Story – Page 2 – This Jolly Beggar

A-Souling

*Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash*

A-Souling

“Hey ho, nobody home . . . ?”

His sing-song question fell on no ears but hers,
deaf all others to its celebratory tones
the night of All Hallow’s Eve.

Tenor voice attuned to hearth,
lights in hands they enter
to find soul cakes laid on barrels,
beer and apples.

None heard him but her,
would never leave her
till her heart stopped, like his:
a toast before departing,
as midnight strikes.

“I will come and sing no more
’til this time next year.”

Soul cakes? A-souling? Unfamiliar with these terms are you, like I was? According to wikipedia, soul cakes are spicy shortbread-like biscuits given out to “soulers” who come round during the days of Allhallowtide singing and saying prayers, a’souling, in fact.

One traditional song, “A-Souling,” was made familiar to us by Peter, Paul, and Mary who sung it as a Christmas song, which for most parts of England it has become. The group Lothlorien sings it in the traditional mood of Allhallowtide.

Click here for the lyrics.

Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt: "question," exactly 84 words
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain -- Day 4: "soul cakes"
Punam's RagTag Daily Prompt: "celebration"

Wind Elf (A Compound Word Verse)

Along the rolling hills I hear
your mournful singing haunting clear
yet windblown.

Under the moon’s vapid eye
how can I, elf, to you deny
your windsongs?

I’ll keep you under lock and key
lest you flee and escape from me
as windstorm.

The elvish king shall have you back
when he returns the one I lack
now windbound.

On Hallow’s Eve we’ll make a swap
my child returned, you with your harp,
— home windward.

Grace at dVerse challenges us today to write a Compound Word Verse, an unfamiliar form to most ous I daresay. She writes: "The Compound Word Verse is a poetry form invented by Margaret R. Smith that consists of five 3-line stanzas, for a total of 15 lines. The last line of each stanza ends in a compound word and these compound words share a common stem word which is taken from the title. (In the first example below the stem word is “moon” from the title “Moonlighting”; the compound words related to the title are moondust, moonbeams, moonsongs, etc.)

The Compound Word Verse (3 lines) has a set rhyme scheme and meter as follows:

Rhyme Scheme: a,a,b
Syllable/Meter: 8, 8, 3

Click on Mr. Linky to read more and join in!

The Land of the Young (Tír na nÓg)

For lyrics and translation to the song, click here.

Strange the tale of an elven king’s son
Who lured a maid into the land of the young.
There she took tea, fated never to return
To the land of the living where hopes reigned.

Once she escaped her besom buddies of elven-land
But euphoria died when her long black locks turned white
As haunting memories of the land of the young
Made her yearn for the revelry of elven friends.

On the steps of a cathedral she stood skyward gazing
Behind her from the woods the elven king’s son stood imploring
But she had found a love beside which earthly magic paled
A love eternal from her Maker that over all prevailed.

“I cannot go with you, sweet heir of elven halls
Though surely will I miss you and all your kith and kin.
I have chosen wisely with wisdom from above
To live and die a daughter of the God who does me love.”

The elven lords and ladies left behind remained wondering
Their days of wine, their nights of dance, youth forever blooming
Thrown aside by a poor maid as if they all were nothing
Impressed them not, sincere or not, and soon she was forgotten.

Crimson's Creative Challenge #154 prompt: Image credit Crispina Kemp
RagTag Daily Prompt Thursday: "Euphoria"
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 2 – "Besom Buddies"
Eugi's Weekly Prompt: "Haunting"

A Tale of Six on the Graveyard Shift

Six little kittens on the graveyard shift
On the factory floor in a corner quilt
Heard the clock chime midnight
Heard the place get real quiet
On Halloween.

One went to investigate
The others seemed to hesitate
Heard a “mew” from the factory floor
Where a skeleton hanging on a door
Danced on Halloween.

Two little kittens ventured forth
One to the south, the other north
Past dancing bones until a scream
From a vampire with a ghoulish gleam
Raised furs on Halloween.

Three little kittens waited a space
Then putting on their bravest face
Ran to the aid of their kin so true
When a gravelly voice shouted “Boo!”
A grinning goblin on Halloween.

