The Blue Scarf

She wore the blue scarf around her shoulders. A light wind picked up its edges, caressing her as Reginald used to do.
Seeing him off at the metro station, she knew that being alone for a week was an opportunity to dare herself to do something differently.
She tied the scarf in a knot around her throat, hiding the scar.
When he returned, she would not be the same woman.

SLim's story Part 3.

SLim’s story continues 6.17

In the few months after SLim reunited with George (the boy who partially tamed him), both had been in new adventures, sometimes together, sometimes on separate occasions.

Together, they roamed the desert, settling in on warm afternoons at the corner convenience store and sharing a Thrifty ice cream cone.  George licked the ice cream down to the cone and then SLim chomped on the remains.

“You like the bottom end, don’t you, fella.  Works good for both of us since I like the top.”  George brushed the dust from his over-the-ankles pants he inherited from his older brother, Tom.  “Looks like it’s time for us to head on home since I have homework to do before I can play baseball.”

SLim heard the word “ball” and his ears perked up.  He liked certain kinds of balls: cheese balls scattered across the park grass were his favorite.  He trotted after George, keeping his eyes open for rabbits and birds.  Not very hungry, the glances were mostly just for practice. 

“Life’s pretty cheery right now with George, but I know the happy days can’t be counted on,” SLim reflected as he spotted a young quail under a mesquite bush.  “Huh, that young ‘un ain’t goin’ to last long if he doesn’t know enough to scatter when I come by.”

So that’s how the days often passed as they two hung out together.  On their own was another story.

George tore his paints on barbed wire as he and his best friend, Charlie, chased bats from under the arroyo bridge.  For that he got a few hits on his bottom from his stepdad, Marty.  George didn’t like Marty much and the feeling was mutual.

SLim tore a toenail trying to scrape the dry skin of a tomato off a park bench.  He also was chased by a man on a golf cart and had to hide behind a bush near the zoo.  SLim heard a lion roar and his scrawny legs trembled.  Not much scared SLim, but the sound of a big cat did. Bobcats could be a mean adversary and mountain lions, well, SLim stayed scarce from their territory.

For now, sticking close to George’s regular meals worked pretty well.  As dusk settled in, George came out of the house and squeezed a couple of handfuls of dinner leftovers through the backyard fence.  SLim watched George sit down on the dirt and wait for SLim to come out of the high grasses.  Together, they enjoyed the moonlight and stars and imagined another day of adventures.

Erasure Poem and 19 Word Story

“Don’t You Forget about Me” NYTimes/Styles 4/21/16 note: Erasure poem genre inspired by Austin Kleon, author of "Steal Like an Artist" and "Show Your Work!"

Six nights and two afternoons a week

Thumping a book like a Bible—

That year has never left us.

Their strange things are creeping back:

Music and lyrics ripple.

Writer’s Digest May/June 2016 p. 53

Those words, burnt into the sand will be washed away by waves as our conjoined bodies float on foam. (19 words)

The Big Question

(Writing prompt response to “write a 1, 3, 5 minute story Poets & Writers, March-April 2016).  This is a 2 minute-to-read story).

They had been sharing his L.A. loft condo for only two months, but Brad was ready to ask the big question.  He had liked being married, and seeing the kids for the weekends wasn’t much of a life.   But would Carrie be ready to make their relationship permanent?  There was a risk in asking too soon.

“Go out and get a dog,” his best friend Charlie had suggested.  “If she agrees to that, you are halfway to engagement.”

“Maybe.  But the other half is what I am worried about,” Brad lamented.

Following Charlie’s advice, they had gone to the animal shelter and gleefully brought home Juno—a six-month old, crate-trained yellow lab who could play ball twenty-four hours a day.  Carrie loved Juno.  She took her in the car to go to the doggie beach, to the grocery story, even to their favorite café.  The three of them would sit on the café’s patio, drink a latte and watch the Ferrari’s drive by on Highway 1.

So another two months passed.  Then, one day, after a yoga class at the gym, Carrie came out of the locker room in her t-shirt and leotard pants, shaking her ponytail loose.

“I want to go home and shower before dinner, not take time to shower and change here.”

“Home?”  Brad was stunned.  This was the first time she had uttered the “h” word.  Usually, she would say, “the condo.”

“Home?  The condo?” he repeated.

“Yes, silly.  Home is where the heart is.”  Carrie nuzzled her nose into Brad’s neck.  “Don’t you know that by now?”

“Guess I didn’t.” Brad paused, pulling back to look at her, face to face. 

“But now that I do, I have a big question to ask.”

“Ask away.  I am a gal full of ‘yes’ today.”

