Space Saver

January 19, 2023Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Creative solutions, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Laundry, Micro-fiction, Sisters, Space saving 55 Comments

small-load NaamaYehuda

“It won’t fit.”

Sandra looked up from kneading. Mollie’s face was red with exertion.

“What won’t?” she asked, resuming the stretch-fold-stretch-fold rhythm. Working dough relaxed her. The knowledge that each pull and press moved energy from her muscles into what would later feed them. The cycle of it.

“The laundry. Nothing fits.”

“That’s odd,” Sandra noted. “I washed linens in it just the other day.”

“But nothing fits!” Mollie’s voice shook. “Not a sock!”

Sandra paused. She forgot how easily her sister got flustered even by simple things.

“It’s a Space-Savor model,” she offered. “Have you tried shrinking the items first?”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Na’ama Yehuda

Nostalgia

March 1, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bus ride, Going to school, Hadera, Israel, Memory, middle-school, Morning, Siblings, Sisters, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 29 Comments

Photo: Hadera, Israel

The bus rumbled on the narrow road, slow behind the loaded tractor wagon. A mix of diesel fumes, damp earth, and faint notes of orange blossoms wafted through the open crack in the heavy window.

They were going to be late. Again.

She sighed and glanced at her youngest sister, automatically feeling for the change-of-uniform she carried at the bottom of her school bag for the eventuality that her sister’s car-sickness would get the upper hand.

Across the narrow aisle, a woman coughed wetly into a handkerchief and shifted the plastic baskets that crowded the small space under her feet. Those will be packed full on the ride back from Hadera, their area’s shopping center and nearest ‘big’ town.

Finally, past Gan-Shmuel, the snailing tractor turned into a field and the bus picked up speed. Houses marked the city’s boundaries. She nudged her other sister awake. “We’re getting off soon.”

For What Pegman Saw: Hadera, Israel

Note: Depicting a very true (almost daily) childhood memory …

Ring-a-marole

November 29, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Just because, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Mystery, Photo prompt, Siblings, Sisters, Unknown, Writing prompt 12 Comments

“Why’d they do that?”

“‘Twas needful.”

Sheri twisted her skinny braid around her finger. It was the one benefit of having really fine hair. She could get it to loop five times while Marina only could loop hers twice. Long fingers helped, too. Marina’s were chunky. From Dad’s side. “Needful how?”

“Protect the tree, this does.”

“From what?” There was nothing in their end of the park.

“From whom, more like.”

Sheri unwound her braid and stuck the edge of it in her mouth.

“Mom doesn’t like it when you do that.”

“Mom isn’t here,” Sheri stated. Besides, her sister was just jealous because her own hair was too short to suck on. “Protect from who? And why?”

“‘Tis for me to know and for you to find out,” Marina regarded the ring of metal stakes, the tree, her sister’s face.

“You plain don’t know,” Sheri stomped, frustrated.

Marina smiled.

For Crispina’s CCC challenge #55