Honor's Price

Leona knelt at the watering hole to lap at the tepid, scummy water. She saw herself reflected in it, coat scruffy and eyes dull. This hadn’t been what she’d thought would happen, months ago, when she’d met a mouse and accepted his help in return for the relief of having the festering thorn drawn from her pad. She’d agreed at the time to spare his life, and those of his kind in return for the blessed relief from pain. 

Now, half way through the dry season, with all the larger game fled to more prosperous ground, her pride was starving. She hadn’t thought, at the time, how much the tender little morsels of mouse, so fun to hunt and bounce on with both paws, were important to their diet. The cubs hunted a little already, mice mostly, and she felt guilty for allowing it, but she herself didn’t take part. And if the cubs didn’t hunt, they would have been dead already. 

The last gazelle she’d felled had disappeared into the maw of her male, who lolled in the shade and gnawed a bone even now. If only she could hunt the mice, she would survive this season. But she couldn’t, and with her death the pride would dissolve. Her lion would chose another mate, and the first thing they would do together would be to snap the necks of the babies Leona had borne. Three roly poly balls of fluff. 

She lifted her head from the waterhole and looked around. Nothing moving but dust on the wind. There seemed to be more dust and less vegetation than even last dry season. Every year it was worse. She was six now, a matronly lioness. This dry season would be her last. She sighed and panted in the heat. 

She began her patrol, on sore pads. The thorn removed, her wound had healed, but now she was ranging so far for game that her pads were worn thin. She was a mile from the home acacia tree when a strange delegation barred her path. Five mice, all seemingly gray at the muzzle. She sniffed deeply. They smelled old, too. They flinched at her breath but didn’t run. 

“What would you ask of me, now?” She growled. 

“We want to ask you to hunt mice again.”

“What?” Leona sat abruptly, her rump hitting the ground with a thump. “I swore I would not eat another mouse.”

“We know.” the oldest was white to the eyes. “The mousling who assisted you was not a thoughtful being.”

“And? I gave my word, you know.”

“We will release you from that vow. Out population has swelled so that we are unable to find food for our children. Mouse families breed unchecked, and disease is on the rise. You will have noticed that there are less plants and more dust?”

“Yes, I thought that seemed to be so this season.”

“Our people are turning this veldt into desert. Without you hunting and keeping them in check, we all die. So, lioness, we ask you to begin hunting mice again. Will you do this?”

Leona looked down at them, so still and serious, waiting for her answer. Suddenly she understood why they were all grey-beards. She reached down and delicately seized one in her jaws. The others scattered, but didn’t get far. Her belly was full when she reached the spreading acacia tree in the warmth of dawn. She collapsed next to her sleeping cubs and fell deeply asleep, hope warming her as she digested many, many mice. 

For the Indie Ink Writing Challenge this week, Tobie, http://misadventuresoftobie.blogspot.com/, thewritegirl challenged me with "Write about the mouse and the lion from the perspective of the lion." and I challenged Jurgen Nation (Anastacia), http://www.jurgennation.com, jurgen_nation with "Walking in the woods and surprising a mythical creature".

Ignorance is Bliss

We were sitting in my room, he on the edge of the bed, me in the computer chair. It's not the biggest room to begin with, and it's a shared office/bed space. So we were knee-to-knee and he had to have known what was coming. It wasn't the first time he'd lied to me, nor was it the largest. But it was the last time he would.

I asked him a question that I already knew the answer to, and his lip started to quiver. He knew I knew, and he thought I'd forgive him and try again, as I had just a few short months earlier. After all, our wedding was only weeks away. He pleaded desperately that he had been bringing me and the children money. From his mother. I swallowed my rage and coolly asked him to leave. It wasn't about the money. It had never been about the money, or the home, or the job.

After he drove away finally, avowing his love, devotion, and desire to get it all back together and win me back, I returned to sit on the bed and stare into space. I felt numb. I'd told him at the end of the conversation I didn't have anything else to say. I did, but he wasn't worth losing my temper over. It was my own fault for not looking harder, for not seeing through his web of lies earlier. I wanted the happy times to be the truth, not the lies and laziness that he hid so well.

My weekly Indie Ink Challenge piece. I was challenged by Sadie with "I don't want to see the truth, I was happy with ignorance" and I challenged Hannah, and her response was brilliant!

