Heidi’s Hideout

September 28, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Family, Flash Fiction, Heidi, Maienfeld, Micro-fiction, Namesake, Secrets, Switzerland, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 32 Comments

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

It was the last place she thought anyone would look for her.

Or the first. Depends.

If they knew the story of her grandmother, after whom she was named, then they’d surely make a beeline to the cottage. But most people did not know. Or forgot. And she herself hadn’t been particularly good at telling the story that as a child had made her feel bland and timid in comparison to her grandmother’s girlhood bravery and independence, and as an adult made her feel as if she was seeking to gain attention by association and not merit.

So when people asked: “Heidi, like the girl in the story?” she would just nod or shrug or at the most say, “perhaps, eh?”

She let her heritage become a secret.

Perhaps that will end up allowing her fresh air, away from everyone’s demands, at her great-great-grandpa’s ancient yet secluded Maienfeld house.

For What Pegman Saw: Maienfeld, Switzerland

Or Not

September 28, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Action, Choices, Climate Change, Earth, Future, greed, Nature, Poetry, Ultimatum, Warning, Weekend Writing Prompt, Writing prompt 16 Comments

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The sun will warm

Again

Or far

Too hot.

The water that sustains

Will flood

Again

Or not.

The tenet that prevails

Remains:

This magic of a planet

To protect

We ought,

Or an ultimatum

Spurred by greed

With life as

Afterthought,

Will render what we

Know

And what we for our

Children hoped,

Into a disaster

We had let be

Bought.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Ultimatum in 62 words

A Net of Ents

September 27, 2019September 27, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Bravery, Determination, Ents, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Hex, Magic, Short Story, SoCS, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 15 Comments

Photo: Amitai Asif

“I am not going in there!”

Maxim sighed. “We must. It’s the only way.”

Stringer shook his head. “That place is haunted. Ghosts and goblins and who knows. I bet all the creepy things from the Underworld hide here, too.”

“The Underworld isn’t real.”

Stringer gave his friend a searching look. Maxim’s voice sounded a bit less certain than Stringer would have liked it to.

“Why does it have to be us, anyway?” Stringer pouted. Every cell in his body told him to flee, to leave, to get as much distance as he can between himself and this brooding, mossy, drippy, dark, tangled, creepy forest.

“Because.” Maxim lifted his chin, exposing a scrawny neck that had only gotten more birdlike in recent weeks. “Look, I’m scared, too, but even Mathilde said it was the only way.”

“She’s just an old crone,” Stringer scratched at a scab before glancing around guiltily and lowering his voice (one never knew if she might be listening and he did not fancy ending up in a cauldron), “and a witch.”

“Exactly.”

Stringer sniffed. He hated it when Maxim got the last word and even more when Maxim was right.

Mathilde was gnarly and bent and more than a little odoriferous (whether it was lack of bathing or the miasma of whatever it is she must be concocting in that iron pot that was forever perched over the fire, he didn’t know and didn’t dare ask). She was the oldest person he’d ever seen. Indeed if anyone would know about the procedure for removing spells, it would be her … and she had been clear that the one they sought to have lifted was beyond her skill.

“Only Ents,” she’d croaked and hacked up something Stringer was certain was more than just phlegm. “Ten of them. If there are even that many left. Only they can undo an enchantment net. And only if they agree, which they don’t always. Best keep your wits about ya when ya enter Old Growth. Tear a leaf and ya’d well end up lacking a finger.”

She’d stirred the pot, giving the quaking boys a full view of her three fingered hand. “That is,” she’d added, “if ya exit there at all.”

The whole way to the ancient forest, Stringer and Maxim avoided discussing the meaning or implications of Mathilde’s words. Giving it voice was too scary and they were too excited. The hunger had taken someone in every house, and winter was poised to enter empty pantries. All they could think of was what would follow if the hex broke: bowls of broth and bread and beans and oats.

Their stomachs spoke louder than their worries.

Now the edge of the forest stopped them cold.

“Did you see her hand?” Stringer tried.

Maxim nodded.

“Do you think …?”

Maxim’s tunic rose as he shrugged. “Maybe it was frostbite.”

“Yeah.” Better that. Frostbite was awful and utterly non-magical.

“Though …” Maxim’s voice shook, and still he bent resolutely to tuck the edges of his tunic into his leggings and retie his belt so it did not flap. “Best make certain we don’t accidentally trip or tear a leaf or snap off anything.”

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Ten, Ent, Net

Hold My Spot

September 25, 2019September 25, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Resources and links, Writing Tags: Civil duty, Current affairs, FlashFiction, Friday Fictioneers, neighbors, NonFiction, Photo prompt, Volunteer, Vote, Writing prompt 60 Comments

Photo prompt: Na’ama Yehuda

The rain swelled and lessened, as did the line of people, standing dutifully in the raw, spitting day.

“How long?” A woman asked, leaning heavily on her cane.

“They’ll let you in,” I said, pointing. “You don’t need to stand in the long line.”

