge #254

Flurries On The Wind

March 16, 2020March 16, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: dVerse, Flash Fiction, Hypnotic, Imagery, Micro-fiction, Prosery, Relationships, Therapy, Trance, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 22 Comments

julian-berengar-solter-sHZc-ZHz08Q-unsplash

Photo: Julian Berengar Sölter on Unsplash

She twisted the frayed bit of tissue between her fingers. Tightening and unfurling, tightening and unfurling. Miniature white dots fleeted down onto her black-slacked knees like flurries on the wind.

He shook his head to clear it from the mesmerizing effect of the movement and its impact.

“Say more,” he prompted, hoping his voice would break the trance and end her silence.

She shrugged. Flurries turned a momentary snowstorm and she shuddered, brushed the flecks of tissue off her lap and raised her eyes to someplace between her counselor’s brow and the wall.

“I don’t know why I was surprised every time love started or ended,” she whispered.

He nodded his encouragement. This was more than she’d said in the last two sessions put together.

“I should have known,” her voice turned bitter, “that none of it would last. That he would leave. Again.”

For the dVerse prosery challenge: surprised or not

Quote used: “I don’t know why I was surprised every time love started or ended.” (Jane Hirshfield’s poem, “I wanted to be surprised.” You can read the full poem here.)

Things To Come

March 13, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, City life, Current affairs, Disrepair, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Priorities, Privilege, Sidewalk, Writing Challenge 9 Comments

Perhaps it had been the mark of things to come, though till it arrived they did not know it (or, as some stated, they’d preferred ignoring the possibility).

There were so many explanations: Bad weather, a change in allocation, inability to keep up with need, aging infrastructure, decline in the number of those who knew how to fix things with handiwork instead of keyboards.

Of course, the sidewalks didn’t crumble overnight. It took years. Yet somehow people had dismissed a steady rise in ankle injuries. They merely shook their heads when accessibility was reduced to the long-legged spry. There was no outcry. After all, most people didn’t ambulate with strollers, walking-sticks or wheelchairs.

In the end it was the roller-bags that tipped the scale. What unconscionable disrepair allowed wheels to break in ways manufacturers won’t cover? People could not be reduced to lifting suitcases when they needed to go somewhere!

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Once Upon A Swing

March 11, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Beliefs, children, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Grief, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Playground, Wish, Writing Challenge 40 Comments

Photo Prompt © Ceayr

“It’s where he comes to make a wish,” Johanna whispered over her swing’s ropes as the girls passed each other on the swing-set, ringlets flying in the breeze.

Marie’s eyes widened and she forgot to pump her legs. The old man looked like many others she’d seen. Or was he? She’s never known anyone grown who made wishes. In real life. Into a fountain. Like in stories. It made her wonder what other things in tales were true. Perhaps goblins? Or princesses?

“His wife died, you see,” Johanna added, impressed by her cousin’s reaction. “He wishes for her to return.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Not Here!

March 9, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Beach, Family, Flash Fiction, Funnies, Just for fun, Kreative Kue, Micro-fiction, Outdoors, parenting, Things Kids Say, Wrong way 25 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

They had everything.

The Papa Chair. The Mama blanket. The two Cub chairs. The inner tubes: one small, one large. Even tin cans emptied to serve as sand pails in the refilled beach’s rectangle.

What a perfect day!

The lake awaited, wet and cool. The silty mud. The pebbles, the weeds to wade across or pull.

They swam. They flipped. They raced. They flopped.

The hours passed. The contents of the picnic basket made their tummies nice and full.

They rested till the water once more called.

Then one cub disappeared.

“Nicko!” they yelled, frantic with the possibility of the awfulness that might unfold.

“One moment!” the junior responded from the direction of the small structure. “I’m not done.”

Relief was quickly replaced by wonder only to be followed by surprise and whiff of horror.

“Nicko??!!?” the Mama dashed across the small beach to stop what was already well set into motion. “That’s not an outhouse! It’s my changing room! Go in the bushes! Not here!”

For Keith’s Kreative Kue #253

Flecked History

March 7, 2020March 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancestry, Elders, Flash Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Micro-fiction, Perspective, Religion, Saudi Arabia, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 42 Comments

Photo: M.Bin HMQ; Wadi ad-Dawasir, Saudi Arabia

“He is an infidel,” Abdul grumbled about his employer. “Ad-Dawasir history shouldn’t be fouled by non-believers.”

“So were your ancient ancestors,” Umm Habib noted, her fingers flying as she shaped the dough with the practiced moves of innumerable meals prepared.

The adolescent startled. Such accusation would’ve necessitated a fist-fight if it hadn’t come from his grandmother.

“Many Taghlibi remained Christians well after The Prophet came,” the old woman’s face remained placid. She didn’t need to look up to sense the anger flashing in the boy’s hereditarily flecked eyes. But youngsters’ dark moods and opinions were like moving water. Truth remained.

She plucked freshly baked bread from the earthen oven with bare fingers, tips hardened by life’s constant flames. “That history is long passed, but it bears remembering some of our ancestors even fought against Muslim, and many stayed Christian …” she paused, considering. “Before finally embracing The Prophet’s teachings and Islam.”

For What Pegman Saw: Wadi-ad-Dawasir, Saudi Arabia

No Known Gnome

March 6, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, Consequences, Flash Fiction, Folklore, Garden, Gnomes, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 14 Comments

CCC #69

No matter how much he tried to recreate the last exchange he’d had with The Tall, he couldn’t wrap his head around how he ended up in the predicament he now found himself in.

Open-eyed-blind, blunted, turned away from everything and everyone. He was but a nub of his former self.

It never should’ve come to that.

He didn’t think such drastic measures had ever been taken before against any of the garden folk. Certainly not against a gnome (shorter and tricksier than most or not). Sure, there have been tales of persecuted fairies. Of elves’ homes trampled. Of spirits sent to cemetery quarantine. Perhaps the less-than-fair Fair-Folk had to sometimes be kept in check. But gnomes? Why would anyone get even with a Grandfather of Gardens? Gnomes were made to evoke trust and smiles, not fury.

And yet. There he was. Exiled. Helplessly turned against the blank, black wall.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

I Will Wait

March 4, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 3LineTales, Creative writing, Going home, hope, Micro-fiction, Permission, Photo prompt, Promise, Waiting, Writing Challenge 17 Comments

three line tales, week 214: woman standing in dilapidated building

Photo by Jorge Flores via Unsplash

“I will wait for you,” she said. “Even in cold ruined places where wind blows in the refuse of the city and where more is broken than is whole. I’ll wait, so you can know I’m here when you are finally permitted to come home.”

For Three Line Tales #214