Death Tells a Story

I’m so grateful to Rochelle for posting the Friday Fictioneers prompt a day early! I’ve missed being here and her wee error was perfectly timed. She truly is a wonderful Fairy Blog Mother!

Most have forgotten. Shame on them.
Some say it never happened. They are wrong.
I was there, picking up the pieces.

Before it began I collected grandmothers exhausted by a good life,
babies that died too soon, worn-out fathers.
A simple cycle. Life. Death. Life.

After? Oh, after, I lifted souls from broken bodies on battlefields,
from children in the rubble of bombed-out houses,
from Jews, homosexuals, the crippled and mentally insane
left in makeshift graves dug in forest mud.

Please believe me. I do have a heart.
And you, mankind, broke it every day for six interminable years.

Reflection

Today’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt was submitted by J Hardy Carroll and posted by our fairy blog mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. I’m deep in the throes of editing my novel so have been absent for a while. But, because we have been snowed in for about a week, I thought I’d poke my head out of a drift and give a stab at a little flash fiction.

In my eyes, your reflection shows nothing more than violence and greed.
What did you say? These are not entities that reflect?
You are wrong. Your violence reflects in the bruise on my cheek, shattered dishes, holes punched in walls.

Stolen hearts prove your greed. Look at your children.
Their sparkling eyes should reflect love given freely, yet, they cower in corners when you walk in the room.

Your heart is colder than stone. Your criss-cross love-hate attitude creates heartache and pain.
Leave us. Leave us now. Before this woman who once loved you, stings you with much more than words.

 

Legitimate Secrets

This week Pegman took us to Goizueta, Navarre in Spain. Thanks, Karen. Now I want to visit this gorgeous country.

A delicate balance, our relationship. You down beside the road, me up on the hill. My husband leaves. Your wife returns. My husband returns. Your wife goes into town.
A mere half-hour passes in between. When no one watches we exchange winks and nods. Touch hands in our kitchen or your hallway.
Our children play together. Sadly we use their playtime to exchange notes; tuck papers inside their tiny socks. It’s not our fault. We do what we can.
I don’t believe either of us remembers how this started. Church? The market? Whispers in the alley?
But we must keep up our relationship. We must, for if we don’t, one or all of us will surely die. Times have come to that.
We no longer know which side we’re on, but we do know our secret exchanges will keep our families from dying in our country’s ugly war.

 

 

The Circle of Thorns

I wrote 97-some words this morning, saved them, and went off to teach my aerobics class, expecting to do a last minute edit when I returned. Meanwhile, my husband hit a “random” button that deleted my story. Ah, well, round two. Thanks, Rochelle, for posting this thought-provoking picture taken by Dale Rogerson.

When you walked out
a tangle of thorns encased my heart
creating minuscule fissures and tears
that bled memories, hopes, and dreams

Time
that’s all it took
years and years of time
but I have
at last
healed

The pits and gashes slowly filled
with the sound of laughter
gifts of river-worn pebbles
faded sand dollars
and small winsome smiles

Now, if my mind dares to whisper
You still love him, seek him out
My heart roars
If you do I will quit you!
For I only beat
in order to protect the child
he left behind!

95-words

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Death Bed Wish

Yep, it’s Wednesday-Friday again. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields we have a beautiful picture (provided by Roger Bultot) to stir our imaginations.

Photo by Roger Bultot

I’d like to live the remainder of my life in the rose glow of candlelight.
Somewhere within the shadows bordering darkness and expectation
where the world is neither full of wild desire nor deep disappointment.

There, my children would softly hum accompanied by a choir of crickets
and the thrum of one-hundred bullfrogs.
And fireflies would spark in the midnight air.

Instead, I’m trapped in the bright neon glow of fluorescent bulbs,
held in place by blue plastic tubes twisting like snakes around me,
listening to the thump-thumb of an oxygen pump
while my children softly cry.

Broken Promise

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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Mikolaj’s Christmas

Today Pegman took us to Wroclaw, Poland. I found this jolly Christmas village in the Magnolia Park Mall. In my mind, this tale started fairly fun before taking a dark turn. Sign of the times? Perhaps.

 

Let’s say that just this once Mikolaj loves Christmas. We’ll pretend Cecylia hasn’t left him and he has one last chance to buy gifts for their children. One boy. One girl.
Maybe not. Maybe Cecylia never had children and she spends all her time in the bedroom wondering why and her tears cause Mikolaj to run to Magnolia Park, the horrible mall at the center of Wroclaw, and he fights the crowds to buy his wife teddy bears, slippers, and her favorite perfume. Anything to slide under the tree to stop the crying.
Or perhaps our Mikolaj isn’t married. Maybe his parents fought all the time and he never wanted a life like that. Or they loved so deeply he knew, absolutely, he couldn’t have a life like theirs so didn’t even try.
In the end, let’s say his parents died in Auschwitz on Christmas day and Mikolaj was never born.

(150-words)

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What Mother Wrought

Lovers come to the bench.
The teenagers spy.
Ephemeral. Unmoving. Only their heads peek ’round the hedge.
None speak. They simply watch.
Tommy ponders the smoothness of women’s skin.
Annabelle enjoys the muscles rippled across men’s backs.
Susanne resents everything about the couples. Would stop them if she could.
For the siblings will never feel such things, make such sounds
or hear the words, “I love you.”
Suffocation should have put an end to anticipation and hope.
But, they feel the need to return. Night after night.
Year after year.
Century upon century.

Today’s Photo Prompt was provided by Liz Young 

Angel in Black

Wow! Wednesday/Friday again. The photo prompt was supplied by C.E. Ayr and posted by our Fairy Blog Mother Rochelle. I usually don’t pre-read anyone’s submissions before writing mine. Today I broke the rule and, after reading Rochelle’s (and only Rochelle’s), I felt the need to show her characters a hint of kindness. (A link to the Jewish Ghetto Police during WW II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Ghetto_Police)

“Be by the gait, half-past ten.”
“But . . .”
“On time, or someone else will have it. Many wait in line.”
“May I bring a friend?”
“Ah, a menage a trois!” She turns in a swirl of sable and Chanel.

Frightened beyond words, the two creep along the wall without whispering. If a dog barks or they leave a moon shadow…
The reward is worth the fear.

Tonight she is clothed all in black, smells of nothing. She passes one sandwich, two, through the bars. Nadine and Martine grasp them with eager hands.

Poor kinder, tomorrow Jüdische Polizei will liquidate the ghetto

 

Abandoned

Each morning Beatrice goes down to the sea to collect pieces of glass –
thrown among the driftwood by high tide –
and strings the colored fragments into necklaces and bangles for her arms.

She makes her dresses of silk and satin, corduroy and canvas,
and decorates them with pelts from wolves, bear, and elk.
Village children dare each other to touch her hair
which shimmers like star dust blended with thin threads of gold.
She pays no heed.

After three months her bruises are gone,
the fingers Spencer broke before leaving are beginning to mend –
but her mind remains fragile and bent.

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