Photo: Amitai Asif
If you look into the pond, you’ll see
The sky reflected,
The white clouds,
The world drenched in the beauty
Of clear water
On firm ground.
But if you’ll turn your head
From pond-life
And look around
And up
Onto the land and sky,
You will see the real world
In its worry,
In its glory,
So much bigger,
Spinning by.
For the Friday Fun prompt: Reflections
“There is glory in the graves.”
“No there ain’t. There is only death in them graves. And bones, if they ain’t turned meal theyselves yet.”
“I’m only reading what it says, Gramma.”
“You is only saying what is lies, then, and it don’t make it no more true in the sayin.”
“I’m sorry, Gramma.”
“Hmm.”
Moss trailed from the old trees like cobwebs strung on homes for Halloween. There was eerie beauty in them. And sorrow.
“Why did you bring me here, Gramma?” she asked.
“Because it be part of history. Good and bad, you is supposed to know it.”
“It looks really old.” And peaceful, she didn’t add.
“I hear tell they’s started buryin’ here about 1830. Didn’t have no old live oaks then, or young’uns. Just dead peoples.”
“When did they plant the oaks, then?”
“Nearabout 1880. They trees is pretty, Chile, but they graves still got no glory.”
For What Pegman Saw: Selma, Alabama
Photo: Josh Rangel via Upsplash
“It’s your sign,” she said.
“I don’t care,” he muttered.
“Yep, in your sign, too.”
He scowled and she laughed and he knew that anything he’d do or refuse to, would become her proof of the zodiac dictating his life, actions, tastes, worldview.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Zodiac in 43 words
“They bow, you see,” Mir explained.
The child held on silently to his hand.
Mir peered down at the small head, so uncharacteristically still, the red curls shining like molten gold under the sun.
The quiet lingered and Mir did not break it. More words would not change how there was only so much one could say about some things.
A bird fleeted close. A bee buzzed by. Somewhere a donkey brayed and a dog’s bark answered.
Still the child did not move.
Mir let the air in and out of his lungs mark the passage of time, even as he knew it would not be measured in the same way by the child. Nor would it matter. Time is rarely what it seems to be, anyhow.
The air shimmered. The scent of smoke wafted from someplace beyond the fields, and in it mixed the faintest hints of manure and baking bread.
A caterpillar inched its way atop a blade of grass.
“There is no wind,” the child finally noted.
“There is not,” Mir confirmed.
“Are they tied together?”
“They are holding limbs.”
The child looked at her own hand in her grandfather’s. She did not look up, but Mir could feel the connection being made as it wove a thread of understanding between the two of them, between them all.
A hush fell. Then a sudden breeze rippled through the field and whistled an unnamed sound as it passed through the stacks. The tips nodded.
The child bowed back.
For Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt: Wicker
The water glistened.
Gloria shook. “I don’t think I remember how.”
“Just do it,” Jody said. “It’s like riding a bike. Your body never forgets.”
I never had a bike, Gloria thought, and there is much I worked hard to have my body forget. Especially since that day.
“It’ll come back to you,” Jody urged. Ordered, almost. “Dive right in!”
It was the edge in the trainer’s voice that did it, and what it brought back was not welcome.
“No.” Gloria pulled her swim cap off. “Not here. Not yet. Not today.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
They’ve left the fridge door open.
The cool pooled close,
Breathing light
Into the space
As if the halo of it
Could be
Mistaken
For the life
That no longer
Offered heartbeat
In these rooms
That still echo
With the sounds
Of “please don’t!
Oh please!
Please!
Not the kids!”
(256 characters)
Photo: SeaReeds on Pixabay
“Is it a mongoose?” Molly squinted.
“Kind of cat.” Alfred raised his camera.
“No cat nor mongoose. It’s a Fossa. Belongs to the Viverrids.” Know-it-All Natalie noted, head-to-toe in expensive expedition gear.
“Vye-ve-whats?” Molly blurted.
Alfred shot Molly a warning glance, but it was too late.
“Viverrids. Civets. Genets. Or, if you need the very basics: Mammals. Endemic to Madagascar. Carnivorous. Eat lemurs, mostly, though they won’t turn their nose at lizards or birds or tenrecs.”
Alfred sighed. There’d be no stopping the Nataliepedia now. The woman was the bane of their group. He eyed the animal. Vye-ve whatever. Looked like dorky cougar to him.
“Nice fur,” he tried.
