Taking Off

March 18, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Leaving, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Plans, Secrets, Takeoff, Writing Challenge 39 Comments

Photo prompt: © J Hardy Carroll

He packed his bags late at night, tiptoeing around the sleeping figures of his flatmates. His plan would only work for one.

Well, two, perhaps … But much as he wanted company, he knew from experience that the only person he could truly rely on was himself, and he couldn’t afford to add the caprice of another human into an already iffy situation.

He made his way through quiet side-streets, ears perked and eyes peeled. He would approach the lot from the back, scale the pole, rope and lug his luggage up, distribute the weight, check the dials.

Takeoff before dawn.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

The Bubble

March 17, 2020March 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Anxiety, Being in the moment, Biology, Crisis, Emergency, Flash Fiction, Just because, Just for fun, Kreative Kue, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge 17 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

“It is the only way!” he insisted.

She shook her head. She understood his urgency but he’s been going on about a string of crises for the last two hours, and her bladder was threatening to win the Battle Of Emergency.

“Are you even listening?” his voice rose, reedy with strain.

She took a breath, curbing the depth of it as to not add to the internal pressure. There was no rest-stop in sight. She began wondering if the wall of a nearby metal shipping container would have to do. With any luck, no one would be peeking out their window or strolling by or who knows.

“I really have to go,” she tried.

He exploded. “Can you stop thinking about yourself for a moment and actually take this in?!”

Her bladder cramped. Did he seriously just say “take in”?!!

He was known for working himself into a tizzy, but his anxiety and whatever issues the current times awoke in him, did not give him license to be disrespectful. “Start the car,” she bristled. “We’re leaving.”

He glared at her as if she grew antennas, which she thought was hilarious given the circumstances and his ideas. Laughter began to bubble in her belly, but she didn’t think her pelvic musculature could manage the added demand.

“We can talk more about building your floating sphere,” she added, regretting her choice of words almost as soon as it left her lips, yet finding herself unable to conjure any other imagery. “But if you don’t get me to a bathroom in the next three minutes, you’ll have to wade through bigger waters than what this world saw during Noah’s flood.”

For the Kreative Kue challenge #254

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.)

Night Walker

March 14, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Childhood trauma, children, Creative writing, Family, Poetry, Posttraumatic Stress, Secrets, Sleepwalking, Somnambulism, Unspoken, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 16 Comments

Photo: Martin Adams on Unsplash

She’d appear out of her bed

As if in dream.

An apparition in their kitchen.

A small figure levitating up the stairs

From the nursery,

A flannel nightgown sweeping over the cold floor

And her bare feet.

They might’ve wondered

Why she had become

A somnambulist,

Had they not needed to keep

Any odd thing

Completely clandestine.

So they latched the front door

High,

And kept the very secret

Of her night-walking

Under the covers

Of unspoken sleep.

For the Weekend Writing Prompt: Somnambulist in 78 words

Things To Come

March 13, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, City life, Current affairs, Disrepair, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Priorities, Privilege, Sidewalk, Writing Challenge 9 Comments

Perhaps it had been the mark of things to come, though till it arrived they did not know it (or, as some stated, they’d preferred ignoring the possibility).

There were so many explanations: Bad weather, a change in allocation, inability to keep up with need, aging infrastructure, decline in the number of those who knew how to fix things with handiwork instead of keyboards.

Of course, the sidewalks didn’t crumble overnight. It took years. Yet somehow people had dismissed a steady rise in ankle injuries. They merely shook their heads when accessibility was reduced to the long-legged spry. There was no outcry. After all, most people didn’t ambulate with strollers, walking-sticks or wheelchairs.

In the end it was the roller-bags that tipped the scale. What unconscionable disrepair allowed wheels to break in ways manufacturers won’t cover? People could not be reduced to lifting suitcases when they needed to go somewhere!

