Month: October 2021

Restoration

This bit is modified and excerpted from my novel The Reluctant Canary Sings in response to the Girlie On The Edge six sentence blog challenge. It turned out that a minor plot device surprised me by becoming the turning for an important relationship in the book. (See previous post for the watch’s significance to the dad.)

It was the only thing he had to show he came from people.

“I’m so ashamed of what I’ve done, and I know I can’t make it so none of that happened to you—but at least I can pay you back.”

“Where’d you get this,” I snarled, “you didn’t win it at the track, did you?”

He looked into my eyes, “I sold the watch, Bobbi.”

“That watch means so much to you—get it back.”

“It’s gone, Bobbi, and you mean more to me than that watch anyway. Would you consider giving me a chance to be your dad again?”

Categories: Families Fiction

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Keepsake

The following six-sentence blog post is excerpted from my novel, The Reluctant Canary Sings. It’s posted in response to the GirlieOnTheEdge weekly challenge.

Sometimes that one item is your only connection to your identity.

In my family, Ollie’s watch lacked a crystal because she couldn’t see.

A storm flashed across Cleveland as Mom and I talked about Dad’s watch, and why he was so darned attached to it when he could pawn it to buy food.

“The sisters gave it to him when he left the orphanage—said they found it in the box with him. An apple box on the steps. He says that watch is the only proof he has that he came from real people. Otherwise, he says, he’d have to think he hatched out of a dragon’s egg.”

The thunder, when it came, was a low, guttering growl, rolling away like a dragon seeking Its egg.

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Categories: Families Fiction

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Final Resting Place?

Here is another of those 99-word shorts. Inspired by the Carrot Ranch Literary Comminity‘s blog challenge, I’ve excerpted a tiny paragraph from my second novel, See Willy See.

In wartime, sometimes the sides get blurred.

Starving and sick, the enemy shivered. Connor sat and pulled the dying man’s head into his lap. “Remember, the man who’s trying to kill you is a human being too,” his mom had said. There in the jungle dusk, he held the soldier until his breathing stopped. He walked on, leaving the jungle to consume the remains. He heard his rifle clips clattering. Gotta stop that noise. That was his last thought before he collapsed, curling up and shivering. Must be losing my mind. Is this what it feels like to die? He closed his eyes and drifted off.

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Categories: Communities Families Fiction

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Glorious Mud

Below is a response to this week’s Carrot Ranch Literary Community blog challenge. Here in 99 words, no more, no less, is a “flash story” about mud.

When my sister and I were young, we spent every day it was fit to be outside investigating the farm our family owned. Spring was best when the seasonal creek ran under the bridge. We waded in warm, squishy almost-liquid. Soft, viscous ooze squeezed between our wriggling toes and little creatures tickled our legs. Mom gave us a flour sifter to filter whatever lurked hidden in that murky fluid. Imagine our delight when the sieve came out swarming with tiny creatures. We put them in jars where we could see them and watch them grow into toads.

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Categories: Curiosities Non-fiction

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