Photo: Peter Oslanec on Unsplash
The voice of song
Lulled her to sleep
As wind whispered
Leaves into heaps.
Her mind soared on
A night’s journey’s sweep
As breathing slowed
And memories steeped.
Her body warm neath
Blankets soft and deep,
She sighed and found
A dream to keep.
For the dVerse poetry quadrille challenge: blanket
Photo: Robert Almonte on Unsplash
The night is not as I’d expected it to be.
The sirens are silent. The windows dark. The very air seems still.
It had been a close call. Too close, almost.
I glance at Malachi. He returns a tremulous shrug.
“Will we be alright?” I ask. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the words could not stay in. The sound — although barely above a whisper — boomerangs in my chest.
“We might be,” he mouths.
At least I think he does. I cannot hear much above my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Everything inside me feels tight. I don’t remember being so unnerved. Not since. You know. The other time.
“Will they return?” Fear dries my mouth.
“Who knows.”
We reach the corner and separate. The night breaths as I hurry home and we go in different directions down the imperturbable street.
For the dVerse prosery challenge
Prosery prompt: “We go in different directions down the imperturbable street” (from the poem “An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire” by Gwendolyn Brooks)
“Can we go to the playground, Mama?”
The woman stroked the small forehead to compose herself and smiled into the over-bright eyes. “It is the middle of the night, Cara.”
“Can I see?”
The woman tucked the blankets under the child and lifted her. The bundle in her arms felt devastatingly like the infant Cara had been a handful of winters ago, and heartbreakingly almost as light again. She turned so her daughter faced the window.
“It’s dark,” the girl sighed. “I’m tired, Mama. Maybe I wait for the light?”
“Yes, Cara,” the mother whispered. “We wait for the light.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
They walked toward the light. The brambles, the thistles, the burrs, the thorns — all attempted to snag and ensnare and scratch and mark them for what would be held as treachery.
Still, they walked. Some of them bare-legged and bleeding. Others somewhat better clothed, but not much better off once flaps of torn fabric opened windows to the ravages of all manner of sharp things.
They walked toward the light. The dark, the fog, the cold, the hunger, the fatigue — all conspired to force them to turn back.
They did not.
Not when the tunnel they had managed digging, spoonful by spoonful of rock-hard soil, hiding the scrabbling sounds under the cover of endless mandatory chanting, could finally accommodate a slithery passage underneath the electrified fence.
They’d been digging it for months.
Waiting. Counting. Hoping. Dreaming. Fighting against those who dismissed the possibility, against those who threatened to give them away, against the weighing down by those who’d surrendered to messages of futility and given up.
It had been a fluke, really. A careless corner of a printed flyer that the wardens did not burn completely. A few lines and enough to give them the potential for a plan.
But they had to destroy the evidence. And not everyone believed.
Sometime even they began having doubts.
When the light arrived, many of them cried. Surreptitiously, of course. Lest the guards see. Lest they be found out.
And when the cold bit deep enough to keep the guards huddled by the watch-station’s stoves, and when the hour was late enough for no more chants to be required, they wriggled, one by one, under and out.
And fled.
Toward the light.
Where the masses congregating in the desert could swallow them. Where they would be hidden in the flocks of floodlighted extras dressed in rags. Where their dust and grime and hollows under eyes, would blend in with the crowds in caked-in dirt and post-apocalyptic make up. Where their actual horror, worse than any movie, could be made less real at last.
For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto Challenge
Photo: Hongmei Zhao on Unsplash
In the blackest night
She woke
To hear the flutter of her
Heart
Singing melodies of courage
In her ears.
As the hours ticked
Long seconds full of
Ink,
And stretched worries
She had long learned how to
Blink,
She held on to
Wisps of memories
Mirrored in her unshed
Tears,
And recalled the echoes
Of abandon
In the giggles
Of her very early
Years.
For the dVerse Poetics challenge: Black
Photo: Amitai Asif
Blessed be the heat
Of fire
Fed by wood
That held on
To the driven strength of home.
Let air
Breathe through
The flames
That will allow warmth
To the water
While the earth
Hammocks your body
And your eyes
Address heaven’s stairs.
For the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Five Elements
Photo: Amitai Asif
The long night arrives
Wrapped in ends
Of dreams
And threads of hopes.
A tapestry
Of what may come
Therein,
As unfettered souls
Are finally free
To roam
Within.
Where darkness
Becomes its own
Light,
That holds
No more an actual
Night.
Note: The photo depicts an ancient burial cave in Israel
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Night
Photo: Amitai Asif
They gazed forlorn
Into the light,
Into the lumber
Burning bright.
All that they’d known
Before this plight,
Now kept them warm
Through heartache’s night.
*Dedicated to all who’d lost homes, lives, memories, and loved ones in fires and other disasters.
Photo: Harpal Singh via Unsplash
They rode long through the dark
After closing the park
Wooden horses a-spiral in endless embark.
For the Three Line Tales Challenge
Photo: Rega’im Menatzhim
Things were winding down. Most tables had been cleared and many guests had left for home. Only the hardiest (or closest kin) still remained. Sated and a bit deflated with fatigue, they lounged, gossiped, tapped phones, and not-so-surreptitiously checked the time. Several small children slept on makeshift cots of pulled together chairs.
Music still played but with more inertia than conviction.
The celebration was officially over, though not for everyone: two boys, oblivious to the late hour and overall exhaustion, danced on.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Celebration (82 words)
tucked away in the mountains
History of the Bloomingdale area on Manhattan's Upper West Side
A creative miscellany of mythic fantasies
a weekly flash fiction prompt inspired by google maps
A community for writers to learn, grow, and connect.
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
Alternative haven for the Daily Post's mourners!
never judge a girl by her weight
original fiction and rhyme
Taotalk is a forum for the discussion of both the academic and pragmatic aspects of dao and Daoism, with participants expressing themselves on Daoist writings and pragmatics from their unique perspectives. It serves as a community for Daoists, and those interested in Daoism, to gather and talk dao.
A photographer's view of the world - words and images to inspire your travels and your dreams
Life in progress
Straight up with a twist– Because life is too short to be subtle!
WordPress & Blogging tips, flash fiction, photography and lots more!
Better Living Through Beauty, Wisdom and Whimsey
Life in a flash - a weekly writing blog
Na'ama Yehuda 
You must be logged in to post a comment.