Photo: Chagit Moriah-Gibor
As chilly nights
Churn cold winds
And unclothed trees
Hold branches
In a yearn
To huddle near,
Cherish the fleeting
Flowing moments
Of memory’s chalices
Filling with cheer,
As a child
Chants a prayer
And gently lights
History’s challenge
To despair
Lack
And fear.
For the dVerse Quadrille Monday challenge: Cheer
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
“Time to go.” Ari shook the ground-cloth.
“One more swim to the breakwater and back!” Deni pleaded.
Ari eyed the sky, the flagpole buckling in the wind, the jellyfish tumbling in the surf. “Another time,” he turned to fold their sun-umbrella.
Behind him he heard Deni’s running steps. He reached for the vinegar. That girl never did listen.
For Sammi’s weekend writing prompt: Breakwater in 58 words
Photo: Ofir Asif
“They are not welcome here,” the Chief decreed.
His eyes regarded the troop that was his to protect. The land was plentiful, but his soul recalled the stories of Times of Famine, when many had been reduced to skin and bone and many more had died. Legend had it that The Others had brought it on, had taken more than was their share, and angered rain from falling, seeds from growing.
He sensed Bannu’s discontent. Chiefs didn’t have to grant permission for anyone’s opinion. Life showed him, however, that good Chiefs balanced silencing with persuading.
“Bannu?” he grunted.
“What if they return with more of their kind?” The youngster’s sparse ruff bristled apprehension.
The Chief nodded. Foresight was rare. The youth had potential. It also made him someone to watch out for.
“If they challenge us,” the Chief bared teeth and growled an answer and a warning. “We fight.”
Photo: Inbar Asif
I will leave the light on
For you and those still lost.
I will leave the light on
For nights when stars hide most.
I will leave the light on
Even if some say I’m wrong.
I will leave the light on
So you know that you belong.
I will leave the light on
During storms and gale and snow.
I will leave the light on
Just so you see and know.
Photo: Karen Forte
The air pristine
On angels’ winds,
Unspoiled by what
Mans’ hands can bring.
In feathered clouds
And oceans’ swing,
It heralds surf
Of joy within,
To mark the waves
With dance that gleams,
And breathes along
A song to sing
For all that dreams.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: Spoiler
Photo: Amitai Asif
At the fringe of the habitable
Where the ice kisses sky,
And the black rock remembers
Lava’s wrath, ashes’ sigh,
The cold wraps hands around hearts
To reach deep and warmth pry.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Fringe (34 words)
“Should be safe to rest here,” Ron lowered Percy’s carrier. The straps left red gouges on his shoulders. The boy was too big to be carried but we had to leave the wheelchair behind.
Ron rolled his neck, glanced at the underpass’s puddle, and reached for the tablets. “I’ll purify some water.”
“Will they find us, Mama?” Percy put words to my heartache. He’d endured silently through miles of jarring terrain.
“We’ve been careful,” I looked into his worried eyes as I massaged the contracted limbs. “Also, new laws or not, we won’t let you be taken by Leave-Only-Abled-Children raids.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
He was coming home for the first time since and I wasn’t sure what to do with the mixture of emotions swirling in me.
Trepidation. Hope. Regret. Grief. … And woven between them the pleading thread that it will magically make it as if nothing had happened. For I wanted — oh, so wanted — to undo what could not be undone …
Nothing subdued the anxiety, so I just stood by the window and waited. For days now anything I touched and every room I’d entered was seen through his soon-to-come eyes: the new cover on the sofa, the oval mirror at the entryway that had replaced the one I’d broken in a fist of pain, the small rocking-chair just where it had always been. This window.
And the steps. The wretched spot where Ella’s head had hit so hard when she fell that the stair’s edge chipped.
“You should’ve watched her,” was all he’d said at the morgue. Or since.
Twelve months ago today.
(Wordcount: 162)
For the FFfAW writing challenge
Photo Credit: Rick Spaulding
“Which one’s yours?”
Mary shrugged.
“C’mon, which one?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before she shrugged again, and I grinned. Perhaps she wanted me to guess.
I took another look at the display. Mary was talented enough to create any of those pumpkins, but she wasn’t one to think outside the box. So maybe not the clown or minion. Did she even know about ninja turtles? I pointed at the shark.
She shook her head, and I was about to guess again when I noticed how tightly she held on to the edge of her blouse. Mary was taciturn but not prone to nervousness.
“Is everything okay?”
Her chin was halfway into a nod when she paused and her upper lip trembled.
A ball formed in the center of my chest. She’s scared, I realized as my body mirrored hers. Suddenly all I wanted was to get her out of there.
“Forget the silly display. Let’s get some air and you can tell me what happened.”
“But it is the display,” Mary murmured, her eyes darting to the table. “I’d made a unicorn. I came early to set up and…” she shuddered, “… I saw the clown eat it.”
For the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge
Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
She used to splice the water like an arrow, undeterred by swells.
She’d always been better than him, though he never admitted it and she was too proud to brag and sometimes too overconfident.
They pretended playful competitions but those inevitably turned into dogged races that left them near exhaustion. Luke even capsized once, far from shore. He was upset by her gaining on him and so tired that all he managed was to slap the water with his oar and spin his boat into the wide belly of a wave. Nearly spent herself, she barely managed to help him into hers.
She’d give everything to race him again.
She gazed into the bay. She could no longer row. Her boat rested, overturned. Perhaps it kept her brother company. He, too, was beached, six feet below.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Arrow in 135 words
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