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Once Upon A Swing

March 11, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Beliefs, children, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Grief, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Playground, Wish, Writing Challenge 40 Comments

Photo Prompt © Ceayr

“It’s where he comes to make a wish,” Johanna whispered over her swing’s ropes as the girls passed each other on the swing-set, ringlets flying in the breeze.

Marie’s eyes widened and she forgot to pump her legs. The old man looked like many others she’d seen. Or was he? She’s never known anyone grown who made wishes. In real life. Into a fountain. Like in stories. It made her wonder what other things in tales were true. Perhaps goblins? Or princesses?

“His wife died, you see,” Johanna added, impressed by her cousin’s reaction. “He wishes for her to return.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

A Bit Of Stir

March 9, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: cause and effect, Charisma, Creative writing, dVerse, Mystery, Poetry, Quadrille, Reaction, Stir, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 23 Comments

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Photo: Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

She was always one to cause

Quite a bit of stir

In every entrance,

In the very way the air around

Her every move

Would shift

To agitated waiting,

For something breathless

That was not easily worded

Yet nonetheless remained

Indelibly perceived as

Inescapable.

For the dVerse quadrille poetry challenge: stir

Quite Simply

March 7, 2020March 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Corruption, Crisis, Current affairs, Gaslighting, History, Misinformation, Perplex, Poetry, Politics, Truth, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge 19 Comments

Photo: Zane Lee on Unsplash

“Quite simply,” she said,

“The very times when some in power

Are seeking to perplex you,

Are the times when you best make sure

That you are not at all confused.”

“For when what should be simple

Is deliberately made unclear,

And what’s logical is spun

Cheaply to cost dear,

It ought to signal your eyes

To remain widely open,

And your ears to insist on holding only

To the truth.”

She sighed and touched the blue print

Faded on her arm,

Seared like yesterday

In her heart and mind.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Challenge: Perplex in 90 words

Flecked History

March 7, 2020March 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancestry, Elders, Flash Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Micro-fiction, Perspective, Religion, Saudi Arabia, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 42 Comments

Photo: M.Bin HMQ; Wadi ad-Dawasir, Saudi Arabia

“He is an infidel,” Abdul grumbled about his employer. “Ad-Dawasir history shouldn’t be fouled by non-believers.”

“So were your ancient ancestors,” Umm Habib noted, her fingers flying as she shaped the dough with the practiced moves of innumerable meals prepared.

The adolescent startled. Such accusation would’ve necessitated a fist-fight if it hadn’t come from his grandmother.

“Many Taghlibi remained Christians well after The Prophet came,” the old woman’s face remained placid. She didn’t need to look up to sense the anger flashing in the boy’s hereditarily flecked eyes. But youngsters’ dark moods and opinions were like moving water. Truth remained.

She plucked freshly baked bread from the earthen oven with bare fingers, tips hardened by life’s constant flames. “That history is long passed, but it bears remembering some of our ancestors even fought against Muslim, and many stayed Christian …” she paused, considering. “Before finally embracing The Prophet’s teachings and Islam.”

For What Pegman Saw: Wadi-ad-Dawasir, Saudi Arabia

No Known Gnome

March 6, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: CCC, Consequences, Flash Fiction, Folklore, Garden, Gnomes, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 14 Comments

CCC #69

No matter how much he tried to recreate the last exchange he’d had with The Tall, he couldn’t wrap his head around how he ended up in the predicament he now found himself in.

Open-eyed-blind, blunted, turned away from everything and everyone. He was but a nub of his former self.

It never should’ve come to that.

He didn’t think such drastic measures had ever been taken before against any of the garden folk. Certainly not against a gnome (shorter and tricksier than most or not). Sure, there have been tales of persecuted fairies. Of elves’ homes trampled. Of spirits sent to cemetery quarantine. Perhaps the less-than-fair Fair-Folk had to sometimes be kept in check. But gnomes? Why would anyone get even with a Grandfather of Gardens? Gnomes were made to evoke trust and smiles, not fury.

And yet. There he was. Exiled. Helplessly turned against the blank, black wall.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge