I Should Have Been A Country Song Writer

I spend a great deal of my time rooted in imaginings of past present moments. When I decide to put my work up on WordPress, I search the web for images that say something – I think anyway 😛 – about the poem/sometimes story.

Sometimes, I do flash fiction here on WordPress. Look at a photograph and write something about it in 100 words or less. I don’t do very well with those. I actually have a love/hate relationship with those.  Like doing a book report.

Then sometimes, like today, I walk by our kitchen table and see these tulips y,ou gave me yesterday, so beautifully wilted.  The present moment.  I take this picture thinking I could and will write a million words about these tulips one day. But they won’t be about tulips.

I’m making a healthy version of smothered round steak with onions and some kind of fancy frozen West Coast mushrooms that are way cheap frozen, and all the lettuce we didn’t use last week  – yum. What can I say? I’m a transplanted Southerner living in Silicon Valley. It’s Easter Sunday. Lent is OVER. Pig out marginally.

I should have been a country song writer. Those are really wonderful stories.

 

Morning Dew Long Ago – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.   Thank you, PJ, for sponsoring this and for all of your hard work on our behalf.  Please follow lil froggy for more stories.

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yinglan. Thank you Yinglan!

Morning Dew Long Ago

That day,  on the way to school, my brothers and I walked into some police fencing. I told them it was just a simple fence, but they insisted it was some sort of police fencing. So, I climbed the chain linked fence. Just beyond where I landed were streamers of what looked like toilet paper. They were wet and heavy from the morning dew.

“Someone finally wrapped ole man Johnson’s yard!” I called out. It did look like that to me.

My voice giggled and caught on the wind and landed in my brother, Evan’s, ear. “You come back here right now, Heather,” Evan yelled.

“You come back here right now, Heather. Do ya hear me tellin’ you?” Evan shouted again.

I did hear him but someone had taped my mouth shut and I couldn’t reply.

Ellespeth

Patent Pending – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.   Thank you, PJ, for sponsoring this and for all of your hard work on our behalf.  Please follow lil froggy for more stories.

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yinglan. Thank you Yinglan!  (I’ve used part of your name in my story Lan)

Patent Pending – A Love Story

“I think I’ve got it!” Heng exclaimed. He took his wife’s arm and led her into his workshop.

Lan, his wife, had been through this many times before. Heng’s inventions. She smiled and let him lead her.

There she saw a milk carton with an antennae sticking out of it. “What is this, Heng?” she asked.

“The Moo-zic!” Heng replied. He flicked a switch on the side of the carton.

Ellespeth

(w/c 75)

When We Make A Footprint – A Poem

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.   Thank you, PJ, for sponsoring this and for all of your hard work on our behalf.  Please follow lil froggy for more stories.

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yarnspinnerr.

This isn’t really long enough 😦

When We Make A Footprint

When you’ve walked in my shoes  then
tell me not to hide
tell me about shame
tell me to remember
to forget.

Ellespeth

 

When The Mercury Goes Up – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.   Thank you, PJ, for sponsoring this and for all of your hard work on our behalf.  Please follow lil froggy for more stories.

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Michelle DeAngelis. Thank you Michelle!

Here is the photograph and my story…Since my husband and I will be grandparents soon,  I must have baby on the brain 😛

When The Mercury Goes Up

Dad was calling for me from the catamaran. Our deep-sea fishing customers were ready to catch some Atlantic bluefin tuna,  but I couldn’t take my arms from around Charlotte’s waist.

“Catch a big ole fat tuna for our supper tonight,” she whispered in my ear.

“I will if you say it again.” I still couldn’t take my arms from around her.

“Catch a big ole fat tuna for our supper tonight,” Charlotte whispered again.

“Not that.  ” I nuzzled against her neck.  Inhaled everything sweet in my life.

“Oh! You mean the part where I just told you I’m pregnant?” she asked.

I lifted her up and swung her around and put her down gently again. We heard Dad cussing. We were laughing and whooping.

“Yes!”

Ellespeth  ♥

(w/c 122)

At The Landing

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.his week’s photo prompt is provided by Ted Strutz. Thank you Ted for our photo prompt!  Please click lil froggy for other stories.