Six little kittens no longer were
Kittens that scampered here and there
Now they flew in the dead of night
As bats that gave the workers fright
Purring as they slept on Halloween.

  Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 1 – Graveyard Shift

The Bus – Friday Fictioneers

Genre: Realism 
Word count: 99
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Brenda Cox)
and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

The Bus

Honey Humberg had waited for this day all her life.

She’d worked and saved to build the “Humberg Bus” from scratch, designing, commissioning and assembling it, part by part. She painted it in homage to the DIY hippies that were her inspiration, free thinkers and dreamers all. She would tour Europe showcasing her singing talent and the world would fall at her feet.

In the square, the crowd cheered when the Humberg Bus arrived.

They left when she began singing.

“How much you want for the bus?” a man asked.

“One billion pounds,” she said bitterly, turning away.

“Done.”

The Load

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Sandra Crook) 
and limit our words to 100 or less.

I counted them too, you know: every turn, every curve, every meter. Every pothole, aggravation, near disaster.

For what it’s worth, the load was never the point.

It was where I was going.

My only regret is you were stuck with me for every millimeter of it, and you hated it.

Life was too slow for you.

It was too fast for me.

I had a load to carry: responsibility to those who depended on me.

You were looking for an escape.

I was looking at the journey’s end.

I wish you could know now it was worth it.

Letter from the Past

Dear Rochelle and fellow Friday Fictioneers, This is my second stab at writing for this week’s prompt. I guess I must be out of practice: instead of fictioneering I ranted for a hundred words, posted then banished from inlinkz when I realized a piece of fiction it was not. Back to the photo prompt and finding my muse again. :>)

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Andrea gripped her husband’s hand tightly as Grace ripped open the letter. It was from her birth mother. The fifteen-year-old had made them promise to give it to Grace when she too reached fifteen.

You were loved every moment I carried you. Just wanted you to know that. There won’t be a moment when I don’t love you.

Sighing, Grace looked up from the blunt, childish scrawl, a smile on her face.

“I believe her. She could have thrown me away like a piece of garbage. Speaking of which, Dad, can we get back to fixing up my motorcycle?”

Afternoon Bobcats

Afternoon Bobcats

The scirocco blew in our second day in Trieste. We sheltered from the blood rain in an old church.
How long? Joan asked.
‘The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.’
Not my favorite. Hurrah for May 17th, 1966!
‘Judas!’ a voice yelled from the crowd that day when Bob switched from folk songs to electric guitar.
But that year, he wrote my favorite, today anyway.
I watched her cradle her sleeping baby. He wrote it when his eldest son was born. It was released on June 22, 1979.
A single.
“Forever Young.”
We looked out. The rain had stopped.

“Forever Young” echoes the priestly blessing from the book of Numbers:
“May the LORD bless and keep you . . . .”

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © Brenda Cox and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Fear

Genre: Fiction
Word Count: 100

Fear

I’ve heard it said that a woman should never be afraid of her own life. Yet I am. Every day the crowd multiplies. I grow old. The room grows smaller. Am I to be buried alive? Not with grave dirt, but with ghosts. The more confined I, the more rampant they. What diabolical art is this, that the dead suck life out of those they abhor? My nights are theirs to engorge upon in hopeless pain, my days spit out remnants of their celebration. For as vines strangle and overgrown briars encroach, my ghosts encircle me. And I am afraid.

Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers and Eugi’s Weekly Prompt. Eugi asks us to use any variation on the word prompt (“celebration”).

Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (above, © Alicia Jamtaas) and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories and participate.

Hot Pursuit

Somewhere on this busy street the culprit Janus was hiding. The time of the assignation was near. If he didn’t show up with Janus in tow, he knew he was finished.

Suddenly a flash of orange streaked past the fish vendor. Diving through torsos and between legs, arms outstretched, crawling painfully on his knees, he caught the miscreant. The job was done.

****

He knocked on her door. When it opened, Janus leapt into her arms.

“Oh you darling!” She buried her face in the tabby’s fur. “He wasn’t any trouble, was he?”

“Oh no!” he said, handing her the roses.

genre: fiction; word count: 100; Rochelle Wisoff-Fields kindly invites us to join the Friday Fictioneers in their weekly creative quests of a hundred words or less. Photo prompt © Roger Bultot. Click on the frog and join in!