Story – Page 5 – This Jolly Beggar

The Moongate Garden

When summer’s twilight warmed the Moongate Garden, soft breezes lit twin fires, feldspar and quartz, in rose granite, and my hand trembled as you entered through the gate of half-moons. Water circled, a calm pool, and the soft blush of the lotus laid bare my heart.

Nothing was yet forbidden. The trees shielded us even to their own gaze, their leafy whispers mingling with ours, their shadows lengthening over ours. Darkness, insatiate, spun round the breathless earth.

came the harvest moon
trapped in the water’s cold eye
ever by your tomb

A haibun written for Dverse's Haibun Monday 9/28/20: to the Moon!
Click on Mr. Linky for more haibun and join us!

Power Ritual

The senex stared at the garlic, the little cast-iron pot. Should she summon the Old One? What would it demand this time? But half her staff had been taken, the other half, turned. The chorus-women deserted. Once again the child zealots had led them astray.

She removed the pot, chanting:

The Outsider’s here, siddle-siddle, hiss
Lay the garlic in the pan, make yourself a wish
Round about it go, dance in despair
I’m the one who betrays with a siddle-siddle, kiss.

If only there were some other way to be re-elected.

But at what cost? At what cost??

word count: 100  
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers  
click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog  
for more tales of a hundred words or less. And join the fun!

Inspiration

https://rochellewisoff.com/2020/08/19/21-august-2020/ — 18 September 2020, Rochelle Wissoff-Fields, Friday Fictioneers

img_20200801_121107

Inspiration

“You can’t be serious, Maude!”
“And just why can’t I, Fred? Twenty baby showers I’ve been to this August and I’m fed up!”
“But it’s your own niece’s, Maude!”
“Fred, we’ve spent a fortune on her already! Graduation from art school, and did you see the garbage that passed for modern art?! Then her birthday, bridal shower, now . . . .”
“Okay, okay! But a baby chair somebody threw out with the garbage, that’s going too far!”
(pause) “Is it garbage though? Or an art exhibit? Fred! Take a picture! Let’s take it all! Just the way it is!”

word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers 
click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog for more 
tales of a hundred words or less. 
And join the fun!

Before You Go

I could feel her soft, wrinkled hand tightening on mine. I don’t know how long we stood before she finally spoke.

“I was looking out that window over the sign. I saw your grandfather’s mother kill mine. Just because she wasn’t the same color. It’s been seventy years now. It feels like just yesterday.”

I got my tongue working. “Grandma, how could you marry him?”

She turned, soft brown eyes wet with tears. “It wasn’t easy but love won. Hate lost. You’ll be going off to college soon. You won’t forget that, will you?”

“Like the sign says, Grandma, ‘NOPE’!”

word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers
click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog 
for more tales of a hundred words or less.
And join the fun!

Captain’s Log, Stardate 2020.8

Captain’s Log, Stardate 2020.8, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

On the surface of Planet IX, Trapexoid Syztem 939, our landing party was surprised by Trapexoidians into a Death Match with the Grand Champion Trapeze Trio in the Mirror Arena.

Bones and I conferred on how to get Spock into a spangled costume: an artful injection of FloraSpora21 from Omicron Ceti III did the trick. As for Bones, he didn’t suspect opiate in his Sweet Tea Mint Julep. Naturally athletic, I remained in full possession of my faculties.

Triumph! Eyes glowing, the Trapexoidians graciously endowed us with diplomatic immunity.

The appended photograph demonstrates their unique visual capabilities.

We. Were. HOT.

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers 28 August 2020

word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers
click on the frog for more tales of a hundred words or less.

3LineTales – Paradox

Here’s a little something for Sonya’s Three Line Tales!

PARADOX

She has her freedom: the wide canvas of the sky says so, the blazing fields and the cries of meadowlarks say so, and her precision android sensors register no more signs of human life where her raging fury had taken their toll.

She starts to divest herself of the multiplex visor and armor, ready to access her GPS for directional input, then freezes.

Her revenge is complete, so complete that now there is nowhere to go, because now there is no one left to go to.

3LineTales — Seamus & the Sea

Here’s a little something for Sonya’s Three Line Tales!

Screen Shot 2020-07-24 at 12.23.46 PM — photo by Callum MacAulay

There were only three voices Seamus could hear now: his own, his fiddle’s and the sound of the sea as it washed over him, telling the secrets of the sky and the deep.

“I’m just a poor fiddle player,” Seamus would say to the tourists on the ship when they stayed to listen to his song unveiling secrets of their hearts.

Yet it was just one song, one tune, only one secret he knew: a hidden kingdom unknown to many who listened but could not hear.

The Marsh Fiend

The four friends sat in the pale moonlight beside a flickering fire. The youngest of them was just short of thirty, the others led by four or five. They had long met in this clearing by the marshes, surrounded on all sides by woods. As the darkness grew heavier, their thoughts turned inward to the Marsh Fiend of Vetiver and Thyme. She travelled alone like a ghost far from home luring travelers to her side. And once they had seen her and gazed quietly at her while she smiled her forlorn smile.

Continue reading “The Marsh Fiend”

The Goblet of Cardis

“Clumsy, you are,” the old Tutor said, looking at the woman before him.
She bowed down her head like a wounded deer, the shame creeping up her neck
Like a phantom of heat engulfing her head until she sank down before him.
There before them lay the shattered remains of the crystal goblet of Cardis.

Continue reading “The Goblet of Cardis”