The Gift

Been on a bus fifteen days, following my dream to tour the U.S. of A. Course my dream wasn’t set on a bus of screaming children and women who won’t stop talking. Neither was I going to be seventy-five and homeless. But the world hands you rotten apples and you make do.

My hair looks a fright, clothes are dirty and I smell a bit, probably why the waitress at the bus-stop lunch-counter is giving me the stink eye. She reaches for a plate, slaps something on it, slides it down the counter.

I’ll be damned! Toast with a smiley face.

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Drawing the Line

I’s been workin’ in Massah’s garden over forty years. Planted beans, corn, rutabagas, watermelon.
Raised his childrens and his chickens. Only rung the necks of dem birds, though I wanted to kill dem boys most every day.
They was mean little ones and downright nasty as growed menfolk.
Killin all kinds of things cause they could.
I drew one big ol line when they shot my man; sold our baby girl.
Luckily no one ever checked the plantings. Deadly Night Shade grows over der in dat corner.
Now dem boys serve as fertilizer, though most peoples think dey be servin in the da war.

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Broken Promise

Photo by Jan Wayne Fields

Berit built a home from thin slivers of glacial ice cut from the exact center of Gígjökull. Two albino Savannah cats kept the inside warm; two thousand fireflies lit the pathway to her door. The pantry was laden with starfish, and eel, skua eggs, and sun-dried kelp. Lavender leaves collected down by the sea scented the bed sheets of five small beds. The echo of children’s laughter filled Berit’s ears, visions of sweet faces formed a ring around her heart. Exile meant nothing if King Jostien kept his promise. Berit waited two hundred years.

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The Gentle Goodbye

I fashioned this story for Friday Fictioneers from a Native American prayer my sister copied down for me while our mother was in hospice. It now hangs on the wall beside my writing desk. I find the words very gentle and soothing.

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“When you need me, I’ll be there.”
“Where, Mama?”
“In a warm wind that blows your hair; the diamond glitter on snow.”
“But I want to touch you. Smell you. Give you kisses and hugs.”
“Oh, baby, you can. Feel me in a soft summer rain. Smell the earth. Listen to the whir of a thousand dove wings in circled flight. Look for me in each new dawn. And every brilliant sunset.”
“But where will you actually be, Mama? Where?”
“Oh, baby, I will be inside you, draped around your heart. Do not think of me as gone.”

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Nightmare

Photo by CEAyr

“Gawd that’s a big snake!”
Even though it was lying on its side, eyes staring at the trees, nostrils oozing sticky yellow goo and dead as dead could be, Tommy’s knees shook as he kicked the monster’s nose.
“That there critter ate your mamma and Uncle Tony and Auntie Sis.”
Tommy spat in the crook of the snake’s half-open mouth.
It groaned.
“Lordy! Boy! You done brought it back to life! Run!”
Tommy tried. He really did. But he felt as if he were running through mud. Getting nowhere fast.
SSSSUUUPPP!
He woke, tangled in bed sheets.

 

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Grandmother’s Advice

Thanks, Dale Rogerson, for these beautiful bouquets (haven’t I seen these beauties before?) And, thanks, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for posting them for the Friday Fictioneers.

Never sell yourself short, my beauty. Sometimes the world will require you to stay low as savanna grass; watching, waiting. Other times you must walk softly forward camouflaged as a delicate rose or an unremarkable daisy; collecting information, storing it in your heart. But a moment will come when you will be forced to take up the sword, shine like a bird of paradise in your glory and fight.
Machete resting against her fiery red dress, Rusayla strode across the sand. She had gathered and stored information about the men who stole her grandmother’s cattle. There would be no time to run.

 

 

 

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Timothy’s Savior

Well, isn’t this desk a fine mess? It almost makes me feel like cleaning mine – almost. Instead, I wrote this 100-word story about it. Thanks, Rochelle, for posting yet another picture to make the Friday Fictioneer clan put fingertips to keyboards.

PHOTO PROMPT © Claire Sheldon

Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Timothy ripped the clock from the wall, pulled the plug on the refrigerator, threw his computer out the window just to quiet its hum. No sound should remind him of his old life. Still, his heart pounded so violently, blood rushed in his ears – like the echo of ocean waves caught inside a nautilus shell. That’s what Angie would have said. But Angie, his heart of hearts was gone. Absolutely nothing mattered.
“Daddy?”
Timothy turned from the window. And there, standing with her stuffed penguin clutched in one hand was little Beatrice. He knelt and opened his arms.

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