(Photo: Jill Sauve on Unsplash)
They named her Annum.
For being born just as the year turned time onto its head
To start anew.
Just as the numbers tumbled from the duos to the singles
To the very first
Of firsts.
A new beginning.
Just as she was,
Finally,
For them.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Year in 46 words
(Photo: Inbar Asif)
As she rose out of
Her previous life’s bramble,
She knew there was going to be
The opportunity
To gamble.
With the way her life
Could turn.
With costs and possible
Return.
On what she’d have to do
Again.
And yet, there was, she hoped,
So much
To gain.
So when once more her choice of cards fell
In a shamble,
She laughed because it was
Just a preamble,
To craft herself a new
Ensemble.
Written just for fun, for Linda’s SoCS prompt of “amble”
Margot leaned closer to examine the stake. Her smile grew.
The child should be called Gretel, with such clues.
Then again, Margot was no evil stepmom. Or at least, not evil … The two of them couldn’t help not being biologically related.
Not any more than the girl could help being wild.
The social worker believed the latter a hindrance. Understandable, perhaps, given how many placements the child had lost. The system found it inconvenient to have a lass with more wilderness than tameness, who needed space and took it. Knowing Grenadine’s history, how could they not see why she’d tolerate no leash?
“This child will run away,” the social worker had warned when Margot said she’ll have her. “You’re so rural, you’d have no help keeping her contained.”
Margot had no plan to do so.
The child was free. The sticker meant that she’d be home by dinner.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Photo: MoneyforCoffee on Pixabay
Now that it was all hers, she wanted none of it.
She didn’t give an iota for questions or neighbors’ looks.
Out went the furniture. The clothing. The towels.
The reminders of swindlers and rooks.
She got rid of the bedding, the shelving,
The whole kit and caboodle in numerous crannies and nooks.
There was naught in the house for her
But memories of pain and emotional hooks.
She cleaned out the lot
And left only the books.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Caboodle in 78 words
(Photo: Kristian Strand on Unsplash)
“The best,” the man swept a heavy arm across the offerings.
“And there?” the woman gestured at the shadows.
“Nothing worth your time, Madam.” He looked pointedly at her tailored attire, “Unsuitable for your kind.”
“Nonsense,” she ordered.
He frowned but snapped his fingers. “Silvia!”
The child looked underfed even in comparison to the other orphans.
“Trouble,” he warned. “Used up her chances twice.”
“Or,” the woman smiled, “very insufficiently pre-loved.”
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Pre-loved in 71 words
“This is not what we invested all that tuition money for, Robert.”
His mother’s voice remained soft, even pleasant. One may think she was but mildly annoyed.
Rob knew better.
It was the same voice that had sent his boyhood self to the attic without dinner for the slightest infraction. That left a small child to shiver there through endless winter nights. That told his father to retrieve the paddle and “do what needed to be done to make a man of an ungrateful son.”
“I am sorry, Mother,” Rob bowed politely in her direction. Bowed just enough to let her know that he no longer cared nor feared her. “I had made it clear that your plans did not fit mine.”
“Your father expects a partner,” she stated. Ordered.
“That ship had sailed, Mother,” he replied. “I bought the farm. I’ll be my own man. Chart my own course.”
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
(Photo: Na’ama Yehuda)
The light spun silent waves
Of day
Into her heart,
Her chambers slowly opening
Their delicate petals
To sing
The morning’s chant.
There is a hope,
She knows,
In every dawn.
Its breath imparting
An oasis
And a coming home.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Oasis in 40 words
“It has no feathers.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Molly noted. “It’s a duckling. It has fuzz.”
Duffy was not impressed. The small thing was squeaky and looked utterly too squeashy. She wasn’t even sure it was waterproofed.
She shook her head. She never was good with small squeaky, squeashy, clingy things.
“It’s only for a short while,” Molly’s voice was soft, but Duffy recognized the little waves of irritation that signaled turbulence just underneath the surface.
Best not mess with that.
Duffy sighed and peered closely at the fuzzball. “So what am I supposed to do with it?”
Molly flapped with such relief that Duffy wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or terrified.
“Just keep it out of trouble,” her sister called, already on the wing.
“What kind? How…?”
Silence.
Then a squeak.
The fuzzball waddled, pooped, and attempted to preen its zero feathers. Ridiculous.
Her nephew.
Also kinda’ cute.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Rupert had always taken things too literally.
Now she would be stuck with the same leak around the toilet bowl when the boys flush a bit too long; with the same creaky closet door that slithers nightmares in her dreams when Mat-The-Cat decides to make a bed of laundered linen; and with the crooked shelf in the pantry that requires a perfected fold of cardboard to ensure the flour box does not slide off.
It never was the outside scenery she needed changing.
She watched one half roll by and realized she did not care to wait for the other.
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt © Ted Strutz
“Close your eyes. Feel the levers of the earth move with you,” Moria deposited the words like diamonds lined on velvet cloth.
Lianne obeyed the first. Tried hard for the second. But all she felt were the tremors in her body, bare skin shuddering against penetrating morning chill. And the fear.
“Breathe in the cold, breathe out the worry.” The old woman’s voice affected little compassion, yet there was no shaming in it. Just instruction.
Lianne tried, but her shaking only intensified. Perhaps I am not ready, she fretted.
“You are ready,” Moria stated.
Lianne gasped. Could her mentor read her mind?
“No, but I’ve seen enough initiates.”
The elder’s chuckle, puncturing the solemn task, somehow eased Lianne’s mind. Her body calmed. Her eyes relaxed behind the wrap. Her toes curled around the softness of the mossy ground. The bottom step offered a damp welcome.
“Better. Now climb.”
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
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