Author: Monica McHenney

Monica lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two foster dogs. She taught parents how to raise their toddlers for twenty-five years before retiring in 2015 to write. The secret to toddlers is to make sure you get enough sleep. Monica hasn't found the secret to writing, yet, but is diligently working at it. See links to her on-line stories on the publications page.

Freedom to Fire

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We are prohibited from shouting, “Fire,” in a crowded theater where a (citizen, terrorist, madman, patriot, bad guy) will shoot, among others, a legislator who voted against gun control. The legislator’s good friend, asked who permitted the gun in the theater, will burst into hot tears of grief.

Still he says, eyes dry, gun rights are in the Constitution. Other rights aren’t. Women fighting for choice. Sanctuary. Union organizing. Driving a car. Registering to vote. The legislator’s friend explains that there is room for disagreement. These issues evolve. But on guns, the wording is clear.

He refuses to define militia.

The Fourth on ESPN

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Popping wheelies on a walker equipped with bright yellow tennis balls to keep it from slip-sliding away, he makes light of his infirmities in a dangerous, delightful way. Nothing interferes with watching Wimbledon on ESPN on the Fourth of July.

An old man, young at ninety, never one to let pain triumph over life. Not early on when it might have done. Not in the war. Not when the press of reporting the news, nor the ups and downs of politics sent him low and high for fifty years. Not even when his dear wife slid away like a dream.

Dry Lightning

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Feels like it might rain, like something might trickle through the seared air and quench the thirsty, dusty ground. It’s just a feeling though. Nothing to make it true. Even the clouds lie.

Next thing is a flash, a thunder peal, dry lightning somewhere in the hills. You think it’s far away because the bolt is disconnected from its scream.

A fire smolders. The wind spreads it, jumps it over the plowed break in the dry, brown grass. Acrid smoke and deep hued sunsets linger after the flames run their course.

No one dies, nothing changes. We think we’re lucky.

The Guardian

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It was a big tree, gashed along the side away from the barn. My grandpa calls it “The Guardian.”

Said he saw it happen in the big rainstorm of 2012. The sky alight, the thunder rumbling; the dogs scrambling for cover on the porch, yowling like every clap tore open an ear. Then a bolt hit the aspen. Hit it at the leafy top and seared into the trunk, so now you see the scar ripple dark down to the ground.

It’s grown some. Taller now. Stronger. Beloved. Hay bales safe under the barn roof feed the cows all winter.

Doors and Windows

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A clap of thunder sounded and a bolt of lightning rent the sky. Was it Zeus, Thor? She speculated.

A man’s girth filled the doorway. “Move.”

“Give us a break.”

He wore a poncho, blue with an emblem, shoulders uncertain. “Go on.”

She held a square of cardboard above her head. Behind her she pulled a shopping cart, a torn tarp bungeed on top. Arranged so her things stayed dry. Her life, her books.

He turned and went the other way while she rumbled along, not lonely.

She pulled into the next doorway. Maybe some god had tickled his ear.

Looking Back

Looking at the blue jeans I have on today, I remember buying them when I was much younger. They were dark blue, whereas now they are washed blue, showing dots of white throughout. A stylish rectangular hole, approximately two by three inches, bares my knee. The tear had its start on a backpacking trip. I’d like to say a sharp rock abraded the cloth while I knelt to splash my face, but memory has its limits. I had a dog then. If he was here, he would lick my knee and then curl up on the floor for a nap.

via Daily Prompt: Retrospective

Calculating Thunder

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In pairs, we sprawled on a white sectional, arms and legs entwined. A plate glass window framed the grid of city streets. It was one of those sticky summer days that make you want to take a hundred showers. Relieved to drink something cold and watch daylight turn to dusk, our murmurs subsided to whispers. Our eyes closed. Despite the air conditioner’s hum, it smelled like rain.

A bolt of lightning cracked the sky. We counted, and when the thunder clapped, we calculated our distance from the storm, wondering when the elements would come together and the heavens would open.

Wear Flats

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In grade school, we played out of boredom, shooting spitballs at the ceiling from straws. A sodden mess, the glop hit tables, never lights. I was the tallest.

I’m a long sip now, a Margarita.  Tall as most college guys. My superpower is passing. As in basketball scholarship. Now that I’ve learned chess, nerds get nervous. I trot out opening gambits, spiking pieces across the board at lightening speed. Checkmate.

They call me “Show-off.” I say, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did backwards, wearing high heels. She didn’t make as much, though.”

I wear flats. I dance straight ahead.

Aardvark

via Daily Prompt: Awkward

Is there anything more awkward than “aardvark”? Not the alliteration, that’s elegant. So is having two “a’s” at the beginning, like in Finnish. Finland is one of Trump’s favorite countries. Oops, awkward.

Aardvarks come from Africa, a s_hole country. The word “aardvark” comes from Afrikaans, a language that is 90% Dutch. Somali, may be a distant double vowel relative from the Afroasiatic family. Oops, awkward.

Finland, Lombard and Estonia speak in double vowels. They’re European. How did Somali sneak in? Illegal vowel migration? Or did the Europeans steal extra vowels when they left Africa? Awkward all around.

Rainstorm on the Gulf

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Dark clouds drift to the west, bearing a load of rain drops on the wind. There was a storm earlier. The water pounded the bay in sheets, splashing and sparkling against the gulf, moving in a quiet pattern of ripples. Light and dark shadows reflected across the shallow bottom of a sandy shoal. While it rained, the birds were quiet, the trees were still, it seemed as if the whole of nature’s shop had closed up to watch for the rainbow. When the sky cleared, an osprey was the first one out, soaring and diving, making up for lost time.