Mirror, Mirror...

“How do I choose what I will do with my life? How do I know what consequences those choices will have for me ten, twenty years down the road?”

The slender, brown-eyed girl frowned at the reflection in the mirror. She had received three acceptance letters from college in the mail that afternoon, and had opened them all and pored over the descriptions of each school and majors yet again. She still couldn’t decide. One had the advantage of being close to home - but it would be nice to get away from her family and try her wings out. Another was a prestigious school, but it would be expensive. The third hadn’t really been an option at first, but was where her boyfriend planned to attend. 

She closed her eyes. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall...” she muttered. Magic would be nice, of course - a fairy god mother to wave a wand and tell her what to do to find her happily ever after. She opened her eyes and did a double take. 

The girl spun around in shock at the plump, short-haired woman who stood behind her in the mirror reflection. She was alone in her bedroom. She looked back at the mirror. There was still a woman standing just behind her left shoulder. She was grinning at her. 

“Wha - Who!” she stammered. The woman chuckled. “Are you my fairy godmother?”

Now the woman laughed. “No, I’m your older and wiser self. Hello young lady.”

The younger shook her head in bemusement. “How?”

“Oh, that will become clear later, but I won’t tempt paradox.”

“Why?”

“Getting quite journalistic in your questions, good girl. I am here to offer a tiny bit of guidance.”

“You’re going to tell me where to go to college.”

The older version looked quite shocked. “Not at all, that would bring a paradox right down on us. Merely a hint, is all. How many acceptances so far?”

“Five. The last three came in today.”

“Lay them out on your bed.”

The younger turned and collected the pile of letters and laid them out edge to edge along her pink comforter. She looked back at the mirror, where the older woman was leaning forward as if to see. 

“The third one from the foot of the bed. Start there, and count off the ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe ryhme.”

Obediently she bent over the letters, touching each one in turn, cycling back around as she counted. When she finally picked up the letter that was it, she turned to look back at the mirror. The apparition was gone. She looked down at the letter she held. The college was one she hadn’t considered in her top three. It specialized in maths and science. The young woman looked back at the still-empty mirror and realized that the counting rhyme had a set sequence. Her elder self had chosen the school for her as surely as if she had pointed to it and stated “That’s the one.”

Sweeping the other letters onto the floor, the young woman flopped onto her bed and wondered about the possibility of quantum time travel. She fell asleep dreaming of a laughing pair of eyes that were her own. 

*End*

Writing for the Indie Ink writing challenge! I was challenged this week by Tara R with "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" and I challenged http://writinginthemarginsburstingattheseams.blogspot.com/ with "Part-Time Husband". 

Fork in the Road

Joe slouched in a hard chair, his phone dangling from one limp hand. He almost let go and let it all fall down, down to the floor. He wanted to just stop the world and get off now. Everything was gone, it was all laid to waste and his life might as well be over. The world was his oyster, not that long before. How had he let it come to this? 

He picked up his hand and stared at the text on it. 

“I know what you did. Don’t bother coming home. I changed the locks already.”

So she knew what he’d done to keep his family together, to keep his home and give his children someplace to sleep at night. When the last business he’d tried to start he had gone to his father-in-law. The ruddy, balding man, his white beard neatly trimmed, had looked down at him from over his wobbling chins. 

“Not a penny.” He had said before his son-in-law had even opened his mouth. The man had felt his face flush. “I’ll get it from someone else, then.”  The older man, Arthur, had sniffed contemptuously. “Not likely. But you won’t get another penny from me. My daughter is always welcome, of course, but not while she’s married to you.”

Joe had left, head held high, although his heart was sinking. His credit was shot, of course. Coming to Art had been a desperate last ploy. His carpet cleaning business was going down the tubes and the last loan he’d scraped up had all gone to pay his vendors.  Now what was he going to do? 

Joe drove into town, following the truck ahead of him without paying much attention to where he was going. The rain and dusk didn’t really exist for him, he blindly followed the taillights ahead, tears making them look like stars. He almost followed them right off the edge of the road. 

Stomping on the brakes, he fishtailed to a stop. His heart in his throat, he ran to the edge of the blacktop and looked down into the ravine. The armored truck lay on its back in the ravine, one headlight still shining. The undercarriage was steaming in the cold rain. 

