Photo prompt

Horsing Around

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 19 Comments

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“Did she see you take Butter?”

Hailey chuckled, “Nah.”

The stable dame was notorious for imbibing at lunch and for the sprawled-in-chair-nap that followed. If you timed it correctly, you could saddle a horse, enjoy a ride, and return before the woman stirred awake.

“What if she found out?” Dora squirmed on Rocky’s back, and the gelding raised his head in admonition. “Sorry, Rocky,” she placed a palm on the equine’s neck.

Hailey shrugged. “Not like Butter will tattle. Right, Butter?”

The horse neighed in return, and the girls giggled.

Rocky snorted.

“Nor you, Rocky. You ain’t a snitch,” Hailey agreed.

The mare trotted languidly. She had to be just as happy for the outing, let alone with Rocky. If it weren’t for Hailey’s family’s recent trouble, and the sale of Butter to Mrs. Jolly’s stable, the horses would still be grazing together, as they had from colt and filly.

 

 

 

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

 

 

Water Line

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

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She took herself onto the cliff each morning. Obedient. Observant. Obeisant.

Obscure as her faith seemed to those who did not understand, she nonetheless kept fast to her beliefs. To her practice. Those who shook their head did so due to limits in their vision. Their blindness did not diminish the veracity of what was, to her, as real as the rock she sat on.

She did not belittle other people’s inability.

As she wished they did not deride what they declared her “foolishness.”

To her, it was a line she drew. Of kindness. Or on harder days, of patience.

A mirror to the line that stretched across the water to reflect the passage of the Glories. The empyrean beings that took pain to skim the water in her favor.

In all their favor.

As protection.

From the monsters of the deep.

The ones she knew. The one she’d seen.

 

 

 

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

 

 

Long Term Parking

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 40 Comments

 

 

She let them think she didn’t mean it.

Though she had.

If she no longer could drive, then none of them were going to be able to.

At least not with her vehicle.

Sure, it was (another) way of shooting herself in the foot.

No doubt it was petty.

But petty was all she felt that she had left.

If she were to still be noticed.

Life was putting her in long-term parking.

Fine.

She was not going to let others earn more freedom by it.

So she drove the car into the fence, and left it.

And them.

Hanging.

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Liz Young

 

Sitting Duck

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

https://crimsonprose.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/ccc133.jpg

“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

 

Off Balance

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 49 Comments

 

“The key is balance,” Dotty bobbed delicately, defying wind and gravity.

The rest of us clung frantically with all six, desperate to return to lower elevations.

Why did I ever sign up for Advanced Balance?!

If we were meant to be acrobats, we’d have been born in the circus.

“When you’re ready,” Dotty intoned, “be one with the cable …” She lifted a leg on each side to a two-thirds perch.

Insanity.

A wind gust blew me off the bridge. I tumbled, helpless, to be one with the canopies.

Lofty Dotty probably lingered.

Pox on her, the lordly lanternfly!

 

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.

Photo prompt: © Miles Rost

 

Top Terrace

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

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Finally, the upper nest!

Getting it was not only about ousting the head of their band. Battling persistent bumble foot, Bellow Baggins was not much of an opponent anymore. The issue was the other wannabes who jockeyed for position. Not the least of them being Peg-The-Leg, a nest brother and beak in Squeal’s side since hatching.

It took finesse, skill, and a good bit of cunning to throw the competition off the ledge. Figuratively these days, but no less satisfying. For Squeal never forgot the terror of Flight-School (or as fledglings called it, Fly-or-Die days). Peg-The-Leg had the benefit of an extra nesting day and a bigger mouth. It had taken little effort for him to shove Squeal out. Almost to his death.

No matter. Time had been kinder to the peewee. Now Peg-The-Leg was taken down a peg to nesting in the eaves, while Squeal paraded a top terrace.

 

 

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

 

Writing In The Sand

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

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She shifted her weight and sand squeezed warm between her toes. Heated not by sun – the orb still far too distant in such early spring – but because she’s been standing still so long that the permeating chill under her soles relented to the constant pulse of lifeblood in her veins.

A bird called. Another bird returned. An insect buzzed a disharmonious song. It will be summer soon.

She felt her chest rise in a breath and her eyes skimmed the expanse of shimmering ground, patient, waiting for the tide.

Today, perhaps, he’ll come.

Today, maybe, he will return home from the wild, where waves rose high and ships dipped low to the ocean’s floor.

There was a writing in the sand. A code left by the crabs. The gulls. The seaweed.

She waited. Wavelets licked her feet.

Perhaps today something of him will wash ashore.

 

 

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

 

Best Of All

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 51 Comments

 

It rained. It hailed. It stormed. It flooded.

It none of it mattered.

They laughed. They sang. They danced. They huddled.

They had a chance to reconnect.

In all the ways that mattered, and in some they hadn’t quite dared hope for, yet came true.

Oh, they were cold. And after a time, hungry.

But still the stories flowed. The tears, sometimes. The laughter. Oh, the laughter!

Best of all, the others who would otherwise pass by,

Who would pass judgment,

Did not.

Because the weather

Protective in its dreary wetness

Let them be.

Let them love.

Made it perfect.

 

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Dale Rogerson

Initiation

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

 

“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

 

The Bobblins

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , 51 Comments

 

The moon hid on the night they lit the Bobblins. Nature’s cold dark shoulder. Though Gary said it was Luna’s way of lending them the main stage free of luminescent interference.

Renee still felt a shudder run down her spine.

It was the depths of it.

The weight of memories that bobbed and swayed and listed ever so slightly over the mirrored pond.

Even the wind ceased. For the moment.

Was it, too, leaving the stage free of routine rustling, the air’s microphone open to the whispers of the babies, cocooned in color coded pastel uteri, waiting to be born?

 

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © David Stewart