(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
“I am not cold!”
“Your lips are blue,” the mother deadpanned.
“They’re not!” the child insisted, her exclaim dampened by chattering teeth.
“I see,” the woman breathed and swallowed a retort. The girl was altogether too much like herself and would only dig in deeper if confronted.
One set of eyes stared at the other.
The shuddering intensified.
“There’s a nice warm bath and dinner waiting inside,” the mom dangled.
A shrug.
“And how long do you intend to be … um … ‘not cold’?”
The little girl narrowed her eyes.
“Very well. Shall I bring you a chair, then?”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo: © Dale Rogerson
(Photo: Anna Hecker on Unsplash)
She was, always, in the wrong.
The wrong path. The wrong friends.
The wrong choices. The wrong dress.
The wrong dreams. The wrong job.
Wrong husband.
Wrong … no … not the wrong children.
Just the sometimes-very-difficult ones.
No wonder,
When her every action was judged
Widdershins.
So she chose to listen
To no one,
But the small call
Of her soul,
And the small arms that wrapped
Around her legs
When she reached
Down.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: widdershins in 75 words
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“Tomorrow, God willing and the creek don’t rise!” Mama smacked the rug one last time, stepped back to admire her handiwork, nodded to herself, and shouldered the beater.
“But Mama,” Marlee whined, “everyone else is going!”
I watched the exchange from the safety of a leafy fork on the big tree. If Mama didn’t see me, she could not call on me for chores.
Mama stopped. “Everyone?”
Marlee straightened. Hopeful and suspicious.
“Every. Single. Person?”
Marlee’s shoulders dropped.
“Thought so.” Mama’s dress swirled prettily as she turned toward the cabin, and for a moment I could see the lass she’d been before Bobby and I and Marlee came and brought with us gray hairs and wrinkles.
“But …”
“But nothing. The creek is swelled with rain and more may be coming. No swimming. And,” she added, “You come down from that tree. I need help with the washing.”
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
“I found it!”
Minerva sighed. She never did do well on conveyances. “Found what?” she mouthed, careful to not move her head.
“The perfect place!”
Minerva attempted to open her eyes, but the world whizzing by, combined with her daughter’s bouncing on the seat while turned in the opposite direction to the train’s travel, was too much. She clamped her eyes shut and groaned.
“Mom! Just look! We’ll pass it!”
One eye. A blur. Space under an overhang. Speeding rails.
“For what?”
“For the ball!” Swinging arms. “Can’t you just see us waltzing?!”
The bag! Where was the barf bag?!!!
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll
(Photo: Smadar Epshtein)
“Oh Mama, look!”
The woman raised eyes from the screen to follow her daughter’s arm. “Kitsch to the max,” she wrinkled a lip at the stall.
“But Mama!” The child checked her tone before it thinned into a whine. She loved the shoes! She would need finesse. “I mean,” she shaped a grin, “for Purim?”
Her mother shook her head. “What are going to dress as, Queen of Tchotchkes?”
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Kitsch in 69 words
(Image: Alicja_ from Pixabay)
“Where have you been?!” her mother’s elbows speared the air like wings on a falcon, keen to dive.
The lass lowered her head and hiked her apron in an offering. The contents would not account for hours wiled away from chores, but they might reduce the heat of what promised to be imminent suffering.
“I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head,” the child demurred, unpinning one side of the apron to reveal a mound of early hazelnuts, “in eagerness to bring your favorite, Mother. Seeing how the morrow is your saint’s day.”
The woman’s scowl budged none. “A flatterer as well as an idle hand. I know a hasty crop when I see it. Now, as you are so eager, fetch a switch of hazel and I’ll give your hide a fire that will not soon fade.”
For the dVerse prosery challenge
Poetry prompt from W. B. Yeats
“See there?”
Marie squinted against glare. “The windmills?”
“No.”
David’s finger shook along with his head, and Marie felt the wheelchair’s handles vibrate. The sorrow hit her, unexpected as always. Most days now she managed to surf life without being blindsided, but it was harder to do in this place, his favorite, where everything reflected the losses. His. Hers.
“The bird,” David insisted, his reedy voice robotic with timed inhalation.
His inflection was one of the first things to go, and its absence had robbed away a part of David that she’d adored from the moment he had first looked at her, dewy-eyed from birth, and mewled a symphony of baffled indignation.
“Ah, yes, the bird on the poles! I see it now,” she filled the space with words to compensate for his worsening inability to speak in sentences.
“Watching,” David exhaled, satisfied.
For the end? Marie silenced her sigh.
For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Note: Dedicated to all parents and caregivers, and to all who are navigating the throws of progressive illness. May you find peace, and space to breathe in, and may you know moments of joy and an abundance of love through life’s difficult path.
(Photo: Liam Edwards on Unsplash)
They stood in opposition to
Those infatuated
By the asinine,
Those energized by contempt,
Reveling in hate.
They stood in opposition to
The denial of reality
And the dismissal of
Fact
And science
And pain
And death.
They cast ballots in opposition to
Ineptitude upheld as
Strength,
And insults as
Saving face.
They linked
Metaphorical arms
In solidarity with
Truth
And hope
In possibility of
Reclaiming faith.
To show their children
That voice
Helps.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Asinine in 74 words
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