“What if they won’t? I don’t want to lose my place,” she fretted.

“Don’t worry,” a young hooded man motioned in direction of the building. “I’ll hold your spot.”

I smiled at him.

“Come,” I linked my arm in hers, round sticker prominent on my jacket “I’ll show you. I’m so happy you’re here to vote!”

For Rochelle’s FridayFictioneers

Note: Thank you Rochelle for using my photo! 🙂 Yay hurray! (It was, indeed, taken during an election day, where people stood in the pouring rain for over an hour, as the line stretched along sidewalks and around the corner in my neighborhood. The above is a depiction of real events). If you are in the US and aren’t registered to vote yet, please do! And, when elections come – any election – Vote! Your voice matters. Don’t let anyone convince you it does not.

Not Doom

September 23, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Challange, Determination, dVerse, Extinction, Grief, hope, Poetry, Quadrille, Tenacity, Writing prompt 35 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

I am not yet

Extinct

From here.

The winds that came

Once more

To blow me into an

Oblivion of preemptive

Grief,

Are yet to fray

The threads that

Hold me

In the hope

That this time, too

Will turn

A test, not

Doom.

For the dVerse Quadrille Poetry Challenge: Extinction

A Map Of Reminiscing

September 21, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Canada, Erosion, Flash Fiction, Loss, memories, Micro-fiction, Newfoundland, travel, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 38 Comments

Green Gardens trail in Gros Morne National Park, NL (Timothy Holmes on Unsplash)

They’d come to Gros Morne every summer. On “Dad Week.” Camp in a tent that always leaked but Dad wouldn’t replace, every patch and glued seam a map of reminiscing. They’d spend days on the meadows, walk the volcanic beach, go down to Old Man’s Cove.

Sal loved all of it. Even the chill and wet and constant hunger (for there was always more Dad aspired to catch than what he’d actually manage to). Sal never complained. He’d give up everything to breathe the ocean and make up stories about pirates in the coves. He’d even downplay the painful rash and sneezing (they never did find which wild-flower he was allergic to, and he didn’t want to, afraid Mom would say he couldn’t go).

Erosion closed his favorite trail, but not his memories.

He gazed at the ocean and wondered if Dad, whose mind was fading, still had his.

For What Pegman Saw: Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada

Fair Exchange

September 21, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Barter, hope, life, Micro Poetry, Poetry, Weekend Writing Prompt, Widsom, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 24 Comments

Photo: Pixabay on Pexels.com

She knew

It had always been

A barter:

Heartbeat

For

Hope.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Barter in 11 words

It’s a Wrap

September 20, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Moving on, Rap, Relationships, Reputation, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Wrap, Writing prompt 33 Comments

Photo: Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com

“It’s a wrap,” she said, and rose, and massaged the small of her back, which after all those hours of sitting felt as if sharp clamps had been tightened through it. Her back was never quite the same since the car accident. Or was it since the Shingles? Or the bad fall? Or the earlier things that were best left unremembered?

It wasn’t only her spine that bowed under the spasm. Her muscles were responding to a lot more than just the time spent in the chair.

He looked up, annoyed and uncomprehending. “Wrap, how?”

“In all the ways that matter,” she responded. It felt like ions since a soft hand on her back would melt the stress away and deepen her breath and make sleep nestle in so close she could smell it.

Decades? Years? Months? Too long.

“Living up to your rap of being cryptic, I see,” he muttered.

It was meant as a jab, but instead made a small peal of laughter form like a pearl inside her belly.

“I guess I am,” she noted, one hand still kneading the tightness in her lumbar area, the other held close against the urge to pat his head and make it better.

She’s moving on. He’ll have to find someone else to do all that for him now.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Wrap/Rap

Blue Belle

September 13, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Writing Tags: Be there, Blue, Creative writing, Flower, listening, Small Things, SoCS, speech therapy, speech-language-pathology, Therapy, Witness, Writing prompt 20 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

She hangs out next to the couch, wrapped around the floor lamp like a hand in a hand. She’s been there a long time. She lived on other floor lamps before this one, till their time had come and she welcomed a new one. She makes friends with them all, says goodbye to those who lost their spark. Perhaps she thinks of them, sometimes.

She hangs out next to the couch, wrapped around the floor lamp like a protective palm over a young hand. She watches little fingers wrestling beads onto threads, listens as small mouths make words out of thoughts, witnesses big hearts in tiny chests writing grand ideas into evolving minds – theirs and mine.

She hangs out next to the blue couch. She hears the unasked questions that stay behind worried parents’ lips. The questions children ask, sometimes for the first time. She understands. She does not prod. She just knows. They look for her, especially after a long break, reassured to find her there, still wrapped around the floor lamp like a comfy hug.

She’s been there long enough to find the right time to catch their eye.

With a quiet smile.

Blue Belle on her perch by the couch. Patience in her heart, twinkle in her eye.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Blue (first blue object you see)