Joe scrambled down to the truck, grabbing branches and slipping the last few feet. He could hear a man groaning from the wreck. He looked into the gaping hole where the passenger window had been. The guard was obviously dead, his head hanging at a strange angle. The driver was half conscious, covered in blood. Joe couldn’t see well enough to tell what was wrong with the man, and he couldn’t reach him from this side of the truck. 

He backed out and started to go around the back of the truck. He didn’t want to go near the engine. The back door was buckled open, and Joe stopped and stared. Bags of money lay half inside the truck, one was torn open and twenties had spilled out into the mud. The driver moaned and Joe started. He looked up at the road. Only his headlights showed. He hesitated a minute. This road wasn’t busy, but it was likely someone would be along very soon. 

He made his decision. 

Now, four months later, he sat in a hotel room wondering bitterly why he had chosen as he had. Would she still care? Was this the end of everything he’d ever wanted? He lifted the phone and dialed a number from memory. Time to find out the answer. 

This is my Indie Ink challenge piece for the week. I was challenged by Dirk, with "the world's his oyster", And I challenged SuperMaren. 

http://supermaren.com/

I'd written a lovely story about the USO in Vietnam, and my computer crashed and I hadn't saved it… bad Cedar! I just got home from Civil Air Patrol meeting with my daughter and found it gone. With only an hour to deadline, I'm not going to be able to finish writing it, now. I was thinking of the cadence challenge tonight, as I was watching my daughter drill with the other cadets. They were marching and calling cadence, and it made me think of all the young men and women who serve our country in uniform, not so much older than these children. They go out whole and hearty, and come back on those choppers, damaged sometimes beyond repair.

One of the biggest regrets in my life was giving up my opportunity to serve. All I can do now is support those who wear the uniform now, and raise up the next generation to be patriots. Perhaps one of my children will one day serve their country, and I shall send them off with tears and pride.

My challenge this week, which I failed miserably, was
"I hear the choppers coming 
They’re hovering overhead 
They’ve come to get the wounded
 They’ve come to get the dead"


From: KSyrah

My challenge to Sarah Cass was "Hey Y'all, watch this!"

Trust

My Indie Ink writing challege - "The betrayal that wasn't."

"It is done." she whispered, head bowed and silken hair falling down around her face to hide it.
He might have looked back, but she would never know, with her eyes tightly shut and hands over her face.
She had just sent her child off into the unknown in the arms of a stranger. Would he understand, in the years to come, that she had to do it if he was to grow up happy and normal? Or would he consider himself betrayed by his mother who had sent him off to a new world without her own presence?

She sighed and stood, stretching. The terminal chairs were hard and uncomfortable. She checked her watch. The time she had made in her tightly monitored schedule for this detour and hopefully rescue of her child was quickly coming to a close. She was due back at the compound in an hour. Traffic would no doubt turn the forty minute drive into at least that.

The short, well dressed woman reached into her purse and pressed a button. As she began to walk toward the doors, a child of about four with curly auburn hair like hers shimmered into being next to her. His steps mirrored her exactly as he was indeed, a projection of her. This would not last long, her deception, but it was the third stop of the day, each time she had taken her son into shops with her and commanded the driver to stay with the groundcar.

She climbed into the rear seat gracefully, the child following her every movement. Leaning back she closed her eyes, hoping the man in the front seat would leave her alone and take her grief for weariness. Very soon she knew she would suffer for what she had done, but the peace of knowing her boy was safe consoled her and she cradled the thought in her mind like a gleaming pearl.

She opened her eyes as they pulled up in front of the pillared house - just a little too small to be called a mansion - that was her personal prison. She murmured a thank you to the driver and stepped out, the image of the child in lock-step with her. They walked up the stairs, the mother and ghost of her son. Her mind whirled. How long a deception could she play out? Each passing moment brought safety for him.

In the nursery she dismissed the nanny for the day, telling her that she would take care of her son. Then the woman switched off the transmitter and her child vanished. She stood alone in the bright room and cried for her loss, finally.

I was challenged this week by Ixy and I challenged Indie Adams with "Know when to walk away."

