A continuation of Stolen Time:
It wasn't the first time.
He crafted seductively gorgeous words.
She, blissfully enraptured.
Her body silently begged.
He had his own time.
An eternity.
It was the first time.
Their kiss took her breath.
He took the rest.
He took all that he needed.
Hot, lustful, indelibly passionate.
Then her time was up.
Was it ever real?
No.
"I never loved you."
Time found her another.
Betrothed and loved.
He returned.
I lost my best friend.
My son lost his playmate.
Our family lost its pet.
One to replace lost loves?
Not sick, snippy, nor stubborn.
A white fluff ball?
Unexpected.
Inspired.
Our dog.
I sat him at the table with his afternoon snack. Although restless, I told him he could keep mommy company while she was doing the dishes. My intended meaning, to eat his snack, was apparently lost. Rather, he ventured to the family room to retrieve one of his stools. I was so wrapped up in scrubbing that I jumped when his blonde head popped up beside me.
"I want to do the dishes with you, mommy."
In the space between three and four, and between snack time and budding chores, I know I teared up. More than just a little.
Written for Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge. Prompt Doing Dishes
She spun wildly on the grass wriggling the blades between her toes. Inhaling deeply, her lungs filled with its freshly cut scent, the scent of vibrant green and lush mornings. Her cinnamon-tinged hair glistened in the sunlight, highlighted by her full red dress as it caught the breeze and swirled along with her. I watched from a short distance, allowing her the space she needed to drink in the feeling of home, but staying close enough to feel her elation. Out of breath, she ran to me, her blue eyes sparkling and arms open wide. She was where she belonged.
Written for Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge. Prompt cinnamon.
Planes, trains, and automobiles conspire against me.
Planes dipped, dropped, and terrified.The bus must be their ringleader.
9/11 came and went and I feel like shit for not feeling more like shit. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. The anchorperson didn't tell me the first building fell, my brain struggled to make sense of what it had just seen. The air smelled like dead people for weeks. To this day, and living at another end of the country, I still cannot eat outside after seeing people sit at an outdoor cafe eating Mexican food as the soot and ash that was 3000 lives hung over them in the air.
Somewhere on all of those backup discs and CDs and drives are my accounts, my photos, the story of my frozen mind and body. They lay buried in a morass like all that debris trucked over to the Staten Island dump to be sifted through to find the DNA remains of the missing dead. Someone was going to put my Flash movies in the Smithsonian collection. I don't recall if I ever sent them to her.
My life changed forever that day. All these years later, it seems less a change and more just the fabric of my being. There were tears today, but many fewer. Jingoism has replaced feeling and originality. War and politics have taken over for compassion and grace. Heroism is gone. Reverence, solemnity, and unity have gone with it. All that is left are those two holes in the ground and the carnival of ugliness that surrounds them.
Rest in peace, dear Larry. For we shall not.
I had just been sprung from nine weeks in the hospital and my fiancé was showering me with the most wonderful gifts. The first was a trip to the hair salon for a much needed cut and color. He wheeled me down to my usual spot and picked me up when I was done. My hairdresser loved him and his thoughtfulness.
Because there was so little time between meeting and engagement and then the blink of an eye between engagement and the hospital, the people who inhabited my life had not had too much time to get to know him. Certainly not as I had. His kindness, his absolute honesty, his unabashed love for me. These were things that took getting used to under the best of circumstances.
They were all such a radical departure from my first husband. It was, admittedly, many years ago. But you get that paranoid "what his he doing behind my back" thing going. Even after 15-some years you have a hard time shaking it off. Five mistresses. Gun dealing. Siphoning off my hard-earned salary to nefarious purposes. Absolutely no redeeming moments, hindsight explaining that even the best of the worst was all his illusion.
A few days after the hair salon, my fiancé surprised me again and wheeled me into my small, cramped nail salon. They made enough room for me to comfortably remain in my wheelchair. He was there for less than five minutes, ready, again, to pick me up when done. The Korean woman began work on my nails, asking if he was my husband.
"Not yet! He is my fiancé. We will be married next year," I beamed.
"He has such kind eyes," she said so sweetly and then turned back to the business of tackling my cuticles. I could not help but smile at his almost instant likability. No wonder he caught me so off guard.
In the absence of anything better to write, I revert to what I started in March 1999, the old-fashioned, honest to goodness, real old school blog post:
I am pretty sure I caught my son's pink eye. I am not looking forward to the drops any more than he does. I will have to call the doctor in the morning. I wish I could go longer than two days without seeing a doctor. 'Night!
Posted by FKC on September 6 @ 2:00am
