fiction

Eala

Sally12 Comments

“Three swans means danger is near. So what do four swans mean?” Fiona asked.

“Ach, no, Fiona,” said her mom. ” The three swans must be flying to signal danger. Those four swans, swimming — well, that’s a different story. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, please,” Fiona said.

As they trudged along the beach toward home, Mom began. “The King of the Swans had a beautiful daughter named Eala. Male swans, you know, are called cobs, and two cobs were always assigned to be with Eala, one of either side of her. When either cob sensed danger, they urged her to fly to safety. They flew in that three swan formation. That’s how the three-swan story came to be. The cobs had a keen sense of nearby trouble.

“When cobs from other flocks tried to approach Eala, her guards sensed them coming and helped her escape.”

“How did they know about the other cobs?” Fiona asked.

“Guard cobs have an intuition,” Mom explained. “They can detect evil intent better than any other creature.”

“So how did the fourth one get there?”

“Ah — only a cob that is pure of heart gets past the guards and is worthy of the princess.”

“So he’s good?”

“Yes — he passed the test,” Mom replied. “Eala was the first swan to have guards, but it continues today.”

Fiona furrowed her brow. “I think I want cobs, too.”

“Ah, my Fiona, you don’t need cobs. Human girls are given that intuition, Learn to listen to it.”

250 words.

My submission to this week’s Unicorn Challenge, whose only requirements are base the story on the picture and limit yourself to 250 words.

I read somewhere that three swan flying in formation portends disaster. Is it true? Is a black cat an evil omen? How about broken mirrors? Who knows.

And I certainly don’t know about cob guards — total fiction.

Should girls listen to their creep-meters? YES!

Oh, and — Eala is the Gaelic word for swan.

poetry

To a 4-H Summer Assistant

Sally9 Comments

Do you remember that teenage girl
You talked to years ago?
Instead of oyster, you saw pearl –
She was a tough one though!
She pushed against all that you said
When you tried to reaffirm
That she had value –No! Instead
She tried to worm and worm
Her way away from your kind words
Why didn’t you give up?
Why not say, This is for the birds?!
But no, you filled her cup —

And now my life reads like a long and wondrous book
If he wants to know the good he did, dear God, let him look

This is in response to the W3 prompt for this week — to write a memory poem. Here are the instructions:

  • Imagine a person from an old memory looking in on you through an open window;
    • You’d all but forgotten about this person, but today their presence has given rise to this memory;
    • What do you see? What’s going on?
  • Write this as a Memory Poem:
    • Purge this memory out of your system; allude to the memory; banish the memory; 
  • Poem length: 100 – 300 words;
  • The poem must end with these words: “Let him/her look”

I don’t know if I did the whole memory poem thing correctly. First, it’s only 98 words.

But — true story — in my early teens, I was a pretty mixed-up kid. I was part of a perfect family, but I was pretty less than perfect. One summer, when I was making all sorts of bad choices, these two guys came from Cornell to spend the summer working in our county with the 4-H program. One of them started a summer band.

Indirectly, I suppose, music saved me. I got involved with the summer band and then got roped into other activities with a different group of kids and a more wholesome focus.

I think I was 14 years old. I remember swearing at the one guy in a long tirade about I-don’t-know-what and he just took it. He didn’t scold me. He didn’t kick me out. He just took it.

And continued to treat me nicely.

Of course, I didn’t keep in touch with those guys. I was a kid. They were Cornell students. At the end of the summer, they went back to Cornell. Honestly, I can’t even remember the band guy’s last name.

But, what a difference he made in my life!


fiction

How did that happen?

Sally11 Comments

Aidan was yelling.

Again.

Aidan always yelled but this time seemed different. “MOM-MOM-MOM-MOM-MOM-MOM-MOM!” he said.

Elspeth stopped washing the dishes as Aidan ran in the room. She looked at him expectantly as he skidded to a stop beside her.

“MOM!” he yelled. “THERE’S A TARDIS IN THE BATHROOM!”

“What are you talking about?!” she asked, wiping her hands on her jeans as she turned to face him.

“THE DOCTOR IS HERE! I’M SURE THE DOCTOR IS HERE!” He tugged at her still damp hand to drag her to the bathroom.

She followed behind him, laughing and confused. “Do you even know what a TARDIS looks like?” she asked.

“You said it’s a big blue box! It’s bigger on the inside! Right?! Right?!” He was so excited he could barely contain himself as he pushed open the bathroom door.

There stood a huge blue safe right next to the toilet.

Elspeth started laughing. “Aidan,” she said, “a TARDIS is a phone box. Yes, it’s blue, but it’s a phone box. This is a safe.”

“But how did it get in our bathroom?” he asked.

She stopped laughing and pondered the question. How did a large blue safe get into their bathroom. She furrowed her brow and stared at it.

Just then, the safe door swung open.

How did it just do that, she wondered, without hitting the toilet?