Becoming Light

While I'm reflecting on life changes and going though old files, I came across this one. I can remember feeling this way, but this last year, away from the crushing depression and failed marriage, I didn't feel this way in February. I still hate shoveling snow and battling slush, but I'm not feeling like this. In spite of everything that is going on in my life, with a major down following almost two years of up, I still am confident that I am strong enough to weather this storm. I've come out of my chrysalis and my wings are ready to take me up and away. 

February can often seem to me like climbing up out of the abyss. The narrow crumbling steps seem to go on forever. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you give up and sleep in a heap, your fingernails digging into the soft rock walls. Some days are wet, and treacherous, with a cold that seeps into your bones until you think it will never get warm again. A whirlpool of worries and thought sucks at your mind. There is sunshine up there, you are sure, but you no longer remember what it looks like. Just that it was warm, and good. For months you have been down here, the walls closing in on you, the tasks that seem so light to others an insurmountable effort for you. You never give up, for to do so would be to lie down to die. Just keep climbing, one step at a time. Baby-steps, painful and slow, over and over and over.... Spring is coming, you chant under your breath, and hold your temper, for to rage against the darkness in your mind is to rage out at those around you, who cannot see it. Spring is coming. The world will open out for you again, like a blossom in the sun, and sweetness will fill your nostrils and you will grow wings as you leap upwards and out of your despair...

Motherhood, and reflections.

I wrote something a while back. A long while, given that my youngest child is now six, and he wasn't even born when I wrote this thought down. It still rings true, now, and it's a good reminder to me as my eldest will be a teenager in less than six months. I still need to keep these moments in my heart, as they grow up and away from me. Like the toad in this picture, my children deign to be held for a time, but for them to be truly happy I will have to let them go free. After touching their warts and saying "ewww!" of course.

There are many signs of motherhood. Today I wore, for a while, a badge on my shoulder and reflected about other badges like it that I have worn and will wear through my life. My youngest banged her head, and as I held her in my arms and murmured to her, she buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed. A few minutes later, after I had put her down and she was playing happily, I realized she had left a patch of tears and snot on my shoulder. One more in a succession of such spots. They started with the spit-up from my babies, and will progress to lower marks of banged knees and elbows, from cuddles at an age where they are usually past such comforts. Hopefully, when my daughters are teens I will be mother enough to shoulder their tears over every little heartbreak in a way my mother never did. And when our lives have come full circle it will be spit-up again, from their babies. All my life I will be proud of my badges of motherhood, but I prefer to wear them invisibly. Pardon me while I change my shirt. 

I've lost a week…

And I don't know where it went.

Saturday my fiance twisted his knee, and Sunday morning I took him to the ER. It develops that he may have torn his ACL, and on top of previous injuries he is laid up. I am suddenly doing the work of two people, and I have gone from little time, to no time. So I apologize to my II challenger… I had a story in my head, but it never made it out. I'll be back eventually, maybe after the kids go back to school.

*sigh*

I'm late, I'm late! *white rabbit vanishes*

WIP Snippet

Duty was neither to be entered upon lightly, nor to be worn as a badge of honor. Yet even in her short life, Liatris had seen both. Had done the first, as a matter of fact. Which was arguably what had led her to this forgotten backwater. She liked backwaters. Had grown up in one, chosen another to spend most of her adult life in. But this one... this one gave her the shudders. She squared her shoulders yet again, heaven forbid a Voyageur of the HBC show ought less than a bold countenance. Lifting a clenched fist, she prepared to knock at the door, only to be surprised as it swung open. 

Liatris put a hand on the holster at her hip, fingering the worn leather, but not yet pulling her weapon. "Hello?" she called, pitching her voice to carry without too great a volume.

"Anyone home?"

No answer came from within, and from the scents swirling about her on the air from the house, she though no-one had lived her for quite some time. Duty bound, she stepped into the tenement hall.  The stillness in the air was almost complete, although Lia thought she saw and felt the ghostly movement of rodents feeling in each room as she wound her way through the rooms in a circle ending back at the door. 

None within. Dusty furniture and littered floors spoke of residents at some lost date. Duty had not driven Lia to inspect the food chiller. She was unwilling to inflict that on her nose. She hesitated at the threshold weighing duty. Was her long journey balanced by this empty place where her quarry ought to have been? She sighed and pulled the door closed behind her. Overhead, rain drummed on the dome and green lightning tore through the mineral-laced atmosphere that had brought humans to this planet. A whole planet, and all the men on it packed into this squalid place. Her nose wrinkled as she looked around. Narrow streets dominated with towering tenements, each floor an apartment unto itself, accessed by grav elevators. Many of them, she had been told, could only be accessed by the previous owner's DNA, a design flaw that had left landlords gnashing their teeth when renters refused to leave or to pay rent. 

