I must have been five, maybe six. My classmate had a Valentine’s Day party. She distributed invitations at school and my parents decided I should go. I had spent almost no time with children before starting kindergarten. Then I spent the year bringing home all the childhood diseases—measles, mumps, chicken pox, measles, and finally, bronchial pneumonia. I needed socialization. Dad took me to the house, but the girl’s parents wouldn’t let me in. I don’t remember my rejection, but my dad never forgot. I only know because I asked Mom years later why Dad so hated that family.
Author: faithanncolburn@gmail.com
Sea Mist
The waves looked soft as he peered through tropical rain. The island was only a ragged outline. Crawling down the rope netting into a landing craft, he watched it grow closer, more distinct. It would be his first combat. Would he stand up to it? Was he brave as he thought—hoped? Somehow he knew he would survive, but what about the others? Weeks earlier, in the middle of the ocean, he’d looked through a light mist silvered by soft by moonlight and realized survival wasn’t enough. Seeing the guy next to him fall—that’s what made him sick.
What’s in the Trunk?
This is another of those six sentence challenges. The prompt word for this week is trunk.
- She died in February.
- Sometime later, we opened her steamer trunk.
- We found silk flowers, her favorite scent, her ruffled organdy dresses, a dental mold, and a detective’s license.
- Mom said she fell in love with a dentist who disappeared one day.
- She got her detective’s training and set out to find him—she did.
- He was married.
Shards
Entering the abandoned house, we tiptoed on shards of glass. The windows must have shattered long ago; the oak floors were badly warped. We smelled damp wood, wet wallpaper paste, molding plaster. This house once sheltered a family—our great grandparents and their ten children.
We couldn’t see shards of the lives lived there, the storms that destroyed a year’s income, the recession that nearly ruined the family, the trauma that resulted in hitting and punching.
Yet out of the love that survived in the house came this clan of descendants—the doctor, the lawyer, the merchant, the chief.
Landing Strip
This is another six-sentence blog challenge. The prompt word was strip.
1. Sometimes they call them runways, but those little grass strips around the countryside are just that—landing strips.
2. Imagine coming into one of them at night with minimal runway lights.
3. You’ve been watching the aura of a city far to your left and yard lights on scattered farms along the way.
4. Moonlight silvers the grasslands in between and stars are brighter up here.
5. Far away to your south heat lightning flashes along the horizon.
6. But you’re heading for that bumpy grass strip
that you can just now see–three miles from home
Aida
You’ve created a list of New Year’s resolutions for the coming year. They are helpful, practical, and attainable. You are certain that you can finish them all rather quickly, but every time you try to tackle one, you hear a sweet little voice.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t have to do what? What does that mean?”
You look around. There’s no one there, just a disembodied voice.
A couple of days later, you’re at your kitchen table, checking the employment ads. You’re looking for a new retail job. Maybe you can move up to management.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Where the hell are you? What do you want?” You search your house. There’s no one there.
You shrug and go on about your business. A week later, you’re boxing up all the soft drinks in your fridge, the hostess twinkies, and candy bars. You have to think before you add the chocolate. You grimace, but you’re going to lose ten pounds by taking the sweets out of your diet.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what, dammit? Who are you?” You dump the box in your dumpster—with emphasis.
You’re on your way to the fitness center, gym clothes packed in your bag. On the way to the car, you get the voice. You’re outside next to your car. There’s nowhere to hide, not a tree or a bush. Your patience is shot.
“What in the bloody hell do you want?”
You hear a chuckle. “Get real.”
“Get real?”
“Ten pounds?”
You’re still looking around for the voice. “It’s a place to start.”
“You can do better than that.”
“How much do you think I need to lose?” You open the passenger door and sit in the car, peering under the dash and into the back seat.
“I don’t think you need to lose weight.”
“What?”
“Is that the best you can do? Lost weight, exercise, change dead-end jobs. Is that all you want to do with your life??
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing if that’s all you want.”
“What should I want?”
“Beats me. You want to spend your life selling stuff?”
“What’s wrong with selling stuff?”
“I remember when you wanted to sing Aida. What’s stopping you?”