Out of the safe stepped a man, wearing a neat bow-tie and a natty brown tweed jacket.

Elspeth fainted.

This is in response to the Unicorn Challenge: no more than 250 words, based on the photo prompt.

Jenne so kindly checked on me because I had missed it the last few weeks. Sometimes inspiration hits and sometimes it doesn’t. Right?

Anyway, I was so touched that she reached out to me. This is a somewhat lame response to her prompt, but I did it. For her.

I’ve tried to explain to people about the blogging community. I will, in all likelihood, never meet Jenne — although, maybe, when I make my lifelong-dream trip to Scotland I’ll track her down — but we’re still part of a community.

And she checked on me.

And it almost made me cry.

Thank you, Jenne.

family · Life

Life-Change

Sally10 Comments

Some years ago — more years than I care to say — my life changed forever on this date. My first child was born.

Some people embark on careers, starting their first job in a profession they have studied long and hard for. They can look back a lifetime later with satisfaction at their accomplishments and accolades.

Me? I fell into a life.

It involved minimal sleep for some periods, cleaning up bodily fluids and/or solids that gushed forth out of bodies in ways I never imagined.

It involved laundry — mountains and mountains of laundry — think Adirondacks in the form of onesies, and t-shirts, and grass-stained pants, and little Osh-Kosh overalls, and socks, many of which lost their life partner in the depths of the dryer, only to find new partners who looked slightly different.

It involved reading the same books over and over and over, and making up voices for the characters, and then forgetting the voice and being corrected by a small child — “Wait — I thought that was Toad talking, not Frog.”

It involved kissing boo-boos, and seeing that mother’s kisses really do have magical healing power. It also involved band-aids and ice packs and doctor’s visits and bearing witness to stitches and casts, when mother’s kisses couldn’t heal alone. It involved Chicken Pox — because that was thing then — and strep throat and maladies without names and bedside throw-up buckets and vast amounts of kleenex.

It involved baking cookies. Lots and lots of cookies — some for family consumption and some to sell to help with special purchases. Our first computer — a Gateway 2000 — was purchased with cookie money.

I daresay that there are times I miss the respectability of a “real” profession — but I would never exchange it for any of this past lifetime.

When I held my oldest son for the first time and studied his face, I had no idea what I was in for. I marveled that little person had been inside my body just a short time before — but I had no idea what a gift he was to me.

My oldest daughter is now expecting her first child (my 5th grandchild). I keep thinking what life-changing treat she is in for.

Life

Kick the Tires

Sally9 Comments

Walk about Zion, go around her,
number her towers,
Consider well her ramparts,
go through her citadels,
that you may tell the next generation
that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.

Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV)

I read three Psalms every morning. Since there are 150 Psalms, I read through them all every 50 days — then I start again. I’ve been doing this for years so the words are more and more like old friends.

This Psalm, however — Psalm 48 — is one of my favorites. I arrive at it, and my mind immediately says, “It’s the ‘kick the tires’ Psalm!” I read it, and I picture the people walking around Zion, looking at critically, like someone would if they were buying a used car.

It’s that go-ahead-and-check-it-out mindset that I love.

Walk around her.
Count her towers.
Consider her ramparts.
Walk through her citadels.
Kick the tires.

Anything that’s true stands up to scrutiny.

And even if scrutiny reveals flaws, it’s all good. I’ve done that walk around a rental car before and after taking it out — noting scratches and dings. Yep, let’s be aware. Let’s take note.

It’s true of God. It’s true of other relationships. It’s true of life itself.

Take note of strengths and appreciate them.

Take note of weaknesses, and make a mental note to keep an eye on that.

Go ahead. Kick the tires. Find out what’s really there.

family · poetry

Ichibon – Our First Cat

Sally12 Comments

“Can I have a little kitty?” I asked my dad one day.
My mother put me up to it; she knew what he would say.
When I had first asked her, she said, “You need to ask your dad.”
The thought of having NO kitten made me rather sad –
So in my simple six-year-old heart, I began to pray.

When I first saw those kittens, much to my dismay,
The lady said to ask my mom and I knew I must obey
So I asked my mom with every ounce of sweetness that I had —
Can I have a little kitty?

My father loved to tell this tale. I can hear him now portray
How this funny freckled blonde-haired girl stole his heart away
With such a simple question — and he would often add
“How could I say no to that?” Yes, he would be a cad
To deny his own dear daughter the joy that came with one “Okay”
Can I have a little kitty?

The cat’s name was Ichibon. We lived on an army base at the time, and the family with the kittens had recently returned from a stint in Japan. Ichibon means #1 in Japanese, and she was allegedly the first kitten born in the litter.

Ichibon was first in a long long string of cats in my life. Today, I have an obese cat who doesn’t understand that he’s supposed to be a working cat and taking care of the mice in this house — but that’s probably a poem for another day.