Lia pulled her toque back onto her head, affixing that badge of her status and livelihood firmly. Even in this misbegotten place, the voyageur's cap would be recognized and respected. She set out for the nearest bar. She knew it wouldn't be far. Every settlement on every planet in the known galaxy had at least one bar, and her rule of thumb was that the more poor and miserable the place, the more bars there would be. Her only criteria was, where would the widow of a spaceman hang out? 

Sanctuary

When i was nine, I was as insouciant a saucy wench as you can imagine. I had no idea I was a child - I almost never thought of myself as any age at all. This was mostly due to the fact that I was home schooled and had little contact that year with any other child but my sister. Actually, I was in my twenties before I realized that I was young, so perhaps it had nothing to do with being home schooled. But I digress - and I will probably do so frequently, so please bear with me. 

As I was saying, when I was nine we lived far out on a dirt driveway in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, where they raise grass seed for all you compulsive lawn-keeping types. Great, waving fields of grass, let go until they come to ripeness, then harvested for seed. 

We lived on a leased acre of land bordered on two sides by great, rampant hedges of blackberry vines, too thick for anything but a mouse to squeeze through. There was a small gap in the hedge near our mobile home, where you could walk through into what had once been either a road or a railway bed, and if you took a left turn and went off down it at an angle away from the house, you would come to the railroad itself, and at 8:30 every night, and 11 in the morning, a freight train would rumble its way past our house. 

On the other sides, the house was open to the great grass fields, stretching off to the highway on one side, to the distant tree-lined river on the other, and the woods bordering the wildlife sanctuary on the other. From the beginning it was the sanctuary that drew me. It had been, once upon a distant time, homesteads, and there were still thickly scattered the fruit trees and flowers that bore evidence to those intrepid people. More recently (although still forty years in the past) it had been a military training camp, so across the land were neatly laid a pattern of straight, paved roads, and a man-made lake. Also there were foundations for the long gone Quonset huts that I think must have been there, and one open basement to some grander building.

This was my playground. I was out there all the time in the spring, summer, and fall. The weather was mild enough, I had not yet heard of giardia, so I drank the clear stream water with impunity, and I ate whatever I could find, for already I knew what was good, and what was not, thanks to the tutelage of my Grandmother Kemnow and Euell Gibbons. There were cherries, in the spring, lovely yellow Queen Anne’s first, and later, dark almost black Bings. Also, in the spring, the whole place blossomed with daffodils and narcissi of every descriptions, naturalized for who knew how many years. 

I loved the beauty of it, and the freedom to roam without fear of meeting people, companioned by my dog, and sometimes a baby goat. Later, when it was summer, my sister would come with me on occasion, but she was not as happy as I to be entirely away from people, and although we had many adventures together, the sanctuary was my domain.

Challenging Finality

In life there are so many chances to say goodbye. Sometimes we don’t mean it, not really. English is a little imprecise that way. Goodbye might mean see you later, see you tomorrow. It might mean see you next week. Rarely, in our globe-trotting, fast moving world, does it actually mean “I will never see you again”. 

Death is the exception. But death moves silently through the interstices of time, rarely waiting long enough for us to have a chance to say goodbye properly, while the soul still rests in the body and hears through the ears. Goodbyes for those of us left behind are a solace for our own selves, not for those passing through to the other side. 

Why a goodbye for the passing spirit, when their soul is released from the frailty of human flesh? Even after the clay body lies breathless the spirit yet hears. The goodbyes of loved ones are perhaps better phrased as “see you later!” There are, then, no more goodbyes, for the immortal soul stretches onward to infinity. The attenuation of time brings us all to that separation point of body and soul, a shared moment common to all men. 

This Week's Indie Ink challenge was made by the Womanist and I challenged Stefan. I was certainly very challenged by this week's "no more goodbyes"! I'm not entirely happy with it, but this is what tumbled out of my tired brain. 

Sharon’s Song

Here, at the end of all time and reason

In the limitless fog of life

I can stand at last and say

I loved this man. It is finished.

