Short story?
What short story?
Oh, yes, that was today.
Well, see,
owing to a total lack of coffee
and a brief hospital stay,
it’s going to have to wait.
But that’s okay,
and most important,
(at least for now)
everything is fine.
There will be time.
creative writing
Fly (A Poem)
It’s been a little while since I’ve done one of Rebecca’s poetry challenges over at Fake Flamenco. July’s challenge is a good one! Here’s my entry:
How lucky
are the little birds
to fly –
unafraid,
perched high and serene,
unconfined.
If I could,
would I?
It remains to be seen.
But I can watch the world
from my own
perfect perch,
the nest I’ve made.
It’s not as big
as the sky,
but it’s
mine.
These are so much fun. 😊 If you’d like to participate, too, you’ve got until Sunday. Can’t wait to read what everyone submitted! It’s so cool to see all of the different perspectives on one theme.
I Can’t Sleep (A Pregnancy Poem)
At this point, I’ve bought
FOUR
different pregnancy pillows.
And you know what,
I still can’t sleep.
I suppose it’s not surprising,
not a big mental leap
by any means,
since I’ve never been good at this.
But it sure would be nice
to curl up for
at least one night,
totally at peace.
And I have to wonder,
for those who can,
for those lucky ones who
drift off
quick and easy:
What is the secret?
Like, I have to be missing something,
right?
RIGHT?!
(I’m tired.)
Dandelion Days (A Short Story)
I remember dandelion greens. In the warming days of spring and the sweltering days of summer, dandelion greens – stewed, fried, sauteed, cold and crunchy with salt and vinegar in my favorite red-rimmed bowl – growing wild all around the hillside and down into valley. Sweating under the white hot sun, pulling dandelion greens from the thick, fragrant grass with my small, sticky hands beside my mother, stooped over to find the very best, the very plumpest, the very brightest.
I remember those days with my mother. Daddy worked nights at the mine, and he’d come home early in the morning covered from head to toe in coal dust. We’d wait for him together in the kitchen, eager and relieved to hear the roar of his engine coming up the driveway. He’d kick his boots off on the carport, and my mother would open the door for him and kiss his blackened cheek.
“Good night and good morning,” she’d tell him.
“Good morning, Daddy,” I’d pipe in from my spot at the table in the corner.
Mama named me Louise after her grandmother, but Daddy always called me Weed.
“I think you’re even taller than yesterday,” Daddy would say to me.
He’d smile at Mama, get cleaned up, and we’d eat our breakfast together before he went to bed for the day and my mother and I got to the important business of running the house. And in the early evenings, before he went back to work, we’d all sit down together for a dinner that Mama and I planted and gathered and cooked.
I knew plenty of other children whose fathers worked in the mine, and though we didn’t show it on the outside, on the inside, we were an anxious and sorry lot. I got used to seeing my friends pulled away from the classroom during the day, always for some tragic news. That, at least, I didn’t have to worry about. But the fear that Daddy wouldn’t come home in the morning, that we’d never sit at our little table and laugh over buttered grits and field greens again, that fear never left me.
“Can’t Daddy do something else?”
My constant question.
“What do you think he should do instead?”
My mother’s answer.
I didn’t know what he might do instead. But I sure knew that I’d rather have him home and safe, even if it meant we had to eat dandelion greens every day for the rest of our lives.
When eventually the inevitable happened, I can’t remember that I was surprised. We got the call in the early hours of the morning that there’d been an accident, and that Daddy had been injured. He was alive, which felt most important, but he’d be laid up for months. His back, Mama said.
“I’m fine,” he told us. “It’ll take more than some faulty equipment and a stroke of bad luck to lick me.”
Mama nodded, but picked at her fingernails. I said nothing.
Daddy must have seen the worry on my face, because he added, “You and me, Weed, we’re as hardy as they come.”