“You better not even think of it,” Natalie admonished, delighted. “They’re protected by fady. That’s local for taboo, in case you didn’t know that, either.”
Bet you aren’t, Alfred grumbled internally. Are fossa too fussy to have YOU for lunch?
For What Pegman Saw: Madagascar
Most had left already. Evacuation was taken seriously after the previous storm had wiped out a dozen residents and many homes. Sam stayed. Life couldn’t get much grayer with Meg having drowned. He’d survive or join her. Either way was okay.
Photo: Willie Fineberg via Upsplash, 10th St. Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA
She waited.
One more step and she’d have gone more than half-way across, but she found herself unable to move further. She sat on the asphalt, frozen by cemented legs.
So she waited. It was early, but sooner or later something will come by and she’d find out the price of her betrayal.
All her life she’s been bordered by this bridge, the yellow metal rising like a sun in her horizon: untouchable, unapproachable, dangerous.
They were raised to never cross it.
“Evil lives beyond this bridge,” her father had preached in daily sermons in their basement, the family huddled on aching knees and wreathed by incense, fear, and smoking wicks. “Leave here and your soul will be eternally forsaken. Abandon my teachings and you will not be saved.”
Well, she’d had enough. She could tolerate no more of his invasive ‘instruction.’
And she was ready.
To not be saved.
For What Pegman Saw: Pittsburgh, PA
“All houses bow with time,” Agnes fanned herself. The heat lay on the garden like a leaded blanket. Even the shade of the great oak offered only small respite, though their stifling rooms would be far worse.
“Yet not all houses must endure an Edmund,” Joan giggled behind her fan before frowning at her serving-woman for daring a grin. That girl ought to learn her place! Mockery of Edmund’s evident over-fondness for sweets and mutton was for his equals only to indulge in. It would not do to have the servants ridicule their superiors, or who knows who they would dare disrespect next!
At least the obstinate girl had manners enough to blush crimson and lower her eyes.
Agnes tilted her head mildly. “The estate out-dates our dear cousin by two centuries.”
“And may or may not last this one if he does not move his quarters,” Joan deadpanned but only with half-a-heart. Her wit was wilting. She wriggled two fingers and a woman stepped forward with a glass of mead and a linen square to dab the sweat off of her mistress’ forehead. Her own coif and underarms were dark with moisture. Joan sniffed the sachet at her wrist.
Insects buzzed. The minutes lingered. The house brooded heavy against the colorless sky.
“I wish the air would move,” Joan sighed. Her embroidery lay disused in her lap.
“I wish same.” Agnes’s ivory skin bloomed pink patches in the heat. Her needle, too, lay indolent. She gestured with her fan toward the horizon past the house. “Perhaps these clouds would soon shift the wind before them.”
A distant thunder rumbled as if in answer.
Behind the ladies, one of the serving-women squeaked.
Joan frowned.
“What is it, Marianne?” Agnes inquired, not unkindly.
“The house, My Lady,” the young woman’s curtsy was tense and her finger shook as she pointed it at the lattice work on the third story.
“What about the house?” Joan hissed. She found Agnes far too tolerant of serving girls’ dramatics.
A loud groan answered and the air itself seemed to shimmer. Or warp. Or weave.
A silence fell.
Joan felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end.
The insects. They’d stopped buzzing.
Even before her thought completed, lightening split the sky and sliced the roof, the latticework, the heavy beam, the second story window, and the chevrons on the wall, knifing deep into the ground.
Another bolt seared her eyes as it hit the oak.
Sudden wind rose and the air fled, taking with it any memory of the burning house against the raging sky.
For Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt: Monochrome WritePhoto
A place to improve my writing skills, and that's all.
We're not thriving, we're creatively photosynthesizing under duress.
History of the Bloomingdale area on Manhattan's Upper West Side
A creative miscellany of mythic fantasies
a weekly flash fiction prompt inspired by google maps
A community for writers to learn, grow, and connect.
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
I can't sleep...
Alternative haven for the Daily Post's mourners!
never judge a girl by her weight
original fiction and rhyme
You have reached a quiet bamboo grove, where you will find an eclectic mix of nature, music, writing, and other creative arts. Tao-Talk is curated by a philosophical daoist who has thrown the net away.
A photographer's view of the world - words and images to inspire your travels and your dreams
Life in progress
Straight up with a twist– Because life is too short to be subtle!
WordPress & Blogging tips, flash fiction, photography and lots more!
Light Words
Na'ama Yehuda 
You must be logged in to post a comment.