Magic, a 100 word story

Magic

It all started with a butterfly.  Melinda followed it into the forest and was grabbed by the dwarf who had conjured the butterfly's path.  Melinda awoke in the cave and was covered by leaves and flowers.  On the walls she saw drawings of her in her father's farmfield.  She had always felt she didn't belong on the farm with her older brothers. Now she sensed she was among her own kind.  At two feet tall at the age of twenty, something had been amiss.  But now, as she sat up and looked at the faces smiling at her, she understood.  This was home.

ladies in the line

The Ladies in the line: prompt words—threat, viewpoint, birdless, blimp, drive, singing, spit, float.

The ladies in the line were singing a happy tune in the south yard of Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage, near the gravel drive where the limo was waiting. From their viewpoint, the day could not be finer. This conclusion was enhanced by the spiked punch they sipped at lunch. Ignoring the signs that all was not right with the world (the midsummer sky was birdless and not a butterfly floated by the bushes), they continued to dance. Irritated by their joy, the gardener angrily spit his tobacco into the raked grass and threatened the universe with his tight fist. The Goodyear Blimp took a photo of the scene which was published on the inside page of LIFE magazine with the caption "Ladies frolic with the First Lady while the stockmarket hits a new low." (148 words)

 

 

Flash Fiction: Counting Clouds

Counting Clouds

In Rome, it seems to Alicia that every corner has a fountain.  Whether she is walking near the Tiber River, or going to one of the bus ticket and book stands to buy a British newspaper, the sound of water slowly cascading over the necks of horses, pineapples, turtles or mermaids beckons her to pause for a coffee and count the clouds in the sky.  She came to Italy with the purpose of finishing her book of poetry, but that goal is now gone for the near future.  Instead, she has made it her purpose to try to visit, photograph and write a phrase or two about every Roman fountain.   

Yesterday, she stopped on a path along the shore of the river to watch three boats glide beneath the bridge of Castel Sant’Angelo.  While there, a familiar man with his daughter passed her by and they chatted.  He invited her to dinner tonight and she is wondering what she should bring to the meal.  She knows he is a widower and that he likes fruit, which she often saw him carrying in his market basket and every Italian likes sweets.  So, she will buy a cake and bring berries along with some of photographs of the fountains. They will get to know each other a little better and she will be open to possibilities.

 

Turn Around: Flash Fiction

The alabaster abbey glowed like a white diamond in the Caribbean skies.  Father Thomas welcomed his guest with a glass of wine and freshly baked bread.  The man in green shorts and yellow shirt moved uncomfortably in his chair as the bulge of his revolver pressured his bruised hip.  He was a man accustomed to deluxe surroundings and hearty five course meals, not this simple fare.  However, under these conditions he had little choice at this moment but to accept the monk’s hospitality.  As the monk prepared to administer grace, his guest heard a sound that jarred his tattered soul and stirred his mind.  “There is a child somewhere who sings with a soprano voice like my sister.  She died seven years ago but a voice such as this can bring back memories I thought I buried along with her body.”  He bent his head as the “Our Father…” began and wondered if, this time, he could find a way to turn his life around—again.

Rebecca's Knots: flash fiction for you

I submitted this for a July Flash Fiction contest, responding to its 7/9 prompt:  angels, light, new, mother, trees, art, second, affectionate.

Rebecca’s Knots

 

The July mid-day light glared on the silky waterfall in front of the Phoenix Art Museum.  Rebecca was taking advantage of the new “children’s corner” event at the museum with the hope that playing with other children would offer Samantha some calming moments..  Usually an affectionate child, lately her two year old was becoming something of diva. Rebecca imagined that Samantha sensed something odd was happening as Mommy’s belly bump continued its daily balloon-sized expansion.  A second child was on the way, and although Rebecca considered herself an affectionate mother with Samantha, she wasn’t gleeful about number two coming along so quickly after number one.  It was that damn trip to the White Mountains that did it: sitting under the golden aspen trees last fall rippling through the canyons.  Mike had coaxed her into a spontaneous moment and, since she was breast feeding, she thought that would give her the coital cover she needed.  It hadn’t.  So when she learned she was pregnant, she consulted the three glass angels on her bookshelf for guidance:  should she make an appointment for a pre-natal check-up with her GYN or go to Planned Parenthood to terminate this mistake?  The angels had nodded and danced in the midnight moon glow and Rebecca wasn’t sure how to interpret their responses.  She waited a few days and then the realization came to her that a mistake or not, she could do nothing more or less than go with this baby.  But she told her doctor “once you deliver, I want you to tie up those tubes into the tightest knots your tools can twist.”  He had laughed and they made the pact he would keep.  As for Mike, aspen trees were off-limits until both children were out of diapers and she had re-started her degree in art history.