Tag Archives: Flash

Wag the Dog

This piece is written in 50-word increments. The literary quote I have chosen for this week is: “A dog has lots of friends because it wags its tail and not its tongue.” Anna Faversham, Beware the Midnight Train. If you are inspired by this line- and would like to use it in your own creation, please do and link back to this post. You can navigate the previous posts by clicking on the Literary Quotes tab in the Category drop down menu.

Image Courtesy of Collector’s Weekly

Dottie was used to her private life becoming grist for the neighborhood gossip mills, at 24- she had been raising her two small children since she was 20- in that time she had worked her way out of a third floor cold-water flat and into an updated small rental- alone.

And if being a divorced woman in the 1940’s and raising two young daughters on her own wasn’t bad enough- Dottie’s forthright manner and brash way of speaking saw her elected the first female shop steward at the manufacturer that employed the majority of the men in her working-class neighborhood.

So, when Dottie, at 26, remarried- the neighborhood tongue-wagger’s were quick to assume that she would finally join their ranks and do what every good wife and mother was supposed to do- channel all of her efforts into caring for her home and family- Dottie- however, had no such aspirations.

This only served to sharpen the gossip’s edge. What kind of woman keeps working when she has a husband and children at home? they ruthlessly debated over laundry lines and cups of reheated afternoon coffee, but all of that came to a swift end- the day the television was delivered.

As the Sears truck rattled to a stop, every curtain on the block was yanked to the side- “It’s a television!” children yelled to each other as the gleaming box was toted up the narrow stairs- by suppertime- everyone within earshot knew- Dottie had the first television on the block.

The following Monday night, by invitation, Dottie’s living room was packed with neighbors who had once measured her worth in whispers- Dottie’s husband put a contented arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “A dog has lots of friends because it wags its tail and not its tongue.”

This is my contribution to this week’s Six Sentence Story where the prompt word was: Channel.

Stiches

Image Credit: Amera Pawlik @ Unsplash

To Mason it seemed as if his life was pulling apart at the seams. His parents divorce, his older brother Baker choosing to go live with his father and leaving him alone in the home they all once shared.

His mother tried to comfort him- but he knew she was as much to blame for the family falling apart as his father was. They had both promised that they would always be there for him. Now he knew- those promises were lies.

At ten years old, Mason had thought the days of him sleeping with Teddy were over- he wasn’t a baby anymore after all. However, once he was certain that his mother had descended the stairs, he crept over and retrieved Teddy from the shelf. Poor Teddy. So much worse for the wear. His stitches failing, one arm hanging on by a thread.

In the glow of the nightlight Mason could see where Teddy’s seams had given way, how the cloth had simply been pulled apart. It struck him then how easily the damage could be repaired. A needle. A bit of thread. Just a few stitches and Teddy could be whole again.

He wondered if families could be stitched back together too.

Mason hugged Teddy close, and drifted off to sleep, wondering what they might look like- those stitches- the ones that might make his family whole again.

This is my response to the photo prompt offered this week on Sadje’s WDYS #319.

Birch Creek

Birch Creek Courtesy of ALASKA.ORG

When asked how I ended up here, in the Yukon-Tanana terrane far from so called civilization, guiding strangers through this wind-scoured valley on the banks of Birch Creek, I usually laugh and say I like nature more than people. 

But the truth is quieter. When I chose to take my place among the granites and schists of my dark and stubborn country, I was looking to run away- and in so doing, I hoped- find myself.

These hills don’t make things easy- but I never set out to find- easy. I was looking for a quiet, unbothered place- somewhere that whatever trouble I carried in- would become one with the stillness before I left.

So, as I point out fault lines and mineral bands, and the tourists think I’m sharing local lore- what I’m really sharing is the place that let me- begin again.

Schist close-up

This is my 144-word contribution to last Tuesday’s dVerse Prosery prompt where the poetic quote was:

“The granites and schists
Of my dark and stubborn country.”

–Nan Shepherd, “The Hill Burns”
from In the Cairngorms (Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1934)

Sherrie

Image Conjured by Me and Copilot

Sherrie had spent most of her adult life coaxing a dying thing to breathe.

At first, she’d believed her marriage only needed patience- a little more trying, a little more bending, a little more forgiveness. She was good at those things. Too good, maybe. Over the years she became fluent in the language of excuse-making, a translator for a man who never learned to meet her halfway. She sanded down her own edges until she barely recognized their shape.

By forty-nine, she had stopped hoping for change and started rehearsing for disappointment instead.

When her fiftieth birthday arrived, she didn’t throw a party. She packed. A single suitcase- jeans, work boots, three sweaters, a stack of paperbacks she loved too much to leave behind. And then she drove six hours north to the only other place that had ever felt like home.

She hadn’t seen the home of her childhood in years.

The yard was almost unrecognizable now, swallowed up by alder and wild rose, the gravel drive softened under a thick quilt of moss. Ferns unfurled where her mother’s hydrangeas once bloomed. The paint on the house had peeled into long curling strips, like bark. The porch sagged a little- but still held her weight as she climbed the steps.

As the sun set, glimmering and golden behind her, Sherrie stood on the porch and looked out at the overgrown land stretching before her.

She didn’t know exactly what her new life would look like. She only knew she finally had the courage to build a life in which her respect for herself- would be the foundation.

And for the first time in years, the world felt wide open- and hers.

This story was inspired by Esther’s Weekly Writing Prompt word: Respect.

Fandango’s Story Starter which was: The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden was not at all like she remembered it.

And Jim’s Thursday Inspiration, where the challenge for the week was: Respond to this challenge by either using the prompt word dreamer, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘Oh Sherrie’, or by going with another song by Steve Perry, or any song that is about trying to hold on to a relationship, or another song about a relationship that didn’t last the test of time, or you can go with anything else you think fits.

The Playhouse

Photo Courtesy of Crispina Kemp

It seemed as if she had traversed the entire city twice- she should never have gotten off the bus in a place with a name like Oak Glenn. It was so posh. So not the kind of place to try and blend in. However, with dusk already upon her, she had to find an out of the way place to sleep tonight.

She had ducked onto one of the wooded footpaths, surely there had to be somewhere here she could disappear. But sleeping alone in the woods had its drawbacks too- dogs, foxes- she had dealt with such obstacles before- but today she was just too tired to even think about it.

Suddenly she spied it- through a cleft in the trees she could just make it out- a child’s playhouse there on the back lawn of one of the grandiose houses. 

If she could make it across the yard undetected, the playhouse would be the perfect place to ride out the night.

This is my response to one of the photo prompts offered this week on Crimson’s Creative Challenge #064