Join us for a weekly blog party in Six Sentence Stories, hosted by Denise and attended by some mighty fine, fun folk. Prompt word=THUNDER. Read, write and come back for more SIX SENTENCE STORIES.
Thunder just past midnight wakes me, causes my cat to lift his head and chirrup, then press himself deeper into my side and relax: all is well with the world.
Earlier in the day, a friend and I had emerged from a soft dirt path and shaded woods by the Mississippi into a blaze of July that took our breath away and slowed our steps.
Startled by shrill cries, we searched the sky and found a pair of adolescent eaglets stretching as high as they could from their massive nest in the tallest tree, as the adult circled and banked, a huge fish in her claws, and then dipped into the nest, quickly re-emerging and climbing the sky over the river to hunt once more for her ever-hungry brood of two: all is well with the world.
Earlier than that, we’d strolled through chain link, cut and peeled back, to see how close we could get to the government building’s real fence, marveling at the wild blooms of graffiti art that overtaken an abandoned building just outside the protection of the camera-adorned, warning-signed, locked-down gate.
Messages, friendly monsters, and cryptic tags beautify the rusting building, her windows broken but enough structure beneath, that those living rough might find Winter shelter in her deep belly, and in the smallest script, a bold message, defiant:
“If they left it
To rust
Then they left it
To us”
All is well with the world.
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2026)
Valley 
What a beautiful story! I especially love the last line “All is well with the world.” ☺️👍
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Thank you!
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You’re very welcome! ☺️
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Those last words are priceless.
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Ahh, I wish I had a cat curling up to me like in that first sentence. Can’t get the image out of my head now.
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Purport! 😻
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A beautifully descriptive story, Liz. So much so, it was breathtaking in my mind’s eye.
There’s something unsettling about abandoned buildings yet not this one as ,”the wild blooms of graffiti art that overtaken an abandoned building…” love that line.
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Glad it pleased!
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That’s all that matters: “all is well with the world”
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ok, first:
“…a blaze of July that took our breath away and slowed our steps.”
“the wild blooms of graffiti art”
two words: Damn!
also, the thing about graffiti that often hits me, “Man! That person must really love their gf/bf to get a spray can way the hell up/out there!”
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Lovely and interesting… but what is happening by that old government building – do tell!
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It’s beautified with graffiti, painted on skyways that we couldn’t figure how they managed access, windows broken, rusted out, and we speculated that the building might provide shelter to homeless, in Winter.
I was taken by the lines of poetry as lines of defiance and strength, answering ruin and neglect with art.
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And the protected area inside the fence is likely for operations for the dam… 🙂
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Ooooh… more please!
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I think…that’s “all she wrote” on this. I love street art graffiti. Thanks for letting me wax rhapsodic on this!
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Quite the extremes from a comfortable cat, to the beauty of nature, to graffiti and a homeless shelter. I’m not sure that all is well with the world, but we’ve gotta keep trying.
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My point exactly…we treasure what we have, and keep on going. 🙂
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