This is response to the W3 prompt this week:

Write a rondeau inspired by a childhood memory

  • 15 lines long;
  • Three stanzas:
    • a quintet (five-line stanza);
    • a quatrain (four-line stanza);
    • and a sestet (six-line stanza);
  • Rhyme scheme: aabba aabR aabbaR.
  • Refrain: L9 and L15
    • The refrain (R) is short;
    • The refrain (R) consists of a phrase taken from L1;
  • All the other lines are longer than R and share the same metrical length.
poetry · prayer

Daring

Sally12 Comments

Staring at the starlit sky
Daring to believe in hope
Baring heart, baring soul
Swearing to do more than cope

When life throws unexpected curves
Then also adds surprising joys
Again we dare to dream and pray
Amen, amen — ‘midst all the noise

W3 prompt

This week’s prompt is to write a “lento” on the topic of dreams. Lento?

  • Two quatrains (four-line stanzas) with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe, as the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza must rhyme;
  • All the FIRST words of each verse should rhyme; click HERE for an example.
Blather · fiction

Feeling Uncreative ~ or ~ How would you finish this story?

Sally6 Comments

Sometimes the creative juices flow and sometimes they don’t. Am I right?

The Stream of Consciousness prompt for this week is create and, doggone-it, I am struggling to create.

I wrote myself into a hole with my first stab at the Unicorn Challenge. I’ll put my half-written attempt at the bottom here in case anyone has ideas on how to finish it. For those who aren’t familiar with the Unicorn Challenge, it involves a photo prompt and 250 word (or less) story. That’s it.

But seriously, I wrote myself into a tight spot. What do you think would happen next? You only have 125 words to finish the story.

Create that!

Here’s the unfinished story:

“oh god… Oh God…. OH GOD!!! Please let this damn thing work!”

He frantically flipped the receiver lever up and down on the phone. “HELLO?! HELLO?!… DAMN!”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Think, think,” he muttered. “9-1-1 is US… 9-9-9?!” He punched the buttons.

“What is your emergency?” A woman’s voice came through the receiver.

“MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY!”

“Okay,” she replied calmly. “What is your location?”

“I DON’T KNOW!! I LOST THE CELL SIGNAL! I TOOK A WRONG TURN! I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM!!”

“Where is your wife right now?”

“SHE’S IN THE CAR!”

As if on cue, a loud moan crescendoed into scream from the car. He dropped the receiver, leaving it dangling in the phone box.

fiction

The Phone Call

Sally10 Comments

The phone was ringing inside the phone box as Lisa walked past.

Nine months had passed since her mother died. Walking had become her way to cope.

The first months were the worst. Her very soul shivered. With grief, regret, sadness and with the damp cold of winter.

She bundled in layers and walked the country roads for hours.

At first she focused on her feet, watching them move forward as if they belonged to someone else while her mind replayed that last conversation.

Her mom had called that morning, “I’m not feeling well. Could you stop over?”

“Is it urgent?” Lisa had asked. “I’ve got a lot happening today. Could I come tomorrow?”

Her mother had yielded. She never wanted anyone to fuss over her.

She never wanted anyone to fuss over her. Lisa repeated those words in her mind. That’s why I should have listened. That’s why I should have gone.

But she hadn’t.

Instead she had found her mother the next day, dead.

So she started walking. For hours upon hours.

She thought knew these roads, but she had never noticed the phone box.

Now it was ringing. She pushed the door open and lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” she said.

“Lisa? Is that you?” It was her mother’s voice. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you that I loved you.”

“Mom? Mom?!” Lisa shouted into the receiver. “I love you, too.”

With a click the line went dead.

Lisa stood, staring and wondering at the receiver.

My Unicorn Challenge submission for this week.

This is 250 words, the limit for the challenge. It also has to be based on the photo.

I had to edit out SO MUCH to make the word count and I didn’t even finish the story in my head. I hope it makes sense.

poetry

Autumn/Winter

Sally14 Comments

Some may think it strange —
This is my favorite time
I sit quietly
Watching leaves waft their way down
Or swirling as if unsure
Where to fall. It’s fall —
Leaves falling, falling, falling
Left behind ’til spring
Or raked into piles and hauled
To the compost where they rot
“It’s so cold today!”
People say, pulling on coats
Wild geese preen feathers
Preparing for fall; they fly
In formation; I stay home

Truly my favorite time of year.

W3 prompt for today:

  • Compose a series of three tanka;
    • Following are three “turn lines” or “pivots” (third lines) for each of three tanka, and you must construct the rest:
      1. Turn / Pivot for tanka #1: “I sit quietly”
      2. Turn / Pivot for tanka #2: “Left behind till spring”
      3. Turn / Pivot for tanka #3: “Wild geese preen feathers”
    • These tanka are to be autumn/winter-themed;
    • You may write each of your tanka in a single unbroken line of thirty-one syllables, or you may use the five-line 5/7/5/7/7 approach.