Last One In

January 8, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Adversity, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Micro-fiction, Poverty, rules, RV, Shame, Siblings, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 40 Comments

Photo Prompt: C.E. Ayr

“They’ll kick us out!”

Darlene shook her head. “They won’t know.”

“Dad will kill us if we get caught.”

Darlene sighed. Shirley was such a wimp. Never took any risks. Never had any fun. “We won’t.”

Shirley peered out of the RV at the shimmering pool. Darlene never met a rule she didn’t want to break, and somehow both of them would end up punished. “It says ‘Guests Only.'”

“We’re guests.”

Without a permit. Shame rose like hot bile. They were always the ones without, the ones left out.

“C’mon then,” she blinked away tears. “Last one in cleans up!”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

The Stir

January 5, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Dinner, Family, Flash Fiction, Intention, JusJoJan, Micro-fiction, Moving out, Season, Writers United, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 10 Comments

Photo: Alev Takil on Unsplash

It wasn’t my intention to create such a stir.

Or was it?

There were many reasons to season the exchange with something less bland than the weather of stocks and performance of bonds and predicted fluctuations of the markets.

So I told them I’m leaving.

“But dinner isn’t over!” Mom’s carefully drawn eyebrows rose into a crease that would likely be frozen by Botox by next week.

“You’ve not been excused,” Dad contributed parenting.

“I’m thirty-two,” I breathed. “I’m moving out.”

“On your own?” Mom’s voice turned acid.

I glanced down. Met liquid eyes. Inspiration dawned. “Nope, I’m taking Leon.”

For Linda Hill’s JusJoJan prompt: Intention

And … dipping my pen for the first time into the Writers United prompt of “season”

The Vow

January 3, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, JusJoJan, Just because, Missed, Poetry, Promise, Relationships, Rhyme, SoCS, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 10 Comments

fabrizio-verrecchia-BXwbfuM0cdk-unsplash

Photo: Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

It was to be a fervent

Vow

For all the things their souls

Allow

For hopes and dreams, and yet

Somehow

The time and place did not

Allow

And left them both perplexed,

What now?

For Linda Hill’s SoCS (and JusJoJan) challenge

A Long Walk

December 29, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancestry, Aosta Valley, Flash Fiction, Hike, Italy, Micro-fiction, Mist, Reflections, Relationships, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 21 Comments

Aosta Valley, Italy (Carl Borg on Unsplash)

It had been a misty sunrise. The light rode soft atop the milky white outside.

He thought it was an omen and that she ought to stay in. “You won’t see where you’re going,” he fretted.

She told him the mist would clear. She could read it in the air. She could smell it in the tang of pine. She readied her day-bag and rushed through her chores.

Still he fussed. “What if not?”

She understood. She also knew he hadn’t grown up in these mountains. His roots did not go deep into this land, while her family traced their ancestry to the Ligures. Her people lived in these environs even before the Celts had arrived.

He feared what she did not.

In more ways than one, she realized.

It was another reason that she needed to take a long walk. Exactly so she could see where she was going.

For What Pegman saw: Aosta Valley, Italy

An Education

December 21, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Asucion, Belonging, education, Family, Flash Fiction, Heritage, History, Museum, Paraguay, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 28 Comments

Photo: El Cabildo © Preyes (Wikimedia Commons)

“Where are we going, Papi?” Ramon clung to his father’s belt.

“You’ll see.”

“But it’s a school-day, Papi.” If there was something — other than Jesus — that his parents held sacred, it was education. Though poor, his parents always managed to supply what he needed for school. In turn Ramon was expected to learn well and listen to his teachers. Skipping classes went against everything he understood.

“It will still be a day of learning,” Papi pedaled steadily over muddy paths, narrow roads, and into the city.

Ramon held on, in awe of his father’s ability to find his way in the maze.

A grand peach-colored building manifested.

“A palace, Papi?”

“A museum.”

“Of what?”

