Solitude’s End

/ Liz H-H

juicy tangerine wedges

He’d first caught the scent’s fragrant tang on an early morning breeze, on the first days after the snows had well and truly departed, and Summer lay tripping and sliding just beyond his range of perception.

At these times, the human creature often sat in a large wooden chair outside the cabin, bare legs drawn up against the dew, peeling the skin off a bright globe, its oils spritzing in the early sun, alternately eating the wedges hidden within and sipping at a sharp, earthy, misty brew secreted in a tall cup; the smell made him a little crazy, and once, when she’d run back in the cabin to refill her cup, he’d scurried from his hiding place in the tall grasses and with his sharp, furry hands, captured a bit of the peel that had fallen on the ground.

Summer deepened and she’d watch the lake from her place in the chair, while fishing boats chugged by in the channel, and shadows shifted and shortened as the sun moved higher in the sky. He respected that, as he loved Lady Lake, too, and he often sat, touching the bright globe’s drying peel to his lips as both he and the human, separate but together, greeted the lake’s waves and ripples as the wind shifted throughout the morning.

Once, she’d left a wedge of the bright globe sitting on the chair’s arm when she’d run into the cabin to refresh her cup, and he couldn’t resist that either, standing on the seat as he stuffed it in his mouth and the juice exploded and ran down his bearded chin and on to his rounded belly.

She’d stood inside the screened porch, coffee in hand and a smile on her face, and decided to leave him two wedges next time.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2022)

(For the Other’s point of view, please click here: https://valleyofthetrolls.blog/2022/01/21/whos-being-tamed/ )

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “JUICE”, and here’s where you join the party:Six Sentence Stories   

 

36 thoughts on “Solitude’s End”

  1. Pingback: January 30: Prepare | Valley of the Trolls

  2. Pingback: Who’s Being Tamed? | Valley of the Trolls

  3. So beautifully observed and written, Liz. Man, that took me back to a few childhood summers when I moved from the city to the countryside… though I’ll admit I don’t remember sharing my oranges with any bearded woodland folk. Later in life though I did have a special woodland place in another countryside that I went to, where I shared crystals and healing… but shhh, don’t tell anyone eh. A magical story, bravo!

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  6. What a fabulous evocation of the first taste of an orange, which can so easily get lost in habit.
    Two lone creatures side by side by the beauty of the lake, one human and one…not, gradually creating links to each other.
    Beautiful.
    It makes me think of the Little Prince and the fox.

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  11. I concur with all those comments and I’m smiling too, Liz. Beautifully written – I can almost smell the ‘oils spritzing in the sun’ and I can certainly see them. I’m also wondering who ‘he’ is. 🤔

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  13. I’m with the others… very engaging and, as a payoff, quite satisfying. Being a fan of the constituents of not-deliberately-destroying-the-world demographic of the animal kingdom, I liked them both.

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