Not What You Think

May 6, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Creative thinking, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Practical solutions, Relationships, Shelter 53 Comments

Photo: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“We must hire someone to remove this eyesore,” Carolina’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Never could understand hillbillies approach to disposal.”

“We could …” Stewart noted, “but …”

“But what?” Carolina hated it when he got cryptic. If there was something people ought to be, it was clear. Riddles were for children.

“… we’d have to get something else in its stead.”

Carolina’s chest rose to magnificent proportions, but Stewart knew better. He kept his eyes on her face.

“It is a shelter entry. See? Water proof. Air tight. Easily cleaned. Earlier doors kept getting flooded. You’ll want it here, dear, come stormy times.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Frazzle Dazzle

May 3, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bears, Creative writing, Frazzled, Just because, Poetry, RDP, Relationships, Rhyme, Timing, Writing prompt 15 Comments

Photo: Smadar Epshtein

She refused to stop her fretting.

He could not get her

To relax.

She was adamant the world

Was ending,

That they were about to breathe

Their last.

Nothing he did could

Distract her.

Not the honey.

Not the charm.

She was frazzled,

And he should have known

To not try

Bedazzling

To disarm.

For RDP Sunday: Frazzled

Plenty Enough Of That

April 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, encouragement, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Grief, Loss, love, Micro-fiction, Relationships, Support, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 17 Comments

Photo: E.K.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” she sobbed.

He lifted her chin gently till the brown-speckled eyes met his. “We’ll manage,” he said, surety threaded carefully into his voice. He didn’t want her feeling as if she was weak for unraveling or wondering whether any of what she was feeling was excessive or unreasonable. It was not.

He didn’t have all the answers, either.

Only love.

He had plenty of that.

And it had to be enough.

“Everything’s a mess,” she sighed.

It was. And yet, it wasn’t. Not everything. Their care for each other had not a single tangle in it.

“It’s like this cotton field,” he breathed. “Raw fibers that are nonetheless brimming with nascent fabric potential. We’ll pick through our grief and weave love into a new life.”

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Fabric in 131 words

The Spectrum

April 8, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Complementary, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Half-full, Micro-fiction, Optimism, Perspective, Pessimism, Rainbow, Relationships 54 Comments

Photo prompt: © Jeff Arnold

She always saw the half-full of the cup. He always saw the empty.

She saw the rain’s potential. The green to manifest. The flowers. He saw mud and wet and ruinous showers.

She saw the sun and warmth. He saw the cancer.

She pointed out the good. He, the plausible con-men in every alley.

She laughed. He frowned.

She hugged babies and puppies, while he kept both at warning distance.

“We’re like the rainbow,” she explained, when others wondered how she kept sane in the face of constant pessimism. “Our perspectives of mist and light blend a full spectrum’s beauty.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Their Own Continuity

March 28, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: connection, Continuity, Current events, despair, encouragement, hope, Micro-fiction, Perspective, Poetry, Reality, Relationships, Weekend Writing Prompt 11 Comments

Photo: Yunming Wang on Unsplash

He said the world’s come to an end.

“Not quite,” she noted,

“For it keeps revolving.”

Her hand stayed warm

On his chest.

“Uninterrupted sun and set,

The dawn and birth,

Are their own continuity.”

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Continuity in 35 words

His Promise

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Be a voice, Commitment, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Grief, Micro-fiction, Persistence, Photo prompt, Promises, Relationships 54 Comments

Photo prompt © Jeff Arnold

It took him months, but he stuck with it.

It took a lot of coffee, and a great deal of wine, and a good bit of yelling at the keys and cursing at the window, and a heap of crumbled sheets of paper flung across the floor in balls he sometimes let stay there, staring dejectedly at the ceiling as he wished to do, too.

A million times he wanted to give up.

He didn’t.

Not when he had promised her he’d write her story.

One finger at a time or not, he was going to learn how to type.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

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.)

Unyielding Stone

February 16, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Fountain, Impossible, Lovers, Palace, Poetry, Relationships, Sculpture, Vienna, Weekend Writing Prompt, Yearning 10 Comments

Vienna palace SmadarHalperinEpshtein (3)

Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein

Never quite able to move beyond the yearning,

Formed into a pose

Between desire and

Response,

They are frozen, sculptured into something

That cannot become reality

Despite constant striving,

Their despair exposed

At a heartless ornamental pond.

Still their eyes do not the silent gaze drop.

Even as their hands are

Locked away from the ability to

Enfold,

Set in stone they are forever reaching

For an embrace

That cannot

Form.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Sculpture in 71 words

Slip Slidin’ Away

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Video, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Difficult decisions, Doubt, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro-fiction, Paul Simon, Photo prompt, Relationships, Writing Challenge 37 Comments

Now that it was time, she couldn’t get herself to do it.

The ice around her heart mirrored the slick coating on the deck, the driveway, the car. The accumulation of cold thinned. Her resolve cracked.

It dripped and melted into tears where the memories took hold. Where the sweet moments were as real as the many that weren’t.

Perhaps she should just wait longer. Hope for spring. Pray for summer’s warmth. Forget the frozen tundra that their relationships had become. The hurt. The broken bones.

The more she was nearing her destination, the more she was slip slidin’ away.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Bonus track of the song that played in my head as soon as I saw the photo:

Golden End

February 9, 2020February 10, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Going home, healing, Micro-fiction, Relationships, Santo Tomas, Spain, Sunset, Therapy, vacation, What Pegman Saw, Writing prompt 4 Comments

Santo Tomas, Spain (Ricky Rew on Unsplash)

It was a golden end.

To the day. To their journey. To what they managed to do together, for the first time in a long time without bitter exchanges that gouged their hearts and left them both scarred.

The trip to Santo Tomas was an impromptu thing. The healing they’d invested in was not.

“We could go, you know,” he’d mentioned as she’d browsed to pass the time while waiting outside the therapist’s office. It was always an awkward time, sitting together in the ante room, aware that what came next was lancing boils and airing out things too noxious to attempt alone.

“Can we, though?” she’d replied, layering many meanings.

“I think so,” he’d said.

His hesitation, more than anything, was what had her agree.

The therapist’s hesitation, too. She wanted to prove the woman wrong.

She watched him jog by sun-glow. Her heart warmed. They were going home.

For What Pegman Saw: Santo Tomás