Flicker(>100 words)

Bundle

/ Liz H-H / 7 Comments

Homeless person in a thing blanket, in a windy blizzard

She shivered in her layers of jackets, hunched over on the park bench. So cold that even the birds dared not sing for fear of cracking their beaks. A bedraggled squirrel flicked his careworn tail, hopping from frozen bundles of dirty gray leaves, to clods of dirt, to pieces of trash embedded in ice. Try as he might to make little to no contact with the ground, even his toes got cold, and he limped over to a concretized tree and jerked his way up and around the trunk and disappeared. Continue reading →

Long Boards Too Short

/ Liz H-H / 9 Comments

GlacierLong version:

“We’ve got to have an old pair of your mother’s long boards…er…skis, somewhere here,” Magnhildr crouched and twisted as she snaked her arm through the stacks of children’s skis. “She was full grown when she came to foster with us, so they should work for you, as well.”

Hjordis stepped anxiously from one foot to the other, her troll’s tail twitching, as she peered past the snow giant’s thigh Continue reading →

17:00

/ Liz H-H / 7 Comments

Picture of a park bench

(Click here to view : What the park bench sees everyday)

She supposed she really ought to be scattering bird seed, perhaps corn for the larger ones. So her grandson had often told her, in kind but stern words. “The mold on the bread could kill them!”

But her widow’s pension was meant for sustenance, not luxury, so she shared what she had. The birds didn’t seem to mind, judging by how they gathered about her feet on this park bench, every day at 5 pm. And they never left a crumb behind, so where was the harm? Continue reading →

Rodeo Event #4: Bucky’s Baked Beans, A Love Story with Two Spoons

/ Liz H-H / 7 Comments

fork and spoon crossedCountdown from the Carrot Ranch Contest: Re-visioning your flash in 4 steps (for more, see the link below)

 Step One: 99 word flash, to include “beans”

Bucky’s Beans

It was definitely not what I was expecting. I thought we’d celebrate Bucky’s return from her Antarctic dogsled adventure with a lavish meal, and go shake our butts at a dance club. Maybe not that last one. Bucky’d only been home for two weeks.

What I saw was Bucky on the couch in sweats and wool socks, legs folded underneath her, spoon dipping into a can of baked beans.

I hid my dismay, but not well enough.

“When you’ve been living off a dogsled, a can of beans is a feast.”

I sighed, grabbing a spoon from the kitchen. Continue reading →