With mist lapping at my ankles 

Like the swirling of a skirt

All the times we fought and loved

Raced onward to the end of everything.

All lies in ruins at my feet.

Below me - light dawns before me -

For all that is below me, beneath!

My outstretched arms to embrace

Life anew, as mists ebb away 

And reveal a beginning, 

A new day and reason to live anew. 

6/14/06

It Was Never Enough

There are moments I have wished I were stupid. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm a genius. I know I'm not, as a matter of fact. I have some pretty major flaws in my intelligence (we aren't talking about my character, here!). But I know I'm pretty smart. Smarter than average and smarter than most of the people around me. And no, I don't suffer fools well.

If I were stupid, I could have lived with my marriage. My first major relationship, it consisted of me trying to please my husband with everything I had. My body, my efforts, my intelligence. But it was never enough for him. He had to be smarter than I, stronger than I was. The physical abuse ended when I'd finally had enough and lashed back. The emotional abuse only got worse.

If I were stupid, I would have been able to subsume my self enough to give him what he wanted, complete and utter control. But I am not stupid, and I saw that it was never enough, that he would keep taking until I was utterly gone, and I could not give that much.

It was never enough, and that is good. I was able to walk away with enough of my self left to rebuild. I am able to give of myself to my children, now. I will teach them that giving with no return is never good enough. Breaking down another person's self is destructive to both of them. I will teach them to live with eyes open to the damage another can do to them with words alone. And I will teach them that when it is never enough, it is time to walk away.

Response to Indie Ink Writing Challenge from Ixy. My challengee this week was Dili with "Here, at the end of all time and reason…"

The Errand is Always the Same

This is written in response to the below challenge at part of the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. You can check that out here: http://indieink.org/writing-challenges/. My challenger this week was Amy Labonte, and my challengee was Tobie.


“The Errand is always the same: each presses on toward the nothingness into which the divided are drawn.” Pablo Neruda

Every week, Tiffany ran the same errands. She tried to remember, today, while clenching the wheel of her old Suburban too tightly and avoiding insane traffic, just when this had started. It had to have been after Jamie was born, she didn’t remember this feeling of frustration and loneliness before that. 

Her husband, David, traveled so much these days, leaving her with the kids and the house, and above all, the errands to deal with. The groceries, the mail, the pet food and the cleaning supplies. Her world had shrunk to the four wall of the house and the circuit of errands. She wondered how much more it would shrink. Would her world become so small it would be a black hole, the gravity of her responsibilities pulling her down until she was nothing at all?

She pulled into the parking lot at Shop-Mart and climbed wearily out, clutching her purse. The kids were with the sitter for two hours, leaving her with just enough time to do everything. 

“Divided, we conquer.” she muttered as she walked into the store. The greeter looked at her funny while delivering the same upbeat speech she’d stopped listening to - how many years ago? Tiffany took the offered cart and sped through her routine, knowing exactly how to circumnavigate the store to get what she needed without wasting time or money. 

At the checkout, Betty greeted her cheerfully. They saw each other practically every week. “You look peaked.” The older woman observed. 

“I feel like I see more of you than I do David. And too much of the kids.”

“It will be better when they are all in school.” The grandmother assured her. 

“You keep saying that.” Tiffany returned ruefully, but with a smile. 

Energized by the exchange, Tiffany wheeled her purchases back to the big vehicle. Loaded in the capacious rear cargo area, she climbed into the drivers seat and started the engine. She blinked. 

#######

Horns blared and she jerked the wheel to avoid the neon blue Prius bearing down on her. Heart pounding, she stared in horror at the road ahead. She was driving down the road toward Shop-Mart. Why had she turned around, when had she pulled out of the parking lot? She risked a glance over her shoulder at the stoplight, no groceries in the back. Hadn’t she just been here? On auto pilot in her shock, she pulled into Shop-Mart. Had she really lost a whole week in that blink of an eye? 

She grabbed her purse and started into the store again. The same greeter pushed a cart at her and said something in a cheerful voice. Tiffany couldn’t understand it. The words were garbled. She tried to smile back, but it felt like a rictus. She pushed the cart deeper into the store. 