“What’s stopping me? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get into opera?”
“No. But you do. You want a New Year’s Resolution? Let’s get started.“
“What if I fail?”
“What if you don’t try?”
Flour Sacks
- When I was a kid, we called it material.
- It was the stuff from which we made our clothing.
- Back in the ‘50s (and before), the companies that made feed and flour packaged them in cloth (material) sacks.
- When we were little kids and didn’t require very much cloth to make a romper, my mom made our sun suits out of those flour sacks.
- We wore those little rompers all summer while we poked around in the mud under the bridge capturing tadpoles; when we climbed trees peering in bird’s nests; when we turned over the empty tank and rescued a nest of baby mice.
- I learned to sew with those free pieces of material.
Matter, Energy and Immortality
I have decided to enter a blog hop hosted by Girlie on the Edge blog. The rules are you write six sentences, no more no less, using the week’s prompt word. This week it’s Matter.
1. I read about entangled particles in quantum physics—about how particles switch from matter to energy and back and how, if they’re entangled, they change simultaneously, even on opposite sides of the universe.
Now, I want to know how those particles/packets of energy keep in touch so they can change at the same time.
3. I’ve also read about matter awareness—studies that show how rats fed brains from other rats taught a maze already know how to get the treat.
4. Suppose, then, that a rabbit dies somewhere on the high plains and particles of its decomposed brain wash down into the Snake River and over the falls where they get caught in an eddy and picked up by the roots of a cedar tree.
5. Suppose further that a storm gallops across the grasslands with its sound and fury unleashing lightning that strikes the cedar, which, being full of resin and all, explodes into flames.
6. Does the fire have any recollection of having been a waterfall?
Five Thirty-Two
Uncle George had had a few beers that night. Quite a few actually. Somehow, the topic of duck hunting came up and my son’s ears perked. He was ten or eleven at the time. He asked a bunch of questions and, before you know it, George had invited him on a duck hunt the next day.
“Now, you have to get up really early to hunt ducks,” George told him. “It’s not like pheasants that you can hunt in the afternoon. So I’ll meet you here at the bottom of the stairs at five thirty-two tomorrow morning. Do you think you can make it?”
Sean nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes. I can.” My boy’s eyes shone. He’d never before been invited to hunt with the men.
“Well, you’d better turn in,” George suggested. “Five thirty-two comes pretty early.”
Sean agreed and disappeared to one of the bedrooms. I don’t know if he slept that night. I know he had no alarm clock, but at five thirty-two he was sitting on the bottom step. Aunt Walleen nearly stumbled on him on the way to the bathroom that morning.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Uncle George said he’d take me duck hunting at five thirty-two.”
I wasn’t there, but I can imagine that Walleen grinned a wicked grin as she returned to the bedroom. She’d have shaken George’s shoulder none too gently.
“What? What’s the matter? Is the house on fire?”
“No fire, George, but you promised a kid you’d take him hunting.”
George rolled over. “Okay. Okay. I’ll take him hunting this afternoon.”
“He’s waiting on the steps, George. You told him you would take the dog and go duck hunting at five thirty-two this morning.”
“But I don’t have a duck dog.”
“Don’t matter, George.”
“Five thirty-two,” he mumbled. “Why would I say such a thing?”
“You were drunk, George.”
“Had to be.”
“Well, he’s waiting and you’d better pry that old body of yours out of this bed and take that boy hunting.”
So Uncle George pried his eyes open and lifted himself out of his nice, warm, comfortable bed and braved the ice on the lake to take my boy duck hunting. They did not bag a single duck. I’m not sure they even saw one.
But an old guy kept his word to a young one, even though he was a little late.
And that means something.
The Girl in the Attic
“Somebody ought to clean out that attic,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I was lying on the couch texting my best friend.
“You ought to clean out the attic.”
“Wait a minute. Me? How’d this get from somebody to me?”
“You’re somebody.”
“How about John? He’s somebody.”
“Go clean out the attic.”
I stomped upstairs and pulled down the ladder. When I poked my head through the floor, I found what I expected. A faceful of cobwebs.”
