Autumnal Days settling in to cool
Assets and payments all coming due
Black coffee burns and bites
As I ponder the breadth of lifetime delights… Continue reading
health
New Traditions
From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge(08/26/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!
“Hey Emil, where ya headed?” Olaf cycled like Old Nick himself, trying to catch up with his childhood friend.
Emil slowed his bicycle and halted, gingerly slipping off the extra-wide seat that Dorothea had gifted him to encourage his getting in shape, on account of his tricky ticker. He sorely missed her dark black coffee, her cardamom buns, even her often sharp tongue. But she’d made him promise before she died, and two years later, he was fit enough to give Olaf a run for his money. Continue reading
First Kiss
They were nearing the prescribed percentage for herd immunity, but people were impatient and downright cranky, and as a result of that – well, that and the economy — restrictions were being lifted for those fully vaccinated. Continue reading
Dilemma
She stared in the mirror, one hand holding the ends of her hair, the other running a brush as gently as possible over its knotted curls; sparks crackled green and sharp, and she didn’t want to burn down the apartment complex. Continue reading
Butterfly Kisses
He lay, entombed in mud and ice and darkness. He’d lain there so long that fine, tough filaments had grown over his limbs, the bridge of his nose, twining around the desiccated, corded column of his neck. He’d pull the blanket higher, cover the chilled vee of his pajama top…but no…too much of an effort. He’d gone too far away. Continue reading
Only in Real Winter Dreams
Spoon coffee grounds into the BPA-free filter, the scent a bright hit in the ice-crystal kitchen. Cat slurps his morning meal, shoulders hunched protectively over his bowl. Continue reading
Ophelia Persisted
“Pull off it. Like a sweater!”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Like a sweater. Pull! Off! It!”
“Are you having a stroke or something?”
She glared at him, vibrating with rage, and pushed the sleeves of her washed-out taupe cardigan up over her elbows and planted her feet.
He sighed, slid his glasses up his nose. “I have no frikkin’ clue,” he grunted.
It was then that he noticed the linoleum and cinder-black dayroom was empty. Continue reading
Valley of the Trolls 