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In its squat vase, the dense purple-and-white bouquet sat on her desk like a smug, fat woman overflowing an outdated dress proclaiming in a mocking tone what the note said: "No hard feelings."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

Daddy's Busy Now

Trifextra! A wonderful 33-word challenge. I love these.

Melvin wuvs you.

Daddy's Busy Now

“While you sleep, your father hunts monsters. He beheads them and guts them, then he sells their hides to companies that make teddy bears. That’s right, even Melvin is part monster. Sleep tight!”

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.

A Seedy Location

33 words on happiness brought to you by the latest Trifextra Challenge and a before and after

I thought it might be fun to share a before and after. The first paragraph is my entry for the weekend Trifextra Challenge, and the second is my original draft. It's a tiny sample of what happens when things get pared down for flash fiction--for better or for worse. 

A Seedy Location
I bury. Wait. Water. Cover. Repeat. Offer to the reluctant March sun. Cat prods them in the window, hoping they will explode on the floor. Green surfaces. A tomato proclaims winter will end.




59-word draft
I bury and wait. Water and cover. Make available to the warmth and the reluctant April Sun. The cat prods the cells with her paw, brushes against them hoping to see them explode on the floor and take their place. But one day, a bit of green emerges--a tomato or pepper--and I know the winter will end.

Early Conversations

I wrote the following for this week's Trifecta Challenge. It's 315 words, some of which are not even real words. 

Early Conversations

“Momomomom. Bob. Brog.”

She smiled. “Tell me more.” She knew he did not yet grasp that sounds he made could mean specific things, but she enjoyed hearing his repertoire as she mulled over the task in front of her.

On the floor, he banged the side of a steel mixing bowl with a hard plastic ring, wincing at the noise. His babble quickly turned into a whine, the sound of winding up that would become full-blown wailing without intervention.

“I get cranky sometimes too, but I can’t nap whenever I want to. Why won’t you nap? You have my permission. As your mother, I give you permission to nap when you are sleepy.” His complaint intensified. She sucked in as much air as she could hold, leaned down from her chair and blew a loud, wet raspberry into his face.

He grinned and emitted the noise of a balloon rapidly deflating during a fire alarm, continuing to bang on the bowl as she turned back to the table and picked up her pen. The only thing worse than writing Christmas cards was writing them on December 19th. Luckily, the photo of the three of them took up most of the room and there was only space for a few lines. Biting the end of the pen, she considered pressing the baby’s hand into a green ink pad and making handprints in the blank space instead of figuring out what to write on each of the cards. It seemed very Pinterest-y. But she knew cooperation was unlikely and scrubbing green ink off everything was even less appealing to her than writing Christmas messages.

“Bromom. Blom. Omm.”

“Yes, Mom’s writing Christmas cards,” she murmured.

“Mom.”

She glanced down at him. He looked up at her intently and repeated, “Mom.”

“Do you mean it this time?”

“Mom!” he yelled, his tooth flashing briefly as he whacked her leg with his toy.

Odd Notions

For this week's Trifextra Challenge, I give you . . . 

Odd Notions

I had always wanted to put my hand in Auntie’s "button jar," the heavy tobacco tin in her sewing room. When I did, a profusion of buttons--and one human tooth--spilled out.