“Of us.”

Ramon shook his head. Museums are for the dead.

“We’re native Paraguayans, son. El Cabido is dedicated to our heritage. Our music. Our crafts. Today your school is the history of who you are.”

For What Pegman Saw: Asucion, Paraguay

In His Arrogance

December 21, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Arrogance, Current affairs, Expectations, Hubris, personality, Poetry, Politics, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 35 Comments

Photo: Phil Botha on Unsplash

In his arrogance he sees

Himself reflected

In everything.

All positive is commandeered as his

Achievement,

Any negative is protested as

Insult to

Him,

To the supposedly undisputed

Glory

Of his being.

In his hubris he

Expects only effusive

Praise.

He demands fealty in all

Things.

Admiration to any idea he

Hijacks

To claim it was never invented

Prior to the mighty of

Him.

In his presumption he feeds on

Adoration

And punishes

All critic

As wounding the belief in

Him.

In his arrogance

He sees only,

Appreciates only,

Allows only what feeds

Him.

Disclaimer: No offense meant to the (truly magnificent) bird …

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Hubris in 94 words

Devilish

December 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: belief, Climbing, Devil, Family, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Spirituality, Tasmania, Totem Pole, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 26 Comments

Photo: Steve Bruce on Unsplash

“It was the devil made those,” Aunt Beulah’s eyebrows almost met above the bridge of her nose.

“They’re just a form of volcanic rock, cooled down in a specific way …” Jedidiah tried.

“By which you mean, the devil.”

Jedidiah sighed. There was no way to reason with his relative once her mind was set. Science would find its way to be in service of her beliefs, and any fact would somehow be turned into further proof of her conviction.

In some ways, he knew, he was no different, only that his spiritual experiences had more to do with being one with the rock, fingers holding on to crags, feet clinging to the surface, defying gravity, confronting his mortality.

“You go climb the devil’s work,” Aunt Beulah muttered. She’d raised him and saw herself in his stubbornness. “And I’ll be in the church praying for Jesus to keep you from dying.”

For What Pegman Saw: Tasmania, Australia

No Time

December 9, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Arroyo, Creative writing, dVerse, Flash Fiction, Folklore, Micro-fiction, Poetry, Prosery, Seeking help, time, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 23 Comments

Photo: Ofir Asif

She ran into the camp,

Braids streaming behind like ribbons

In wind,

Determined to be

Unbound

For a time.

The women raised their heads,

Weary from tending to

Crops and overtired babies.

This time of year was plentiful in many things but

Not in time.

“What is it, child,” her elder asked,

The rhythm of rocking the cradles of milk

And infant

Adding a lilt to her aged voice,

Raspy from smoky fires and chaff

Of time.

“Help,” the young one breathed,

And stalled,

Needy of air and flooded by sudden doubt.

“Speak up, child,” her mother snapped,

Tight with worry for a girl-child

Chased home,

And the shadows

of another time.

The camp stilled.

A baby woke in cry.

“Come help,” the lass repeated, indignant,

No longer shy.

“The creek rises and a cow is screaming

Across the arroyo.

We have no time!”

For the dVerse prosery challenge

Over Barricaded

December 7, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Barricade, Consequences, coping, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Protection, Trauma, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 13 Comments

Photo: Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

There was a wall in there.

A barricade against the world.

He’d built it, bit by bit, from hurts and slights and bigger woes.

And hid.

Within.

Where he thought he’d be safe, and from where he could watch from a distance, reassured by barriers and gates and locks and elaborate booby-traps that made sure no one got too close.

There was a wall in there.

And a moat.

Alligators, too. For insurance.

Only that they had become hungry with the years, as less people even attempted to get near him, and therefore there was less bait.

So that he was, in many ways, imprisoned.

He’d been young when he’d built the wall, and he didn’t plan ahead. So needy of a solid barricade he’d been, that he never made a way to unlock the gate.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Barricade in 136 words