Lunchbox

(100-word flash fiction)

Tracey is overjoyed. Justin’s lunch boxes are coming back empty. And he’s also putting on weight. She attributes it to the fully eaten lunches. But why the sudden change?

Finally, she asks casually, “You seem to be extra hungry at school these days. Been doing more sports?”

“Mmm…mmmm, not really!”

“Well! You’ve been polishing off all your lunches of late.”

And innocent 7-year old that he is, he blurts out. “We found this strange machine in the woods behind the school. You put your lunchbox in and the food turns into whatever you ask for, like burgers and pizzas.”

******

After some reluctance from the muse, it delivered two stories. This one is rather playful, even whimsical after that super serious one I did before. To read Rochelle’s story and all other FF contributions, head here.

******

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

GO AHEAD…CLICK ME!       

Visitors

Today’s poem for NaPoWriMo.

My TEDx Canberra experience

My journey to speaking at a TEDx event has been an exhilarating, edifying and exciting one. It has been a great honour and privilege to be invited to speak at TEDx Canberra. It finally happened on September 8th.

It was beyond amazing!

Both sides

(100-word flash fiction)

Everyday, as she walks past, Lila admires the house. Gleaming in the sunlight, it looks so warm and welcoming, so totally unlike her old, dingy shack. She imagines a house filled with bustle and laughter.

Inside the house, the air hardly moves as Maya sits at the window, in her wheelchair, watching the passing girl. She drinks in her spritely walk, her jaunty ponytail sashaying in the sunlight, her intense gaze, almost daring her to walk.

Months later, she tells her surprised doctor, “She willed me to walk, that girl who sent me waves of joyous energy down her gaze.”

~~~

I wanted to write something uplifting, in contrast to the somber mood of the winter we are in. Leafless trees and frost. And I do believe in the tremendous power of our thoughts to change our reality. Returning once again to the eclectic group of Friday Fictioneers hosted by the lovely Rochelle 🙂

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

 

Yellow Heart

(100-word flash fiction)

I got up early to make Mummy a marmalade sandwich with a heart hole for Mother’s Day. Daddy called it Yellow Heart.  He said it would make Mummy very happy when she got home.

It’s 8 o’clock and Mummy isn’t home yet, so Daddy made me a peanut butter sandwich. But, I was still hungry so I started to eat Mummy’s sandwich too, when the doorbell rang.

But it’s not Mummy, it’s a policeman with his hat in his hand. Why is he whispering to Daddy while staring at me?

Is Mummy not coming back because I ate her sandwich?

~~~

* Apparently, on SnapChat, Yellow Heart means you are #1 best friends with each other 🙂

I am a bit late this week because a story just wouldn’t form itself and I didn’t want to pull a premie out of my muse’s womb. I finally got one I am happy with 🙂 Thanks Rochelle for hosting this eclectic group of flash fiction addicts every week, week after week. I salute your dedication 🙂

Photo prompt –

PHOTO PROMPT © Kelvin M. Knight

Ruin

(100-word flash fiction)

They were the power couple. Gracious and hospitable. Every birthday, anniversary and festival was celebrated with partying. They appeared in public smiling hand-in-hand.

He excelled in his career while she was the loving stay-at-home mother volunteering for charities.

They did not know when the rot in their marriage had started to  creep up from the foundation. They were so busy living their perfect lives, they did not see the brickwork slowly turning to dust. Their smiles and celebrations like ivy covering a decaying structure had fooled even themselves.

All it took for the structure to crumble was one mammogram.

~~~

Sadly, it’s a true story. Neighbours of ours, such a nice couple, hospitable and both of them lovely people. Then we moved away and heard she has had a mastectomy.  Followed soon by divorce.

~~~

Tried to get literal with this one, but it came out a bit stilted, I think.

Thank you Rochelle for yet another lovely photo and for so religiously hosting our Flash Fiction addicted get-together 🙂

Photo prompt –

 

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bulltot

NEW YEAR’S DAY

…

 

Lying on a hammock under

trees brimming with summer

I gaze at the undersides of leaves

and birds’ nests. An inverted

green dome.  A cathedral of calm.

 

Caressed by breezes laced with

the fragrance of wood smoke,

jasmine and river-breath. Trees

drop their leaves and birds their

song. Little gifts of benediction.

 

The sun through the leaf-lattice

twinkles like bits of broken, yellow

glass, like the deity in a stained

glass window, playful not solemn,

playing hide-and-seek with me.

 

Blissfully unaware, unmindful

that on its third satellite the

inhabitants have broken time

into pieces and labelled them

for convenience and celebration.

 

And so, we send fireworks into

the air and make resolutions,

forgetting, quite ungratefully

it is the fireball in the sky that

got us through yet another orbit.

 

Suspended

(100-word flash fiction)

 

The chair topples on the first kick. As if on cue, she steps outside herself.

 

She is amazed at how the body is wired for survival, as she watches the legs, puppet-like, kick into thin air. Chest straining, by habit, trying to suck in air, so abundant outside. Face crimsoning as blood rushes to her brain. Bells going on inside, screaming ‘Mayhem!’ ‘Mayhem!’

 

She loses all sense of time. And that dreary greyness that had festered inside her like a light-sucking ghost. She crackles with an aliveness her body had never felt. Unimaginable lightness fills her being.

 

The door opens.

 

~~~

Rochelle has posted a lovely image for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt.

Photo  © Ted Strutz

Death poems

On dVerse Poets Pub Gayle sets the challenge :  To write in haiku or tanka style, to the theme of Jisei (Japanese death poems).

Gayle also says, “In ancient Japanese, Chinese and Korean cultures, a practice was used at the time of death to capture the last words spoken. This practice was called jisei (in Japan) or death poem and is the “farewell poem to life.” Jisei was written by monks, samurai, the literate and poets of these cultures. One of the earliest recorded jisei dates to 686 C.E. (Common Era) or in Christian terms, B.C. (before Christ) with the death of Prince Otsu who was the son of Emperor Temmu of Japan.”

 

JAPANESE DEATH POEMS – tanka

 

I hear the sea sing

in my veins, of homecoming.

Save your salty tears

 

for life and its sorry tales,

not me. I am going home.

 

~~~

 

This vain, heavy shell

I no longer need, fading

softly like daylight

 

surrenders to night, sighing

soft promises of return.

 

~~~

 

This shell will return

to its womb. My sinews will

turn into roots, limbs

 

into tree-trunks. And my song

will trill out from the tree tops.

 

~~~

 

Soon, I will be rain,

falling on seeds, springing them

into life. Lusty,

 

fecund, virile, alive. Death

is a mere wisp of a veil.

 

~~~

Sensuous Sundays – Shower

~~~

Shower – haiku

the shower hisses

water kisses turn into

a liquid embrace

~~~