My one hundred word story, Not an Emergency, is available on the online literary magazine Scribes*Micro*Fiction Issue Eight. http://www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue-8.html
This is a creative non-fiction piece about fault lines between sisters at a funeral.
“Why do you fear the dark?”
“It’s too quiet. It blocks my sight.” Dagny’s bright yellow hair contrasted with Lilith’s dark curls.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
He did. Reluctantly.
“What do you see?” Lilith moved a hand across his shuttered gaze.
“A flash, dark, flash.”
She dropped her hand to her lap. “Then gather the light that is left behind your lids and see my form in your mind’s eye.”
To begin, Lilith was a shadow. Her hair was the first to differentiate itself. Then her lips and her eyes, and once her face appeared, Dagny had no fear.
Inspired by Jane Yolen’s The Moon Child.
Margie* told a little lie, Fleeced those who did not know. And everywhere that Margie went, The lie was sure to go. *Marjorie Taylor Greene It followed her to Washington. It spread and spread and spread. The hospitals filled with Covid deaths In states the color red. Sean Hannity said, “Get a vax.” And so did Valentine*. But Margie wouldn't know the truth If it bit her from behind. *Phil Valentine, conservative talk show host I hope this rhyme does not offend, It is not meant to do. It's only that we can't pretend Fake facts will get us through. And why, you say, a send up Of Mary's Little Lamb. False claims did plague its author, though She'd published her iamb. Eighteen thirty was the date On Mrs. Hale's book. 'Twas nineteen twenty-eight, about, when Old Ford* had a look. *Henry Ford, famous for cars and conspiracy theories He wrote that Hale plagiarized The poem she’d published first. The lie went out across the land. This fib was not Ford’s worst. His may have rivaled Margie's lies, Though, that I do not know. But at the time, he did his part Mean chaos here* to sow. *Via his newspaper, Dearborn Independent Nineteen twenty-seven saw Him hateful towards the Jews. The case, it went before the court. The judge decried his views. Ford used slave labor overseas To build in German towns. Despite his past apologies, The liar doubled down. So now we come to Margie's “facts,” The same The Donald told. Like Henry Ford they watch folks die, While piling up the gold.
**Next week will be a drabble.
Saturdays, while stepmother and stepsisters high-society circulated, Cinder Princess rubbed the mirror until it shimmered into a river that led to her mother and father.
The rest of the week, she did her stepmother’s bidding. Charwork produced strong arms, lean legs, a smile more charming than any in the kingdom.
Intuition, purity, and her parent’s love led her to a trove worthy of Croesus, truly home. Her arms comforting, her smile a beacon to all in need, Cinder Princess lived happily ever after.
Jealous, undeserving and greedy, stepmother and stepsisters followed the mirror into the stingy life that was their just reward.
Inspired by Jane Yolen’s Moon Ribbon.
Flax fields grew atop a rocky mountain. Never suspecting they would be trampled, the pretty blue flowers waved at trucks filled with chemicals. They expected to become fiber, fabric, clothing, paper; to end in a spark of light and heat, ascending to the sun. That is what their ancestors had done.
But they were destined to die under machines that would mine shale, producing oil that would make polyester, gas that would become electricity to power the paper of the internet. Their glory short lived, the flowers photosynthesized carbon from the atmosphere, but not enough to cool the warming earth.
Hans Christian Anderson, The Flax inspired this story.
A desperate hag stood on the step.
As Hezbella opened the door, children spilled outside in a game of chase. “Can I help you?” Hezbella, a generous person, really meant this.
“Take her back. Please.”
“Do I know you?” Tugging at Hezbella’s skirts, a small child made a hiding place.
“I have your first born.”
Hezbella tried hard to remember, but so much had happened. “That was ages ago. Something about arugula?”
“I can’t keep up with her.”
“Teenagers can be tough. But you have so many advantages, being a witch and all.”
“Wicked young crushes wicked old every time.”
In the closet where pillows were stored for the pandemic, stuffing lay scattered. Fabric soiled. So many had become mouse nests.
When first furloughed, the smart-looking cushions had done humorous impressions of the Nobel prize winners whose rears they recalled. Now that their padding had thinned, their numbers were also thinning. The best rotated among the dining room chairs. Not every guest could have a back support.
“Listen here,” the plumpest whispered. “A mouse ran under the Queen’s chair .”
The others cried in unison, “Where will it end?”
The door opened. Pussy Cat walked in. “I hear you’ve got problems.”
“Where ya goin’?” Not that Fred needed the wall anymore. The war was over.
“You want some soup?” Neville, prone to compromise, hoisted a weathered quartz.
Fred sneered. “What’s it now? Stone soup?”
Neville nodded, making his way across the field.
When Fred joined the other villagers, he saw three strangers. Soldiers. Fred spat at their feet.
“What’s independence with nothing to eat?”
“There will be.” Despite tattered clothes, the speaker had a commanding air.
Fred sat on the ground. Neville joined him. “There’s more than stones. Sausage, potato, and carrots. A right good Independence Day. We can start again.”
See the Stone Soup entry at Wikipedia if you’re not familiar with this folk tale.
The shelter director took in the kitchen situation. “Will lunch be ready on time?”
The problem was Elspath. She stood beside a metal bowl swimming with chicken livers. With a spatula, Elspath turned onions in butter for a pâtè. Next to the skillet, a saucepan boiled.
The woman at the front of the line, her wrinkled face rivaling Elspath’s for age not wisdom, always had the same question. “When will my daughter visit?” She offered up a liver.
Slimey, it roiled in broth. Elspath said, “Remember, she called.”
The woman’s face brightened. “Yes.”
Elspath said. “She’ll be here for lunch.”
They were headed for the south pasture. Turning hairy faces to each other, they rode horses alongside the herd.
Eyes searching, one pointed a claw. “He’s over there, my boy. I can smell him. See that movement. At the edge of the trees.”
“He’s left?” A concerned look.
“Didn’t come back from the last prowl.”
“Like so many of ‘em.”
They both looked down. They remembered staying home from school when the moon turned full. They tasted fear at the thought of werewolf hunters.
“Wolf packs, they’re more accepting.”
“Probably. But who’s going to take over when we’re gone?”
“Dunno.”
Monica's Monday Morning Flash 