Family – This Jolly Beggar

The False Counselor

Word Count: 100
Genre: Fiction

The False Counselor

“What should I do?” she whined.

I met her vacuous eyes, pleased she always gave precedence to my words over others’.

“Forget her! Leave! She’s made her choices, now let her wallow in them!”

“Her children, my grandchildren. They’re still babies . . . .”

“Listen, dear, what’s she ever done to deserve your love?!” I asked, choking back my philosophical angst: can love be love if it’s only deserved?

Maybe she’d have abandoned them without my uttering a word.

But I did.

Now I walk as one divided, my head shorn, then healed, then shorn repeatedly by Hell’s demons.¹

¹The judgment described is taken from Dante’s Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto 28, in which the poet describes the ninth ring of the Malebolge where makers of discord are condemned.

“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” (James 3:5-9, bold italics mine)

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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?”

Miraculum ad Fontes

Pastor Peter was all a’flutter.
There was the baby. There were the parents. There was the baptismal font.
And there was Mick Mooney, to whom he had given bottled water for the font, boasting a malicious grin.
The unopened bottle stood, tragically, on the chancel rail.
Peter prayed, opened the font.
It was filled to the brim.
Afterwards, he confessed his surprise to the happy couple.
“Oh, that was me,” the new mother said. “I just wanted to say a prayer over the font before the service began when I saw it was empty. I didn’t do wrong, did I?”

100 words; fiction
For Rochelle Wisooff-Fields' Friday Fictioneers
Click on the frog and join in!

“She said if a red fox had crossed somewhere, that area was safe”

When I left her yesterday
the black was in her hair
the gold was in her eyes
and she spoke of fathers
and unmourned sons
but now she freezes the air
like a stray from bygone forests
and primordial paths
looking at me like a traveler
she’d warned before
of hazardous roads
and one in particular
where red foxes
appear to startle the unwary
from perilous paths
and slipping slopes of memory
but for the shibboleth:
Mother?
You’re safe.

I somehow missed posting on this prompt from Sarah of dVerse who chose quotes from a book for us to use as poem titles.
"She said if a red fox had crossed somewhere, that area was safe" was the one I chose. 
Click on Mr. Linky for more.
Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mother-and-daughter-on-grass-1683975/

Letter to No Lycidas

Genre: Poetry 
Word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers 
click on the friendly frog for more tales of a hundred words or less 
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Letter to No Lycidas

No Lycidas are you, my son,
no watery bier nor desert grave
holds you. But in the crisp
of autumn air, your countenance
lights a distant town, another’s home
a place where you from me remain.
Yet I wonder, pray one day I’ll see
you striding back to see me here;
that one day that old mailbox
will find you on a daily chore
or whether the woods beyond will gape
to hear your lusty songs of praise
to the God of miracles and a Son
who freeing the soul from evil design
heals faultless the sutures of the mind.

Memories and Refrigerator Doors

(An ode of sheer gratitude to a wondrous blank space that invites our creative attention)

Memories and refrigerator doors
Blank spaces covered with magnetic miasma
Of memories old, up and coming, and new,
Now I want to remember you, each one,
Refrigerator doors of bygone days
And the door I opened just today.

Continue reading “Memories and Refrigerator Doors”