She knew she was in trouble when she met herself in the dairy aisle. The other self didn’t look up from her PDA, checking her list. Reminded, Tiffany pulled out hers and looked at the list. Same as earlier... today? last week? Disoriented, she looked up and saw herself again. Just in front of her cart, bending to grab a case of yogurt. Tiffany blinked. 

“What’s going on?”

The other her didn’t hear, moving off around the corner pushing her cart. Tiffany followed and found herself back at the beginning of the Dairy aisle. Suddenly she though she understood. Her life was collapsing onto itself, the weight of it all pulling her so far down that the orbiting errands of her life had become small enough to see her both coming and going. 


She stood stock still in the aisle, afraid of what would happen with another step. Where was the event horizon? Had she already reached it, that plane where the black hole of her life had sucked her in too far to climb back out? 

Tiffany stood there shaking. Would one more step take her into the nothingness of red-shift and oblivion?

#####

Local Police were called today when a woman started to scream uncontrollably while shopping at the Shop-Mart. Emergency services had to remove her in restraints after she refused to let go of the cart and her purse. Child Services has taken temporary custody of the woman’s three children while her husband is reached as he travels out of the country. Reporters who talked to store clerks learned that she was a frequent shopper, and one speculated that post-partum depression might be the cause of the woman’s breakdown. 

The Magician's Assistant - Flash Fiction Fantasy

I am on in the second act, but already I wait in the dark, eyes open although I know from long experience that I will see nothing yet. I am as relaxed as I can be in the cramped space, thankful for once for my scanty clothing, as it is too warm in this theatre. I can hear the babble of the crowd in the distance, and the occasional murmur of the soundman, who must be right next to where I am parked for the moment. 

I listen for the cues, intent as always on what the show is doing so as not to lose my place, or sense of the crowd’s mood, although I cannot see them. The audience tonight sounds almost aggressively happy, roaring with laughter at the slightest of jokes. It makes me feel jittery, and I try to reassure myself that it would be worse if they were silent. 

Abruptly, I feel motion, and brace myself. It is too early! Who is moving me, and why? Colored smoke seeps in through the cracks, and as I wonder why I can see it in the dark it fills my eyes with tears and my mouth with a strangely heavy, oily flavor. My world reels, and is upside-down, then spinning into oblivion. I do not know how long it has been when I open my eyes to a surreal garden. 

The theatre is gone, the crowd sounds have been replaced by birdsong, and I am standing alone in a formal courtyard, atop a dais of sorts. The colors of the flowers dazzle my eyes, they are so bold and bright. They remind me of a child’s painting with the neon shades and blurred outlines. Now I hear voices, and stand stock still as they approach. 

As water springs up around me I realize I am standing in the middle of a fountain, and through the mist it creates I watch strange creatures fill the courtyard. They aren’t human. I see what I am certain are satyrs, and what might be nymphs, but only if Manet had painted them. Many others are with them, all laughing and talking and drinking from goblets they hold, just like the many cocktail parties I have myself attended. Reeling with confusion, I start to fall and stretch out my hands to catch myself…

And strike a hard surface. My vision darkens, and I hear the music, and applause. The door open, and I rise up into a billowing cocoon of silk and raise my arms, metamorphosis begins.... The stage lights almost blind me, after the dark.

Repurposing

I am repurposing my former Mommy blog as my writing blog. I'm stretching my writerly wings, and although the kids are still my life, I needed this room for other things. The kids are on FaceBook, and the farm will be at http://sanborntonfarm.com until further notice.

That is all! Stay tuned for more randomness in days to come, I am sure.

Working in the geenhouse

Actually, Dad informs me that it's not a greenhouse, it's a high tunnel. I'll have to look up the difference, I suppose! The temps are high enough in there that he went ahead and planted peas (Dwarf Sugar Grey) and Lettuce (Quatro Santorio) in the cold frames. The soil temp was registering 42, so it's a little cool yet. The air temps are ranging from 48-55 during the midwinter thaw. They will drop again soon for a while.

We had rolled the big 250 gallon tank for the aquaponics system in yesterday, which was an adventure. it's about 4x5', covered in a galvanized cage, so we had handholds, at least. taking it out of the little greenhouse by the garage was the trickiest bit, since it wasn't much wider than the tank to begin with. And then we couldn't put it in the front of the tunnel, since there is a regular door there, so we had to roll it all the way to the back and take down that wall to get it in! He put it into place after I went back in the house, but tells me this morning that he has to move it again and dig down a few more inches. He has the trough for the plants dug, but not yet lined or braced.

