Friday Fictioneers – This Jolly Beggar

Letter to No Lycidas

Genre: Poetry 
Word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers 
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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.

A Pink Welcome

When I saw the “a vendre” sign, I had to have it! Carolyn would have understood. Her pink Cadillac had been a hand-me down from her sister who’d made a name for herself in Mary Kay sales. Carolyn drove the flashy pink Cadillac just to shock her preacher and her co-parishioners. To them, being too enthusiastic about God was just as vulgar as driving a pink car! But people like me who looked like they didn’t belong in a Manhattan church understood. Now as a missionary, I knew I had to spend my last dime on this welcoming pink boat!

Genre: Fiction 
Word count: 100 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers 
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Sea Tale

Gifts from the sea, some called them. Once there washed up a shack, whole, an eye-catching man within, seal-brown his hair. The tunes he could sing, when the winds around the water took wing.

She spied him sometimes by moonlight at the water’s edge, secretive, saw him take out a seal skin, disappear within, into cold depths. Then one night, twin shapes followed after.

Alone, she managed, bled, bided her time, calling out across the water, “Selkie!” People wondered.

When two children washed ashore, one seal-brown, the other raven-haired, we knew. Far inland, she kept their pelts hidden. Selkies nevermore.

Genre: Folklore 
Word count: 100 
written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's Friday Fictioneers 
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Unexpected Surprise

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

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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. 
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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!

I Can’t See the Stars

I can’t see the stars 
For too long.
They hurt my eyes with longing 
For the unseen.

I can’t see the people
For too long.
They hurt my eyes with longing  
For what could have been.

Long years built walls and ceilings
Dressed-up plaster neighbors
Who do not hurt or rob me
Arcana to surround me
Where blue skies cannot spurn.

But somewhere in the concrete
My hardened heart lies buried.
No tender arms will hold me
No twilight rays enfold me
In twinkling eyes of love

And I can’t see the stars.

word count: 94 
written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers
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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.

Never Goodbye

Here’s the thing: I never wanted to leave.

It’s never goodbye, I said.

The priest kept packing. The cross. The pyx with arabesques containing his sacraments. An unrepentant heart.

He had betrayed his calling. He knew. His superiors knew. They were transferring him to another parish.

Didn’t they know? He was mine.

It’s never goodbye, I said again.

The blinding light the neighbors saw out of that corner window: someone took a picture.

When he left screaming, clinging to the bedposts, his flaming hands left scars on the wood.

I had warned him, hadn’t I? It’s never goodbye.

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