Mama got a job. She had to. But she told me it wouldn’t be so bad, and that I could come with her when I wasn’t in school, because she’d be watching a little boy about my age, and we could play together while she cleaned the house.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“You don’t know him,” my mother answered, “because he goes to school at home. He has his own teacher.”
“Is he nice?”
“I’m sure he is,” Mama said. “I’ve been told he has very good manners.”
I winced. Manners weren’t something we talked about all that much.
“Oh, don’t look like that, Louise. He’s not a different species. Y’all will get along just fine.”
Mama was hardly ever wrong, but no one’s right all the time.
The first day I met the boy, I found him sitting in his back yard, setting up empty cola bottles on the lip of an old stone well. On the covered porch, I saw a toy bow and arrow.
“You a good shot?” he asked me.
“Don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never tried.”
“I’ll show you,” he said. “I’m Malcolm.”
“Louise,” I answered.
“Wheeze?”
“No! Loo-eeze.”
“That’s a funny name,” he said.
“It isn’t,” I insisted.
“Well, I’ve never heard it before, so it must be,” he said.
Things did not improve from there. Malcolm was a good shot, and he tried to teach me, but he had a critique for every little thing I did, even beyond backyard archery.
“You’re eating your soup wrong,” he told me one day at lunch.
“What’s wrong with how I eat?”
And days later, “That’s not how you’re supposed to climb trees.”
“Well, why don’t you show me, if you’re so good at it,” I retorted.
“I’m not allowed,” he said. “But I know wrong when I see it.”
All the while, Mama worked away in his house, one of the largest in town, and she did it with a smile on her face, even when he only had a sneer for her.
“My mother says the curtains were dusty yesterday,” he told her one afternoon.
“Well,” my mother said, keeping her voice as mild and as even as I’d ever heard it, “I’ll make extra sure to get them clean today.”
Driving back to our own place that night, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer.
“Malcolm’s mean and snobby,” I told her. “I don’t know why you put up with him.”
“Louise,” she started.
But I couldn’t stop. “If I acted that way, you’d make me go and pull my own switch. He’s not nice, Mama.”
“I know that, honey,” she said. She brushed a hand through her hair. “But I’m going to tell you something important, so listen real close, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Sometimes, we have to do things we don’t like, and we have to put up with people we don’t like, because there are more important things than our feelings. Your daddy can’t work right now. We need money. I’d work for someone half as nice as Malcolm and his mother if I had to, because right now, that’s what I can do to take care of us. Understand?”
I nodded, my face aflame and shame radiating from every part of my body. Mama was always looking out for us.
“You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to,” she went on, “but I like knowing you’re close by. And maybe you can teach Malcolm a thing or two. You know, his world is real small, smaller than mine or yours or Daddy’s. His mother thinks that’s best, but maybe he’s mean because he doesn’t know any better.”
I went to work with Mama the next day resolved to do better myself, and I decided that I could start by trying to be nice to Malcolm. Maybe I could teach him something. And so when we went out back to play after lunch, I told him all about Mama’s garden and how we’d grow things to eat, and how I was learning to cook. And as I made us crowns out of white wildflowers, I told him all about dandelion greens.
“They’re kind of like these,” I said, and pointed to the flowers I was picking. “They grow wild, but they taste real good.”
While my fingers weaved delicate stems together, I told him about the afternoons Mama and I spent outside together, how that was our time to talk and sing and laugh, and how proud I was that Mama knew so much about plants and how to find the best ones. Then I popped the finished crowns on his head and mine and said, “We match!”
“You’re so weird, Louise,” he said. He got up and walked inside, and left me in his back yard to wonder what on earth I’d done wrong this time.
I didn’t go back to work with Mama the next day, or any of the days after that. While she was gone, I missed her fiercely. I looked after Daddy, and in the evenings, I made us dinner on my own, as best I could. Eventually, Malcolm’s family moved away.
“Somewhere up near Richmond,” Mama said.
