Thursday Rune: “Tom”

We were
crew mates and friends,
Tom and I.
He came from
South Carolina,
via the
University of Hawaiʻi.

Partners.
A team of two.
For a couple of years,
we had laughs.
But it ended.

Lieutenant Tom, an enigma,
half of a nuclear bombing team,
a pot smoker,
beer drinker (me too),
almost certainly
a skeptic.

A kind of Buddhist,
politically left,
a sky diving
motorcyclist, and
the class clown.

We were different.
Tom deeper,
more spiritual,
and funnier.

After the Air Force,
Tom became a teacher,
back in South Carolina,
and a renowned
BASE jumper.

An avocation
that brought
an early end to Tom’s life
at the bottom
of a high SC tower when
his parachute gear
failed.

I’ll not forget.
I wish it had been
different. I’d call him.

Look both ways and remember even brief friendships.
Mind the gaps, they sometimes hold truths.

Friday Fictioneers 11-05-2021

Many thanks to the wonderful Rochelle for herding us cats on Friday Fictioneers. We write micro-stories inspired by a new photo each week, provided by very creative and imaginative compatriots. Here is the photo and my story for this week.

Click on this week’s PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast to link to Rochelle’s Blog.

 

Genre: Fiction
Word count: 100
Title: Krumpas Coop

Excruciating pain shot from my foot to my brain. I yelled, “Those damn Legos are diabolical. That hurt!”

Mary yelled back, “Are Steven and Julie there?”

I said, “I think the Krampas got them. The window is open and no sign of them.”

Mary walked in, “Well Krampas knows how to write.” She handed me the note.

I read aloud, “The ransom is a bag of M&M’s, a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, and two new ponies.”

As I handed the note back, we heard giggling coming from the attic.

I asked, “Do we negotiate with terrorists or Krampas?”

Look both ways and mind the gaps.
Especially when Legos are involved.

Click on Krumpas to read other stories.

Sammi’s Weekender #233 (vellichor)

Click on graphic for hyperlink to Sammi’s blog.

Because it was not in my MW online dictionary: John Koenig wrote that the word vellichor, which he apparently created, refers to “the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time…”

Dear Enemy

When Jean Webster
lived, wrote, and died,
grandmother was still alive.
Both lives ended
from new life inside.

My century+ old copy
with stains and library marks
has redolent suggestions
of hidden stacks in bookstores.
Vellichor, the petrichor of paper,
print, and the souls
of past passionate readers.

Look both ways as you hold hundreds of years in your human hands.
Mind the gaps in time as we admire the history of the human mind.

Thursday Rune: Halloween

Let the Season Begin

Halloween is coming.
Costumes, children, singing
and tricking for treats or gifts.

Midseason American football,
next is a Marine Corps birthday,
Vet’s Day for live parades,
And the eating of ugly birds.

More football and Black Friday
sales as time to spend, soon
another year is at end, and
off we go to auld lang syne.

After Christmas,
nothing good happens
until Saint Patrick’s Day,
when some damn fool
drinks green beer,
remembering The Troubles.

Halloween,
the threshold of good times,
and New Year’s Day
as we wait out Winter.
Endless beginnings
and sadness of endings.
Spring—the only good thing
about Summer.

The burden of January,
is less than July,
has cause
in mourning the loss
of October’s promise,
the harvest
of November, and
December’s done revelry.

Look both ways along the line of time.
Mind the gaps, bless each day.

Friday Fictioneers: My Sold Soul

Many thanks to the wonderful Rochelle for herding us cats on Friday Fictioneers. We write micro-stories inspired by a new photo each week, provided by very creative and imaginative compatriots. Here is the photo and my story for this week.

Click on this week’s PHOTO PROMPT © Douglas M. MacIlroy to link to Rochelle’s Blog.

Genre: Satirical Epistolary Fiction
Wordcount: 100

Dear Mr. Bill,

Back in 1969, you agreed to our soul safekeeping if you got lucky with one Fancy Fox.

Enclosed herewith please find your damned, odoriferous, devil-moth eaten, blackened, rotten soul.

Our Diabolical Board of Demons directed soul safekeeping be returned to original owners since repossession is inevitable.

Due to Texas PowerGrid uncertainties, the ravages of our dark virus experiment, and subsequent chip shortage, we are terminating soul safekeeping, forthwith.

Please store your stinking, grain alcohol-soaked spirit in a warm, damp, moldy place until we confirm by certification your final demise.

