Twisting tenacious tendrils
grasping gripping grace
holding fast
I’m back with a snapshot (or four) in response to Maria Antonia‘s weekly photo challenge. In the garden again is where I found this week’s “Twisted”. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
I’ve missed a couple weeks, but will try to resume posting a weekly snapshot in response to Maria Antonia‘s photo challenge. Maria has again updated her bingo sheet with 25 new categories for July, August, and September. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt. My photo represents “Flower Power”
The July 11, 2022 story challenge from Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch is to: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story inspired by the idea, “for a day.” What is so special about the action, person, or object experienced for a day? Go where the prompt leads! Submit at Carrot Ranch by July 16, 2022.
In addition to the flash below, I have another response in 99 words and Six Sentences HERE, which borrows a setting and character from previous prompts.
At Day’s End by D. Avery
“Did you see this?”
She hadn’t. She sighed, looked at him over her book.
“I know what I would spend a day with.”
“What?”
“Who, really. You.”
“You are spending a day with me.” Another one, she thought. Another endless, aimless day. She tried to find her place but was interrupted again.
“I’d cherish a day with the old you.”
“Don’t you mean the young me?”
“Sure, you when you were younger.”
“So you want a younger woman?”
He looked at her uncertainly. “Just you. When you still loved me.”
She bent her head to the tear blurred page.
Be sure to go to Carrot Ranch to read the complete “Freedom” collection from last week. And there’s always the Ranch Yarns with Kid and Pal’s responses HERE.
This week two prompts led me back to a mystical shop that first appeared HERE as a Six Sentence Story. A month later the What-You-Seek Boutique was again featured as a setting for a Carrot Ranch prompt. The current Carrot Ranch prompt is to, in 99 words (no more, no less), write a story inspired by the idea, “for a day.” So here is one take in 99 words and six sentences.
Denise, of GirlieontheEdge, will open the link Wednesday at six for Six Sentence Stories that feature the word “exchange“.
The Exchange by D. Avery
“What you’re looking for is certainly here, but is it what you need?” The twinkle in the old man’s eyes turned sharp as he cautioned, “Consider the cost.”
“Someone or something from my past to spend a day with? — that’s a priceless gift.”
“To revisit what was for what might be,” he said, handing her an old mirror, “Giving up a present day, still charged with possibility— it’s a costly exchange.”
The mirror was identical to one she’d had as a little girl, the one that had once belonged to her grandmother. “The past is for reflection, not reliving.”
At long last and maybe too late, I have six sentences in response to this week’s Six Sentence Story prompt, “labyrinth”. The prompt word put me in mind of walking labyrinths and also of the art of the Tohono O’odham. While inspired by the Tohono O’odham’s ‘Man in the Maze’ the following is not meant to be a retelling of their I’itoi or U’ki’ut’l stories, but is more of a walking meditation to help straighten out my tangled serpentine thoughts.
Do go to our hostess’ site, GirlieontheEdge, and read others’ labyrinthian tales of six sentences each.
The Path by D. Avery
She appeared then, appeared as a mountain revealed when the mists lift, appeared as a pebble revealed in a palm when a fist opens, and she smiled then, knowingly, knew your unspoken words: I have lost my way.
Her gentle laughter was dappled sunlight and there in her hands was an endless rope, woven with each experience you’ve ever had, braided from your stories, and she held the rope, her hands wide apart, wide as the mountain, wide as the world, that you might see how long is your path.
She laughed again, said A straight path, however long, can never lead to the center, and she snapped the rope, and it fell before you in a labyrinthian coil and you again set upon your way as the mists again descended.
This path is long and winding, with abrupt turns seeming to thwart progress. But you can see where you have been and you gain patience with each step; acceptance replaces expectancy as you journey on.
Then a step takes you to a tree cloaked mountain, to where a tossed pebble leaves ripples in the center of a sun dappled lake, and you know that it is all yours, that it is you, that even the gentle laughter you hear is your own.
ShiftnShake 