Daddy got strong again and went back to work, and Mama and I resumed our usual routine. One day, out in the heat gathering stinging nettle for soup, I asked her: “Do you ever wonder what’ll happen to Malcolm?”
She stood up straight and thought for a moment. Then she said, “I imagine he’ll live some kind of life. Not like us, but it’ll be something.”
Sometimes, when I think back on those days, I wonder about Malcolm, about where he ended up and what kind of man he is today. I wonder about Mama and Daddy, too. I wish I could ask them questions. I wish I could go back, even for a minute, even for a second, and feel the hot sun on my back, the dew and dirt on my fingers. The fact of the matter is, we ate dandelion greens because they were free. They sprung up around us like lightning bugs in June, and it cost us nothing to gather food from our own land. Nothing but time.
I think back, and I wish I’d had more of that time. I’d spend hours now, if I could, picking dandelion greens. Maybe it’s true what they say, despite this mean old world and the people in it like Malcolm and his mother. Maybe the best things in life really are free.
************
Thank you for reading! This is the sixth of twelve stories I’ll write for my 2023 Short Story Challenge. The theme this year is: Wild.
Here are the first five, if you’d like to read them:
I hope you join me and write some stories of your own this year! It’s fun, and I hope this will be a happy year full of good stories. But just reading is fine, too, and I’m glad you’re here.
The next story will be posted at the end of July.
Busy Bees (A Poem)
Keep busy,
little fuzzy buzzies,
at your most important industry
and know that in this garden,
you are safe.
Just look at the state of it –
overgrown and ardently wild –
a sign without a sign to say:
Pollinators Welcome.
(Humans, Proceed with Caution.)
I always hope that one day,
probably far away,
I’ll become a gardener.
In the meantime, then,
how lovely to see
that at least I’ve helped create something:
This space for you to gather
what you need.
And how nice, indeed,
to think that Nature nurtures
all on her own,
regardless of me.
Life With Cats (A Poem)
For today,
I’ll take a moment to
just be grateful
that Merlin
has only broken
one piece
of antique china.
(So far.)
The Ledger (A Short Story)
*A quick note: This is May’s short story, just a little late. I hope to not make this a habit. I think history lovers will particularly enjoy this one, which is based very loosely on a true story. Thank you for reading!*
************
Night time is the worst time. At night, I can hear, but I can’t see, and the soldiers sound like wild animals in the dark woods. I know they’re out there, but I can’t tell where. I wonder if we’re safe. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever truly feel safe again.
No one really believed the war would come. Maybe some did, but I certainly didn’t. Here in the valley, things like war and politics have always felt like villains out of a story book. We’ve settled our disagreements for years like civilized people. We’ve lived that way, too. And now it’s my job to protect us. Not with a gun and a uniform, but with my silence. No one suspects a widow.
When the ledger came to me, it came by chance. I’ll never forget that day, because that was the day everything changed, and amid the smoke and dust, the cries and the acrid smell of blood and gunpowder in the air, I found the one thing I can do. Women can’t go to war, can’t take up arms with our husbands and sons and march to the front. This I know all too well, because I’ve lost them both, my husband and my boy, and there was nothing I could do for them, no help I could render as they lay dying alone on a field far away. My hands were empty then. Now they hold the simplest treasure, and I will never let it go.
Mr. Partlow had always kept the ledger, neat and tidy and itemized, tucked away in a drawer in the apothecary he’d run since his father left it to him three decades ago. He was a good man, Mr. Partlow, and a fastidious record keeper. He could tell you who had the most coal, the biggest harvest of carrots and potatoes, the greatest quantity of grain, the healthiest livestock, and he facilitated those trades fairly and quickly, and noted everything in the ledger. At the time, those records meant security, knowing who had what, who could trade, who to come to in dire straits. You could say he kept the valley running. The day he died, the day of the first raid, he didn’t even have time to put on his apron. It was pure luck that I found the ledger before the enemy.
And pure luck, days later, that they didn’t take it from me.