“Argh.”
I crawled back down and got the broom, sweeping wildly at the ceiling and the floor and everything in between. When I had most of the webs down, I looked around.
“Hey Mom! How long’s this stuff been up here?”
She came to the ladder. “I don’t know. Most of it’s from when we remodeled.”
“You don’t expect me to drag this furniture down, do you.”
“No. Just the junk. Vacuum up the dust.”
“What for?”
“I’m gonna make a little get away up there.”
“Little getaway,” I muttere4d. “What’s she need to get away from?”
I stood next to the one ceiling light and scanned the space. I actually remembered most of the old furniture and knick knacks. Over in one dark corner, though, I saw some really old stuff.
“Hey Mom. Where’d this old stuff come from?”
She came to the ladder again. “We didn’t build this place,” she said. “There was some stuff up there when we moved in.”
“And you didn’t even look at it?”
“Nope.”
The old stuff looked more interesting than our old furniture. I turned on my headlamp and headed over there. The furniture looked really old. Maybe we could sell antiques. I swished the dust rag over an old dressing table. When I opened the drawer, I found a dusty, old, leather diary. The lock had rusted through and I opened the book, sneezing until I’d raised a dust cloud.
Careful not to disturb any more dust, I turned to the first page. The date at the top made my eyes pop. October 31, 1868. Wow! I knew my family had owned this house for a long time. this was my great-great-great grandmother Sarah’s diary. She’d written her name in the middle of the page. Sarah Jane Green.
She wrote about watching the workmen lay the limestone foundation. She’s peered at some of the stones and noticed some ancient creature’s imprints. She wrote about watching them level the stones and nail together the walls. She admired the big muscled men who had set the walls on the foundation and nailed the corners together.
I grazed through the diary, absorbing my family stories. Sarah was a young bride when they built the house and she couldn’t wait to move in. In time there were crops and gardens and babies. She had an even dozen, but lost two to scarlet fever. She wrote about burying the tiny coffins and choosing the little stones with the lambs. Her husband lost his arm when a horse reared and trampled him. She wrote about burying the arm under an unfinished granite slab and her husband’s struggle to keep up with the farm work. It was a good thing they had sons.
Near the end of her life, she lived alone in this house. She started noticing things that moved mysteriously. At first she just thought she’d moved them and forgot, but before long she couldn’t deny that something strange was happening. She began hearing footsteps on the stairs at night. One afternoon, she’d been cleaning in her bedroom when she heard the ladder come down and footsteps in the attic.
She decided broad daylight was a great time to confront a ghost. She lit a kerosene lantern and climbed the ladder she’d been sure had been nestled up in the second floor ceiling. She poked her head into the attic. In the far corner she saw her ghost. She described the young female spook in detail. The clothing fascinated her. She was scandalized by the ghost’s short pants and “I can’t believe that woman’s wearing a man’s undershirt. Where would she buy such a thing?”
She described green eyes and hair that looked like a horse tail. “I wonder if she has any idea how to put her hair up. She remarked that the woman wore a silver barrette just like the one she’d lost that winter they’d had so much corn. Snow was coming. Even she helped shuck it and throw it into the crib.
I glanced down at my clothes. A red tank top and shorts. In the faded mirror over the dresser I noticed my ponytail was held by an antique silver barrette I’d found in the corner of the corn crib when we dug out all the layers of dirt. Mom said I could have it, so I’d cleaned it up and polished the tarnish.
This was weird. Did Sarah really see me? Had I fallen into some kind of time warp? How did great-great-great-granny see me more than 100 years ago? I glanced across the attic and there she was, just as real and substantial as I was—just dressed weird.
“You’re a ghost,” she said. she threw her arm up when I looked at her. My headlamp must have blinded her. “What is that light? Are you an angel.
I turned off the light. “No just a regular girl.”
“You don’t look regular.”
“You’re the ghost, Grandma. It’s the year 2018.”
She gasped.
“I think I’m your great-great-great-granddaughter.”
We talked for half an hour. “I have to go.” she said suddenly. She stepped through the hole in the floor onto the ladder. when I looked down after her, she was gone.