Insincerely,

Wormwood Chinaski,
Human Soul Safekeeping Division

Look both ways, keep smiling,
mind the gaps of the damned, and ride the soul train.

Click on Mr. Wormwood to link with all the other stories for this week.

Sammi’s Weekender #232 (question)

Click graphic for new tab link to Sammi’s blog.

The Weight of Truth

Your question cuts to my core.
You long for unnuanced truth bathed in heavenly light.

Who am I, naked, closeted?
Yet, you ask for the dark light, to know my vulnerable,
captive, and bound heart.

Will my truth set you free?
Shall my vulnerability be set back upon me?
My silent deception belies both truth and trust.

Long sleepless nights.
Regret, haunting wonders of who I am.

If I answer your question the world will hate me.
My truth is heaviness mankind cannot hold.

Look both ways before you answer.
Value truth but weigh the gaps and consequences.

Thursday’s Rune: Letter to Grasshopper

Dear Grasshopper,

I’ve noticed that you seem busy doing nothing but lazily hopping about. You look brown. You were green. It’s past mid-October. I assume you’ll be leaving us soon if you’re not already gone. But why now? Your end nears, but y’all been jumping all around for months.

Alas, your hop seems to have lost a foot or two. And your wings look stiff. Summer’s done, and I’d say you may be too. Do you know that? Does it bother you? Any day now you’ll be sidewalk ant food.

Soon there will be none of you. Then, like magic, Spring will bring you back to life in swarms. Like hungry chewing herbivorous flying insects, you’ll eat and reproduce again as you’ve done for 250 million years, a perpetual plague.

And you’re not alone. Your eleven thousand brothers and sisters are your type. Let’s not forget your rude, thankless cousins from the cricket, katydid, and locust families. They are always coming around singing for a free dinner or a little play time.

The ants are busy. But you’ve laid your eggs. Winter comes. You couldn’t care less. You’ll just happily fiddle away your time until the quiet end. But is that really the end?

Sincerely,
Mockingbird McBeak

Look both ways, horizontally and vertically.
Observe life.
Mind gaps and notice change.

Friday Fictioneers: Let’s Party

Many thanks to the wonderful lady, talented artist and writer, and patient friend Rochelle, for herding us cats on Friday Fictioneers. We write micro-stories (fact or fiction) to a new photo each week, provided by some very creative and imaginative compatriots. Here is my story for this week.

This week’s prompt (PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.) provided, and I bet painted, but Rochelle. Click the image and go to her blog to learn all about it.

 

Happiness Is

The outdoor social party was to welcome new arrivals to the senior center near Seattle. Bill, a newcomer, volunteered to serve special lemon-flavored ice cream.

“This is the best party. Everyone is happy to meet you, Bill,” said Marilyn, the Social Director.

Bill said, “Have some ice cream, Dear, everyone loves it.”

Back at their condo, Yolonda said, “Gawd! I can’t believe you spiked their ice cream. I hope no one finds out.”

Bill removed the bottle of lemon-flavored drops from his pocket. “A little THC never hurt anyone. We’ll need a big bus for next week’s pot shop run.”

Look both ways and share the love.
Mind the gaps and quash old fears.

Click the meme to read all the other stories.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #231 (legion)

Click for Sammi’s blog and other contributors.

 

Our Masked Morons

The Kadiddlehoppers:
Abbottomy the bot,
dirty Dan,
and Perrywinkle,
planned four Guard brigades
of water boy warriors
to battle back
Obama’s invisible invading
legions, thirty already here.
Save us
from such morons.

Look both ways for details and the big picture.
Mind the gaps and trust none of them.

Thursday Rune: Today’s No Thing

For a moment,
I close my eyes
and the moment’s gone.
My memories rarely
remain for long.
Soon enough,
today’s moments
are done.

This is Thursday.
It can only be today,
whatever the name.

Today
will never be tomorrow.
Wait and see.

Sun’s third planet
spinning in artificial time,
a wee bit in vast nothingness,
at the whim of some god,
or controlled by
meaningless unmeasured chaos.

I can’t
taste or smell Thursday.
Today sounds are unheard,
there’s nothing to touch.
It’s another day.

And yet,
like a spirit,
unlike
physical, practical things,
each moment of every day
flashes by—
irreplaceable,
never lasting,
instantly
forever gone.

Today is
most valuable.
It’s now.
It’s all we have.
Why can’t it stay?

Look both ways, but all we have is today.
Mind the gaps.
Enjoy life.