The day the enemy came to call, the sun rose hot and heavy and bright white against the deep blue sky. It was too beautiful a day for the grief and anger hanging in the valley, but only God controls the weather. Maybe he was mocking us. I spotted the soldiers from my garden, five of them approaching from the east. I dropped the hoe and made for the house, but they reached me at the porch and blocked the door.
“Ma’am,” the tallest said.
“Sir,” I answered back, bile rising in my throat and dread in my belly.
“We hoped to trouble you for some water.”
That’s how they came to be at my table, looking for all the world like friendly neighbors sharing the latest gossip. I knew all along it wasn’t water they were after.
I sat in the corner, kept my hands busy with the beans I’d planned for dinner, and my mouth fastened shut. I owed them no kindness.
“It’s just you then, ma’am,” the tallest said. He didn’t ask. He declared.
“It is,” I answered.
“All alone out here,” he said. He looked around the room, scanning each shelf and corner.
“Didn’t have much choice,” I told him.
“Must be hard, running this farm on your own. Hard to get what you need.”
So mild, so very conversational. Here was a lion stalking its prey. I would not be so easily outmaneuvered.
“I manage,” I said.
“No help from neighbors?”
“What neighbors would you be referring to?” I gestured out the window, to the empty meadows and the deserted road.
He barked a laugh, as did his comrades, and then all became quiet.
I shelled beans and looked down, kept my eyes away from his and my face a mask of calm, but my mind whirred in an anxious frenzy, wondering where I’d left the ledger. That single document, a record of everything everyone had, of what could be stolen, exploited, ransomed, killed for, and here it was in my house, in my hands, a hair’s breath away from those who’d do us harm. My mind’s eye scoured each room and found it upstairs, open and exposed, atop my unmade bed. I’d spent the last night reading it, reminiscing better days, recalling faces I’d never see again. Here was danger, so close, right out in the open. I couldn’t know what they wanted, couldn’t be sure they knew about the ledger, but I knew if they were here at all, they must be after something. Something more, anyway, than just water and a few minutes in my far from pleasant company.
“I’m sure you know the value of good neighbors just the same,” said the tallest.
“I suppose,” I replied.
“Then I suppose,” he said, “that you wouldn’t mind if we took a look around. We’re running low on supplies, see, and it would be very neighborly of you to offer us what you can.”
“I…” I stammered.
“We won’t be long,” he said. “I’ll just send the boys around. Quick and quiet as mice.”
I looked closely, for the first time, at the faces of the others. Young men, all of them, tired and dirty. One looked like he might fall where he stood. I could only hope he would be the one to scour the bedroom. Either way, I knew, I had no choice. So I said, “Do what you must,” and watched these strangers as they set about searching my home and stealing what little I had left. I prayed. I prayed and begged any higher power who might listen that they would overlook the ledger.
“They’re good young men,” said the tallest, who’d stayed behind, doubtless to ensure that I would stay put and not attack with some hidden weapon while his men were distracted.
I didn’t reply.
“Terrible business,” he added.
“Yes,” I said.
I could hear them, boots clomping upstairs, drawers opening and closing, cabinets squeaking and slamming. The minutes ticked by, each an eternity of worried torture. And then, they were done. The men returned to the table with sacks full of goods I couldn’t see, and the tallest thanked me and bid me goodbye.
“Stay safe,” he told me, as they stepped off my porch. I watched their backs until I could no longer see them, until they became as small and harmless as flies. I wished I could crush them just as easily.
“Go to Hell,” I said.
I tore into the house and took the stairs two at a time. I didn’t care about what else they might have taken, what chaos they left in their wake. I only cared about the ledger. I reached my bedroom, saw my blanket gone, and my sheets and pillows. But there, thank merciful Jesus, there on the dressing table sat the ledger, still wide open. Relief flooded my veins, washed over me like a spring rain, and I took my first full breath since I’d seen those soldiers coming my way.
