Photo: R. RozenZvi
I see you
Taking steps
Into faith
And thin air,
Holding hope
Like a rickety railing
Buffeted by winds
That had blown away
Trust in
A safe step
Anywhere.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Translucent in 29 words
Translucent Faith
Writing prompt
First Anniversary
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
Share this:
Dastardly Display
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
Share this:
An Arrow Spent
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
Share this:
Mr. Stormled’s Undoing
Photo credit: Fandango
“How long does she have to be here?”
I’m sure Martin’s eyebrows would’ve reached the ceiling if they weren’t tied together in a unibrow.
“Mr. Stormled said, at least a month.”
Martin twisted one side of his mouth to bite the corner of his lip, and I knew there were many words he wanted to say and wasn’t. Afraid, perhaps. Many were. There was something about people – if they were people at all – who controlled such things.
Stewart Stormled didn’t frighten me, though. At least not more than most things did. I bent to straighten the small pillow.
“Making her comfortable?”
“Can’t hurt.”
“Dad won’t like this.”
Martin had a point, but Dad wasn’t in charge of this any more. He’d given up that right when he dabbled in what he shouldn’t and left us to clean his mess. Like always.
A moment trickled by.
“You think it’ll work?” For once, Martin’s voice was small.
I sighed and traced the handle of Mr. Stormled’s broken wicker chair. “Yeah. Or Mama will remain a branch forever. Julie says that’s what happened to Grandma … last time Dad tried to use magic.”
For the Sunday Photo Fiction challenge
Share this:
Early Hold
Photo: Zaid Abu Taha on Pexels.com
She is early in birth
And early in breath,
Independent in all.
She’s come forth barely cooked
But is here even so
Stubbornly grabbing hold
Ravenous in her howls,
In a world just a tad
Unprepared
For her life-hungry spirit
And determined
Big soul.
[Dedicated to all the little ones who arrive exactly at the right time … for them. … and to all who work with them, to make it the best possible time and outcome.]
For the dVerse Poetry Challenge: Early in 44 words
Share this:
Bayou Bridged
City Park, New Orleans (Photo: en.wikipedia.org)
They always met in the park. There were spirits there, too, of course: The drowned. The lost. The desperate. The abandoned young. However, these tended to be the milder spirits, mellowed by moss and rain and the freedom to roam on whispery winds. House spirits were harsher, meaner, and angrier. They carried histories of rape and whippings and the smaller everyday murders that chip at a soul until there is nothing left but agony and bitterness.
It was better to meet in the park, on a bridge between this world and the other, chiseled by masons, anchored by time.
She lowered herself onto the top stair and waited. She’d hear him come, but she would not turn. He did not bear to be looked upon.
“I will take him across,” he’d said when they last met. And he had. It was a gentle death.
Now it was her mother’s time.
For What Pegman Saw
Share this:
Birthday Surprise
PHOTO PROMPT © Jilly Funell
Her heart fluttered in her chest. She wiped sweaty palms on her jeans and tugged her cap lower on her head to manage jitters and glare.
She’d worked on this all summer. In secret. His birthday surprise.
She moved closer to the building, automatically scanning the terrain even though she knew it like the back of her hand.
There he was, waiting.
“Hi Dad!”
His face lit up and he and turned toward the elevator. “I’ll call it for you.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” she grinned and pushed up from the wheelchair. “Just give me your arm. I can walk up.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
Share this:
Bottomless
Photo: New Mexico Tourism Department
“Which one was it?” Mark peered into the screen and jiggled the joystick for the drone.
“I don’t know,” Jake panicked. “It looks different from the ground.”
“We really should call 911,” Sherlock fretted.
“Shut up and live up to your name, will ya?” Jake snapped. Worry and guilt made him mean.
Sherlock turned beet red. In two months he’d finally be old enough to rid himself of this kick-me-name. Not that he trusted it’ll matter to those who already knew him.
Mark maneuvered the drone over the blue circle. He scanned the rocky edges. Ted was only supposed to pretend to jump in, so they could post it online for the new “Dive In” Internet challenge, but he either lost his footing or decided to show off.
A ripple in the watery surface had him zoom in closer.
The drone tilted, wobbled, splashed into the sinkhole, and disappeared. Like Ted.
For What Pegman Saw: Roswell, New Mexico
Share this:
Time To Unlock
Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev
Morning bells reverberated in the ancient alleyways, echoing against well-worn stone.
He rose to make his way from the humble room he slept in, to the place of worship his soul knew as his actual home.
The Old City of Jerusalem. The holy place named for harmony, recompense, greeting, and – with hopes for higher roads to be achieved – for wholeness, safety, and peace.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Unlock in 63 words
Na'ama Yehuda 
You must be logged in to post a comment.