We brought in some flats and jiffy pellets, he wants to start some things in the house. Ill have to record what it was later.

the big tank

The trough for plants

central pipe for in-bed heating

Catnip (and a little celandine weed) green and ready to go in the greenhouse.

The cold frames in the green house. Using these allows us to extend the season even more. Dad puts milk-jugs full of water for heat absorption and slow release through the night. Right now we are starting peas and lettuce, joining the overwintering leeks and garlic.

Long day, but good in the end.

First and foremost, the daffodils are sending up little spears of green in the front flowerbed. Hope springs anew with them every year, but this year is a little different. A lot different. I made it all the way through February without the icy breath of depression blowing down the back of my neck. I think this is the first time on over ten years I have made it through the lowest month of the year happy and sane. Most of this new lease on life is being on my own, no longer living with the pain and fear that chained me down for so long. Two years ago in February I hit bottom. And thanks be to God, I bounced. He must have given me wings, because this year I am flying....

A big part of my happiness is my Michael. He's been my rock for the last four and a half months, since I met him. And by Valentine's Day, he'd become the man I can lean on when I am tired and sick... and not feel the fear. So this has been a happy month. In spite of winter, my spring has finally come. The children love him already, and have been perfectly happy to make him a part of what is becoming a big, happy family - if a little outsized and weird these days. It's strange to have them go off to visit their Papa, and yet be happy to come home to me, and to have Dad be here, but not here as he has his own apartment upstairs now... and to have Michael here some evenings part of life and bedtimes and play with the kids and me. But despite the strangeness, it's working. Weird and wonderful.

Today, the long day... LOL, well, I did get back to it, eventually. Started out early, with Michael coming to give me a ride to the Child Impact Class, which was in Laconia. Two hours of listening to two people tell the class to focus on your children and care for them. After that, headed home, again thank you Michael :) The afternoon passed fairly quietly.. bill paying, phone calls, e-mails. The exciting part was finally getting in touch with my NHEP counselor, and getting confirmation that car repairs would be reimbursed up to $500, and that I can go ahead and enroll is classes. Yippee!

Two phone calls later, I am more ambivalent about the results of that phone call. The mechanic diagnosed my car over the phone as having a broken transmission. Either replace it, or go without reverse until I can replace the car. So I'll be parking carefully for the foreseeable future! I've got a little set aside, and I'll keep working at it. The upside is that I'll probably (proposal for funding has been submitted!) be taking classes for two certificate programs, one in Quickbooks, and the other in MS Office. So I'm finally getting back to some schooling. So good to be here!

To finish off my day, dropped stuff off at the library, set up a schedule for more volunteer work there this week, and picked up the girls from homework club. Then off to the market, pick up Johann at daycare, and home again to start dinner. Once the kids were fed, I sat down here to write this... they are watching a movie, so I got a few minutes peace.

I have gotten so much support from so many people recently, and I am heart-happy with this unexpected support. I may not yet have a job, and the car is a bump in the road, but I know things will get better, and with the kids whole and healthy, and Michael taking care of me, I am blessed and joyful at these signs of spring.

Update

If anyone is still reading the blog... since I chit-chat mostly on FaceBook these days.

The job I'd finally found two seeks ago is a no-starter, it was a product demonstrator , per diem position, and I wasn't scheduled for this week and just found out that the district manager, to whom I reported, has quit abruptly. I don't think this is going anywhere good...

I am making jewelry with Michael, who is also now my significant other... He's amazing, loves me, loves the kids, and after four months of knowing one another we already have a easy comfort in one another. I can't imagine life without him in my future. He's also a blacksmith, which would be why I'm now learning chainmail jewelry. You can see what it looks like athttp://www.etsy.com/shop/avalonjewelrynh.

Yes, I am driving! I have a little car - a Ford Escort, and I get around quite a bit these days, looking for work and doing volunteer work at the Sanbornton Library. I can fit all the kids in it, which is great, and maybe in the future I can even take them on family trips.

I applied for ten jobs today, I've been a busy bee! LOL, hopefully one of these will amount to something. It's a bit bruising to one's ego to go this long without finding anything.