Here is the photo and my entry for this week.At The Landing

It had been a long afternoon and we’d  just missed the previous ferry.  The kid was wired for a nap that hadn’t happened.  I needed a glass of wine.

Me:  If you sit still for just a second I’ll go and get you a cotton candy.

Child:  Coke, too?

It was some time later. I trudged back to our car with cotton candy and soda.

Child: Coke?

Me:  They only had Pepsi.

Ellespeth

(w/c 78)

An Afternoon After School – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yinglan. Thank you Yinglan!  Please click lil froggy for other stories.

Here is the photo and my entry for this week.

An Afternoon After School

I was a young girl then.

Each day, after school, I walked to my father’s shoe store and sat in the storage room and did my homework. I dreamed about my future.

The day Father received the red shoes, she appeared. My brothers rushed to serve her and compliment her. All the colors in the room were muted. Even her lovely silk dress and the noise of time passing were muted.

“I will take these red shoes,” the lady said.  She kicked up her heel and smiled down at my younger brother.

He offered to box and bag them for her.

“Thank you,  but no,” she said. “I want to wear them now. You can send these old shoes to me later.”

I think her lips were red, too. Her skin was like ivory. Her voice soft and sweet – just as I imagined mine would be one day.

Ellespeth

Thoughts At A Fountain – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge. This week’s photo prompt is provided by wildverbs. Thank you wildverbs!

Please  follow lil  froggy for more stories:)

Thoughts At A Fountain

I’m so lost without you. So lost, even, that last night I walked a long while until there was the fountain.

That place where you first kissed me. Where we held hands. Where each water’s drop mixed into a melody of hope and we’d wished upon the reflections of late night stars.

“I’m gonna marry you one day,” you said that long ago summer. You leaned over and kissed my cheek. We held close to each other.

And it all came true.

Except,

now you’ve gone and died on me. How could you go so far off our plan like that?

Ellespeth

How Not To Crochet The Drop Stitch – Flash Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge. This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yarnspinnerr. Thank you Yarnspinnerr!

Please  follow lil  froggy for more stories:)

How Not To Crochet The Drop Stitch

I stood with my brother at the airport’s security gate. His dark brown eyes were locked onto my own. My flight would be loading soon. A very few moments loomed before us.

“I got here as soon as I received your text,” my brother said. “Thank God you are still here!” He embraced me.

“Even I don’t have wings,” I replied. “Must wait, as others, for flight.”

“We don’t know this man you are flying to be with,” said my brother.

“He doesn’t know you either.”

My brother shook his head. He seemed sad. “I’ve just always had this image of you writing poetry and crocheting christening gowns.”

“But I don’t know how to crochet!” I drew my eyes into thin lines and stared my brother down.

“That’s not the point,” he said.

“Oh. Okay. I don’t want to learn how to crochet.”

“You’ll be sorry for this!” my brother shouted as I made my way to the ticket counter.

“But I don’t want to learn how to crochet!” I called back to him.

Ellespeth

The Eccentricities Of Romance – Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge. This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yinglan. Thank you Yinglan!

Please follow lil froggy for more stories:)

Here is the photograph and my part fiction/part memoir story:

The Eccentricities Of Romance

Nobody in my family ever really knew Ivy.  One day out of no where Dad,  a widower for seven years, announced he was going to marry some woman he’d met on the internet.  That just didn’t sit well with us.  The internet part.  The sudden part.

Nobody in my family ever really knew Ivy.  And then one day,  decades later,   Dad had died and Ivy had reached a critical point in her ability to care for herself.  We moved her into a care facility.

“I’ve always wondered what attracted you to Dad,”  I said during one of our last visits.

“Those model airplanes he had hanging from the ceiling of his library.  Remember those?” Ivy squeezed my hand.  “I just thought that was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.”

I shook my head and smiled.  They had always been such an odd pair.  The engineer and the poet.  “You two.”

“I know,”  she agreed.  Her smile lit the space between us.

Nobody in my family ever really knew Ivy,  and that was the shame of it all.

Ellespeth