I hid the ledger that night. I won’t say where, not even here, not even to myself. But it’s somewhere safe, somewhere, I hope, no one will think to look. And when this is over, joyful when this is over, it will still be there. I can’t return it to poor Mr. Partlow, but I know someone will keep it, when there is peace in the valley again.
************
The Valley Chronicle, June 17, 2022
Contractors working to restore the old Poston House have made a remarkable discovery in the walls of the home.
“It’s pretty incredible,” said George Roberts, head of the project. “I’ve never had a find quite like this.”
Work began as usual on Monday morning, starting first on the old chestnut staircase. Hidden in the wall between the floor and the lath and plaster, just above the top step, they found what local historians believe to be the town’s Civil War-era ledger, a record of all trades and barters that opens an invaluable and fascinating window into the past.
“It’s truly a rare gift to have this artifact in our hands,” said Roy Galloway, curator of the valley’s Museum of Pioneer Life and beloved high school history teacher.
Mr. Galloway believes that Mrs. Gayle Poston, owner of the home at the time of the Civil War, hid the ledger for safekeeping.
“It would have put the whole community in danger,” he said. “She was a clever woman to hide it like she did.”
As for why the item was still there, Mr. Galloway says that when she died in 1864, before the end of the war, she likely hadn’t shared its secret location.
“No one knew,” he said. “That’s all I can think. Otherwise, we certainly wouldn’t have found it here today.”
Plans are currently being made to restore and preserve the ledger, after which it will be displayed in the museum for public viewing.
“Just incredible,” Mr. Roberts repeated, before getting back to work. He says the home should be complete and ready for its next owner by the fall of this year.
************
Thank you for reading! This is the fifth of twelve stories I’ll write for my 2023 Short Story Challenge. The theme this year is: Wild.
Here are the first four, if you’d like to read them:
I hope you join me and write some stories of your own this year! It’s fun, and I hope this will be a happy year full of good stories. But just reading is fine, too, and I’m glad you’re here.
The next story will be posted at the end of June.
Tilson (A Poem)
Margaret asked,
“Do you want his letters?”
And my grandmother said no.
My grandmother’s memory
of her brother
never faded.
Year upon year
to her,
he remained crystal clear.
And one day,
his fiancé,
who’d kissed his coffin
when he came home,
asked if she should return the letters
he wrote to her.
“Those belong to you,”
my grandmother answered.
Letters and pictures –
these are the things we hold onto.
But it’s the memories
that keep our loved ones
with us
when they’re gone.
We –
not words or pictures
or gravestones –
we become their legacies.
Some Phone Call; Or, What We All Need to Hear (A Poem)
Hello?
Hello?
Can you hear me?
It’s me, that is, you,
calling from the future –
not so distant but who’s counting
as we edge closer to forty –
to tell you:
Drink more water.
And please eat the cake.
Tell people you love them,
and share what you like.
Getting laughed at isn’t so bad.
Remember that time we forgot
that thing? Yeah, that really important thing?
Turns out, it wasn’t so important after all.
Funny how that happens.
I wish I could say
in sentences that make sense and feel complete
that I’m proud of us,
even though we often forget to eat.
(You should probably work on that.)
That we should sing more and worry less.
That it’s okay we can’t ride a bike.
(No, you still haven’t tried to learn.
No, you don’t really care.)
And your hair? Luxurious. Leave it.
(And say thank you for the compliment,
instead of just nodding your head, awkwardly.)
You’re not a mess.
At least, not any more than anyone else.
We’re all just out here,
pretending to know what we’re doing,
even after all these years.
So don’t let fear get in your way, okay?
Okay?
If I had more time…
Can you…
I’m losing…
…just one…thing
…
…
Three Spring Haiku
Each year I’ve waited
For the little frogs to peep
The first sign of spring
Birdsong all around
Morning dew in the meadow
Breathe a sigh of spring
Last night I saw them
The first of the year’s fireflies
Summer’s on the way
A Virginia Writer's Diary 