For Now

April 20, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Deserted, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Making do, Micro-fiction, Runaway, Runaways, Seeking safety, Survival 45 Comments

kananaskis-cafe

They didn’t know where she was. She preferred it that way.

The windows were all missing. No doors. Graffiti covered the shell of building.

It was far from town, but sometimes travelers stopped to stare, and some used the empty rooms for all manner of unsavory business.

She spent most days in the nearby woods. Foraging. Snaring. Keeping watch.

At night, she kept to the relative shelter of the basement, hanging bits of chain on entryways to serve as warning chimes.

She dreamed of restorations. Of locks on doors.

She wanted more.

But it was home enough.

For now.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: © Carole Erdman-Grant

Inside Job

March 17, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Encourage, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Make the most of it, Making do, Micro-fiction, Survival 25 Comments

gate-photo-promt-unknown-submission

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like on the outside …”

“Yea,” Elianna intoned, “it’s what on the inside that matters.”

“Exactly,” Jennifer winked. To be easily discouraged was a privilege of the young. Something time cured. Or tanned into tough old leather. She chuckled.

“What?” Elianna sounded wounded.

“I was laughing at myself, Eli.” Jennifer tested the length of her chains. Sink to bed to door. “We can do not a thing about that horrid gate or those who guard it, but let’s put some elbow grease into this door and make our inside view a good deal better.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Brenda Cox

Stable Home

March 9, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Home, Making do, Micro-fiction, Priorities, Seeking safety, Stable, Survival 42 Comments

lisa-fox-stone-cabin

They thought it mattered to him that it wasn’t fancy. That he’d care it was damp. Or old. Or cobbled together from what materials could be found.

They were wrong.

All he ever wanted was a roof that did not leak, a hearth that could be lit, food enough to fill his belly, safety in his sleep, a bed that did not bite, walls that did not threaten to collapse about his ears.

The cabin was all that.

And more.

Sure, it had housed horses, and smelled of them, sometimes.

It only made it more a home.

A stable home.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Lisa Fox

Storied Stories

January 21, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, books, Childhood trauma, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hope, Institutionalization, library, Micro-fiction, Survival 42 Comments

childrens-library-ted-strutz

They climbed in silence, single file, the occasional foot scraping a bare concrete step.

Lindon pressed his lips. It helped stop the trembling. This was his first ‘trip’ off the ward and he wanted to look around. To look at others for their reactions. But new or not, he’d learned enough to understand that it was better not to. He kept his head low.

A scent hit him. Like Grandma’s house. Last month. Eons ago. He blinked.

The stairs ended. He looked up. His eyes grew.

His heart, too.

A room of books.

Stories. Escape.

He knew he would survive.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Ted Strutz

The Last One

July 21, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Authoritarianism, Decorations, Dystopia, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holidays, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Survival 56 Comments

(Photo prompt © Na’ama Yehuda)

They passed through the neighborhood with trucks and flags and camouflage uniforms.

Clean-up crews. Of sorts.

Sterilizers, they called themselves.

They traveled under the cover of night, removing festivities, restoring streets to what they saw as law and order and conformity.

They gave no warning.

“Better,” they were told, “to ask forgiveness than to get permission.”

It also prevented protests, dodged chaos, and avoided the otherwise inevitable secreting.

They were ordered to “take everything.” To make it fact.

And they did.

To the last one.

Or almost.

Because walking the dreary city after the Holiday Decorations Ban.

She saw.

One.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Also, thank you for using my photo for this week’s prompt. Curious to see where people will take it!

The Shucker

July 19, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Abuse, Child labor, Childhood Adversity, dissociation, dVerse, Exploitation, Hine Lewis Wickes, History, Prosery, Quote, Survival 35 Comments

A girl’s voice protested. A cackle followed.

Leah kept her head down and her eyes on the task before her. There was a quota to complete if she wanted anything in her stomach, and she could make her body dead to wandering fingers. She’d learned how. The hard way. The only way.

When the foreman finally moved on, she gritted her teeth and tried to not compare slime to slime.

Not that she would ever touch the stuff. And not only because it was forbidden.

Beside her, Mandy sniffled. “How can you stand it?”

“Perhaps she doesn’t mind him,” Becca hissed. “Seeing how she never cries.”

Leah clenched her teeth, locked her knees, and steadied her breath. She focused on the fading light glinting on the blade. “No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

For the dVerse Prosery writing prompt

Prosery prompt quote: “No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” (Zora Neale Hurston, from “How Does it Feel to be Colored Me” in World Tomorrow, 1928)

Photo: Hine Lewis Wickes, The Library Of Congress https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/nclc.00919/

Playing Along

July 12, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Bullying, dVerse, Finding a way, Getting by, Juke, Playing along, Poetry, Quadrille, Survival 42 Comments

(Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)

He wasn’t going to win this game.

He learned that much from many

That he had

Lost.

And he did not care

To have his face made pie

Against another Juke

Box.

So he played along,

As if it was all

A big

Joke.

For the dVerse 10th Anniversary (!!) poetry quadrille challenge: Juke

Dedicated to all who had to play along, because that was the safer – if fake – choice.

Spree Time

April 10, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Creative writing, Dumpster, Flash Fiction, Food, Forage, Life Lessons, Micro-fiction, Poverty, Survival, Weekend Writing Prompt 23 Comments

(Photo: David Libeert on Unsplash)

No wallet? No problem.

He’d lived without one as a child and did not remember being hungry. Or at least, not so hungry that he could not muster energy to wrangle grub from whatever lay around.

His grandmother had taught him. Raised through famine she had become an expert forager. There were few edible things she did not recognize or know how to procure.

“If you’re awake, you can find food,” she’d say.

He was awake.

It was time to dumpster dive.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Forage in 82 words

A Long Way Down

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, CCC, Creative writing, Dystopia, Finding a way, Flash Fiction, Making do, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Siblings, Survival, Writing Challenge 21 Comments

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“This place will never do,” Aaron shook his head.

“It’ll have to,” Ella tucked the edges of frustration back into the crevices that practice had made almost foolproof. Almost. One could not get complacent.

She’d seen what happened when one did, and the cost was never worth the temptation of release.

“We’ll make it work,” she added before Aaron could add argument to what they both knew will have to be managed anyway.

The steep plot of thicket-covered land was all they had. A measly inheritance, perhaps, but better than the debtor’s jail … and the ways one had to pay debts with one’s body. Piecemeal. By the hour. By the man. They could neither of them survive it again.

“It is a long way down,” Aaron acquiesced. “The stairs are rotted.”

“A longer way up for those who do not know the path,” Ella smiled. “We’ll do fine.”

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Cleanup Crew

October 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Clean up, Evolution, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just because, Micro-fiction, Precautions, Storm, Survival 48 Comments

“Well, that’s not too bad,” Irvin scratched his chin. The scruffy look added credibility, but the cost in itchiness was high.

Darwin nodded. Looked bad to him, but he wasn’t gonna say nothing. He always ended up sounding stupid and he’d heard enough evolution jokes. Thank you Mom and Dad.

“You get the rake and the bin. Start scraping,” Irvin ordered. “I’ll go check the inside.”

Awning roof sure slants funny, Darwin thought, but didn’t say. Just made sure he was on the far side of the van when the corrugated metal screeched.

Survival of the fittest and all that.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers