The Present

December 7, 2020December 8, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Quotes, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Coincidence, dVerse, Flash Fiction, History, Memory, Micro-fiction, Prosery, Quote, Remembering, Revisiting, Writing prompt, WWII 13 Comments

(Photo: Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash)

She was shaking when I entered the room. Hands wringing, lips trembling, her eyes a shade of numb I had rarely seen.

Mary had called me. She had come to check on her and bring a midday repast. Mother being too proud to ask for help, even though her legs no longer held her sturdily or long enough to cook herself a decent meal.

Appearance and stoicism were Mother’s barometers of standing.

Socially and otherwise.

Not that you’d know it from her mascaraed cheeks.

She pointed to the antique book I had gifted her the previous evening.

“I understand, therefore I’ll live,” was scribbled in the cover. “R.B. 1941“

Mother pressed a notepad on me. Scribbled on it were the same words. Same letters. An older hand.

“I forgot,” she whispered, caressing her initials. “But reading what I have just written, I now believe.”

Prompt quote: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe.” (Afterward by Louise Gluck)

For the dVerse prosery challenge

Up In Smoke

January 12, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Family, Flash Fiction, History, Holocaust, In memoriam, Loss, Micro-fiction, Minsk, Trauma, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt, WWII 17 Comments

Minsk (Photo by Anton Rusetsky on Unsplash)

“These stacks look like a hand,” Bella rested her chin on the window’s ledge and gazed at the golden hues of sunset over Minsk. It was beautiful.

“A hand with six fingers.”

Bella scowled into the glass. In her mother’s tone she heard challenge, dismissal, and disdain. It stole the luster off the previous moment’s calm. She resented the coldness with which her mother marred everything during this visit. It felt like a smudge she could not wipe.

So she was surprised when her mother came to kneel on the bed by her, close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the trembling. Her mother rarely cried.

“Six fingers for the six millions,” her mother whispered. “And these clouds like burning souls against the evening sky. Everyone my mother had known. Our whole extended family. Burnt. Dead. Gone. This city will never be free of them, Bella. They speak on.”

For What Pegman Saw: Minsk

Amortize

June 25, 2018June 26, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, WordOfDayNY, Writing Tags: Abuse of power, Bullying, Current affairs, History, Human Rights, MerriamWebster, Racism, Value, WordOfDayNY, WordOfTheDay, WWII Leave a comment

never again poland

Allow persons in power

To amortize the legitimacy of those

They term ‘others,’

And the weak will fall behind them,

Eager to believe themselves

More worthy

Than most.

They’d be wrong, of course, for

They are not.

Because none who are truly strong

And deserving of honor

Would ever devalue others

Nor would they sit back as

Inhumanity

Takes hold.

Merriam-Webster’s word for June 25, 2018:

Amortize

This post continues the blogging challenge in which Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day, serves as inspiration a-la the “Daily Prompt.”

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