Baby's Breath

A quick five sentences on flowers for a busy Tuesday

Thanks to Lillie McFerrin for another reason to write tiny things!

Baby's Breath

Not the flower in question

In its squat vase, the dense purple-and-white bouquet sat on her desk like a smug, fat woman overflowing an outdated dress proclaiming in a mocking tone what the note said: "No hard feelings." 

She had known all the flowers' names when she was a little girl--the ones in her mother's and grandmothers' gardens, and the ones from the seed catalogs and nurseries--but what the white filler was called eluded her. 

She picked up the arrangement in one hand and her purse in the other and walked quickly down the hallway to his office. 

He looked up from his monitor just in time to see water spill onto the floor as the vase flew toward his head. 

"Hard feelings," she muttered, remembering suddenly the name of the white flower.

Senses of Self

Five sentences on beauty after many near-sleepless nights and a fun and productive but tiring weekend

Senses of Self

She had expected her adjustment to total blindness to be devastating, and at first it had

been, but then the absence of sight became part of her. As they waited for the doctor, she drummed her fingertips on the familiar textured wall and reached over to squeeze her husband’s warm, denim-covered thigh. Sight, she realized, like hearing, was passive, but the purposeful physical connection of touch revealed true beauty and understanding without misdirection. “Come on,” she said rising from the chair and extending a hand, “I don’t need to be fixed.”

Both of his hands closed around hers as he rose, murmuring, “No, you don’t.”

Polyester Intentions

This week's Five-Sentence Fiction prompt, fabric, inspired this short piece.
*Updated an hour after initial posting due to a typo and general dislike for the lack of flow

Some days I feel happy with quickly finished flashes, and some days I just don't. This is one of the latter kinds of days. Hope you enjoy anyway, and thanks in advance for reading.

Polyester Intentions

I meant to make a quilt, but when I began dissecting the shirts' seams, the fabric shrieked. Cotton pulls apart relatively quietly, but I discovered that Dacron and other synthetics cry out loud. I quit when I tore off a pocket and something spilled from the seam. I recognized it immediately as pipe tobacco and pressed the pocket, now detached, to my face. Thirty years later, the box of shirts looks down on me daily from my closet shelf, still waiting to become a quilt.

An Achievable Bliss

This tiny piece was written in response to Lillie McFerrin's Five-Sentence Fiction challenge, Bliss. I loved the photo that accompanied this prompt, but I went in another, jokier direction. 

An Achievable Bliss

“You know what would be amazing?” she asked, leaning forward across the small, glossy café table. The woman on the other side of the table smirked and shook her head slightly, shrugging.

“Four hours in a room with a bed, a book, and nothing else to do but read.”

“I think that’s called a holding cell.”

“Oh, right,” she sighed dreamily, sipping her chai.

Raw Material

I scribbled the following for this week's Five-Sentence Fiction prompt, Limitless. 

Raw Material

Magazine Alley, as she thought of it, was now mid-thigh deep and bordered by heaps of clothes which, when they had been piled there, had been clean. The table beside her best chair was covered in layers of useful things: scraps of paper with notes and recipes, stalled knitting projects, forgotten cups of tea with fuzzy tea bags attached, empty yogurt containers, and bits of fabric. The house, being so full, was quiet and comforting--a perfect setting for creativity. Raw material for making art surrounded her, but she wandered, sometimes stumbling on an abandoned shoe or dog toy, trying to figure out where to begin. She sighed to herself, thinking for the millionth time, The possibilities are limitless.

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