Right? Right?!

07/10/2023 / Liz H-H / 18 Comments

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (07/07/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

***

Inspired by subterranean graffiti below the family’s old Victorian, he lived in the basement, coming up only to grab some food for himself, or cook a meal on the rare occasions when his parents were home. His sisters fled to school and beyond, and when his parents became housebound, the girls’ annual visits dwindled and ceased. An uncurious caretaker watched over his father, keeping him fed and bathed and toileted.

And Charles finally, mostly free. Continue reading →

No Tears

07/05/202307/05/2023 / Liz H-H / 19 Comments

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

Without a doubt, that was the last straw.

His casual comments about strangers with unflattering hairstyles, alien colored locks, clothes worn too tight or too loose, the ugliness of sparse whiskers on extra chins, jiggling rolls of belly fat, too much makeup or not enough, had escalated over the past month, and his gimlet eye had turned to me though he hadn’t yet uttered his scathing commentary…yet. Continue reading →

Relentless

07/04/202307/04/2023 / Liz H-H / 13 Comments

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (06/30/23). No more than 250 words in length.

Humans mill about the street, hot feet shuffling over sharpened sand. Dirt blows into every crevice of eye and between the toes. Sweat-stippled breasts of nursing mothers unable to comfort babies who don’t know why they cry. Geographically-darkened dress shirts of men, loosening their ties attempting to feel like they have it all under control. Continue reading →

Solo Farewell

06/25/202306/25/2023 / Liz H-H / 16 Comments

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt. The Unicorn Challenge (06/23/23). No more than 250 words in length.

(And no, this is not murder, but death by cancer)

The last rock is placed. She stands back to evaluate her work. One hundred stones, enough to trace an outline. It’ll do. Her father’s body had become wasted, crumpled like a…a croissant! A little repose, in straightening out this depiction of his form. A little humor to remind her to breathe. Continue reading →

Time to Replant

06/20/202306/25/2023 / Liz H-H / 3 Comments

A friend’s gifted garden moss becomes dry and flat in its simple cup,

Wire butterfly perched on curved handle.

Too much time wasted, waiting.

Envision an enclosed glass world, layered:

Lake Superior red sand;

Rocks harvested from long-ago summers

(pale girlie feet wavering white under icy waters);

A sneeze of dirt, for the moss that yields tiny, white blooms;

Additional plants to be identified;

A snail or two, sweet company?

Budget store clarifies: Re-use from home.

Window well pebbles;

Superior rocks only;

Drainage moss;

Dirt from the cup;

Hollow glass block: the world.

Vision realized: on time, in budget.

Carrot Ranch Prompt (06/20/23): In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about grains of sand. Where are these grains and what importance do they hold? How many ways can you think of to use sand? Who interacts with the sand and why? Go where the prompt leads!