The Wait

Photo by sciondriver

Outside, holiday face prepared
for beloved family,
I swallowed uncertainty and its shadows complete,
the keening corners and darkened glimpses of hope
fighting my gullet
before new acquaintances inside embraced my presence
and ‘being with’ eased like a cure

– the company of people
speaking thoughts
voices crossing in warmth between us
mine flawed as always, but present –
a fleeting cure.

The memory came home with me
hangs there now,
but the future presses
shouting “go faster, love more”
and I sleep hard
fatigued by merry brightness
and heaviness as my muscles strain to hold everything –
everything escaping –
shouts, whispers, screams

Repose

Photo by Ré Harris

Her husband’s head rested on her lap as he recounted how it felt to stop loving her. “I keep forgetting,” he said, choking her, burying her, though he was earnest. “Why do I forget?” The polarity of this push and pull amazed him.

Eyes averting, her hands shrank from him.

He felt possibility again, smiling. “We can change our lives. We need to make plans.”

Catching sight of the tender touch of his palm to his chest, a gesture echoing the nature of his love for her, she receded, listening to his dreams about their future because she couldn’t scream.

Brownies

Photo by jeffreyw via Flickr

“Use high quality chocolate, butter, vanilla. Bake them less so they’re very moist – not until the pick’s completely clean, like cake.”

“Thanks, Nina.”

“Sure. People hoard signature recipes, but these’re simple brownies, and I want my son to have what he’s used to. Now – the unexpected. Half the people never guess …”

Siobhan’s eyes grew wide.

“A fat pinch of red pepper.”

Siobhan scribbled it down, beaming.

“Tame for you, I suppose. Not like ‘eye of newt’ or ‘frog’s wart’!”

Siobhan tensed. “Wiccans eat like everyone else, Nina.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t know.”

At those times, Siobhan wished she did do spells.

The prompt was to “create a recipe of a dish fit for a witch – from Julia.

Paper and Ink Prayer

Winter Landscape Photo by David Blackwell via Flickr

Spring promised,
summer whispered heat, hammerlike.
Autumn focuses my fear,
and winter will bring words -
fever committed to lines.

Let me show mercy as they fall,
icy spatters dotting pages,
incomplete
and wanting,
wanting to live.

Help me roam the paths I hew,
smoothing unintended spikes
and rough stones that threaten farther
than expression and flow.
Let me refine that which splinters the faith of those
searching my words for intention, honoring me.
I cannot serve without trudging backward.

Which bloom should remain unbridled?
Which would do better perched against a sharp edge,
or sliced?
I bid perseverance
as winter’s chill cuts draw near.

The prompt was, “and winter will bring,” from Julia.

At Marybeth’s for Tea

Photo by Violette79 via Flickr

“It can’t be … that time he was introduced at brunch, everyone favored their match. They were so perfect.”

My sister had missed how her daughter turned away each time he’d mentioned his desires for their future. “Marybeth,” I tried gentleness, “there’re other considerations besides family position and wealth.” I sipped my tea.

She looked askance. “How surprising from you who surely knows the folly of such thinking. How are your poor children this cold winter?”

I emptied the tray of strawberry biscuits into napkins, gathering them closed and leaving as she gasped.

My children would savor them more than Marybeth. She wouldn’t understand that either.

The prompt was, “it can’t be that time” — from Julia.

Hidden at the Edge – Part Two

Photo by Ré Harris

 

Older Mum kindly requested more, and since a stubborn comforter is taking too long to dry and keeping me up, I’ve obliged her. Ask and you shall receive.

*******

Vince’s pause before saying, “Now what?” said he’d caught on to his lack of diligence. Could’ve been cornered before he remembered to check another direction.

“What’s the point of the gorge at the back and only two ways in? Why take watch, if daydreaming’s all you’ll do?”

He cocked his piece at the window with the mountain view, before tossing a whispered yell. “Shut up.”

I let it go.

I woke with another headache for sure – Vince. Not sharp, but damn if his neck didn’t smell like clover sometimes.

Billy approached behind bushes, pistol in hand, rifle slung. I eased the window up and aimed.

The prompt was, “I woke with another headache,” from Julia.

Hidden at the Edge

Photo by Ré Harris

This one has become a longer story. If this first part catches your interest and you find yourself wanting more, you can read the complete version here.

With trouble hot on our trail, I woke with another headache. Vince gazed out at the mountains like he was thinking of another woman.

“You want to fend for yourself?” I said, checking the gun under my pillow.

“What’s your problem?”

I raked fingers through my hair, staring at the latch on the door while cold wind blew through the cabin and grabbed me under the threadbare blanket. I rose, fully dressed, holding my gun.

“You’re always upset about something,” he said.

“And you hate women with brains.” Light reflected outside the other window as I crept closer to it. “Too bad you need ‘em.”

The prompt was, “I woke with another headache,” from Julia.

Falling Into Sky

Julia’s Photo

Gravity would change for him.

Human rules, ever altering to increase comfort for the privileged per cent, impeded his family’s progress – no trickles for them. Nature stirred his struggling mind.

He would be carried into ether; perhaps everyone would be lifted. So he left letters for his children, and explained himself to his wife, who didn’t understand what he felt in his bones. She wept as he set out for the highest place he could reach.

In time he stepped over it’s edge, arms spread winglike, wild as every newborn and wailing, free to accept that he might not float.

The prompt was the photo, from Julia.

Far Away – A Short Prequel to ‘Entanglement’

Ilustration by Vectorportal via Flickr

 

“Dream Weaver” began on Aliss’s radio. As she washed breakfast dishes, lyrics about closing one’s eyes and going far away stopped her cold.

The pull she hadn’t been able to shake, drew her into blankness as suds ran to her elbow, dripping tiny pools onto the floor. Leaving them, she rushed to brush her teeth, collect her bag and head out.

At her office computer, she searched the song’s lyrics. No memories jogged, she decided to address her sound system problem and try the movie again. Miller was free Saturday. She ordered pizza for then and, returning to the routine, immersed herself in work.

This is a tiny prequel to the story, Entanglement, that I’ve been writing on Sparks In Shadow during the past weeks. The prompt was “… returning to the routine …” from Julia.

On The Edge

Fresh vegetables (Photo credit: Bread for the World)

The line was drawn closer as listeners followed Nadine. Clancy walked backwards, beside her, glances over his shoulder making sure their path was clear.

“Who considers your lives when corporations plan profits at your expense? You’re bled dry, with government approval, until you’re meaningless pavement on roads to more money — like farmers driven to suicide in India — like farmers sued by conglomerate ‘owners’ of the life inside seeds!”

These truths angered Clancy to his core. He hoped more collected to listen before police came.

Stopping at Lincoln’s statue, Nadine mustered more volume. “They want control over our food! Will you give it to them?”

The prompt was “the line was drawn” – from Julia.

The First Road

Photo by Ré Harris

 

“Lord, these drops are collectin’ … like a gang ‘o thieves. The rain turned the road into a river.” Rory walked to the edge of the asphalt, bare toes disappearing in murky ebbs of captive water.

Henry stood back a few feet, Bermuda shorts and no shirt cooling him under the umbrella as he watched her. “Come on. You’ll soak the seat.”

Rory turned to the car with the baby and their things piled in. “Think we’ll find another way?”

“Ain’t gonna let us get stuck here,” Henry said.

Rory nodded. “I know. Not many roads to take, though.”

“I’ll find one.”

She smiled, blinking against the rain. ” ‘kay.”

 

“… the rain turned the road into a river …” was the prompt, from Julia.