November was Nuts

 

November was nuts...good nuts like the hot chestnuts sold in paper cones on Geneva street corners. They warm hands and tummies.

FlashNano2023, is over, leaving a hole the same way when a friend goes away. Each day's eagerly-awaited prompt to stimulate a flash fiction piece was a stimulant.

I missed about five prompts because November was overly full. There are 563 writers that participate and I'm sure their lives are as crazy as mine.

November started with a trip from France to Geneva after greeting our dog sitter. The dog is staying in France. It's an eight hour drive.

The Geneva Writers Group three-day conference was not only full of inspiring workshops, but it was a chance to meet up with writer friends from the last three decades.

Especially wonderful was the hour I didn't attend a workshop spending the time with the GWG founder and a young writer whom I watched advance in her craft. Two women from different generations whom I respect not just for their writing but for whom they are as people.

Then it was off to Portugal for an aviation conference for my husband's work. The hotel suite offered total luxury, the food satisfying for gourmet palates. The hotel itself was full of history of spies, royalty and writers. 

Back in Geneva, we immediately returned to France to pick up one dog and then back to Geneva to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends, a treat when one lives in a country that doesn't celebrate it.

 

We spent the rest of the month in the Geneva countryside flat we love among the scenery that refreshes our spirits. We saw a very few select friends, because we'd been cramming our writing between other obligations. 

There was the tiny village Christmas market with its chalet filled with handmade crafts, the smells of melting cheese of fondue and raclette and pumpkin soup in a huge caldron.

We needed to be back in France to say goodbye to Canadian friends heading back to Toronto.

Now it is quiet as we await the arrival of my daughter for the holidays. The calm will allow us uninterrupted time with our laptops and projects, to be described as "Priceless."

The next trip to Geneva after Christmas will be for the winter where our writing projects will have precedence. We will do our sacrosanct Tuesday morning free writes which produces flash fiction too.

None of the above is a complaint. I do hope next year when it is FlashNano2024, other things in our lives will not back up on each other. Still, I'm grateful for being able to participate because it always reminds me of why I am a writer. 

Thank you Nancy Stohlman for FlashNano2023.

 

FlashNano2023 The wave

 THE WAVES

Prompt: Find a few moments to look at the image above, and let it sink in--wait until something in the image wants to be written--and write.

The wind almost blew him over as he walked along the edge of the Med. The waves were so big that they discouraged even the most accomplished surfer.

What a change from last summer. Then the sand was barely visible hidden under towels and umbrellas and cooking bodies glistening with suntan oil.

Someone should have seen Bobby swimming away from the beach. 

They didn't until it was too late.

The calm of that day versus the ferociousness of today. There has to be a metaphor somewhere, he thought swallowing his sadness once again. He just didn't know what it was.

Flash Fiction: The cat

 

We are back at Mille et Une for our Tuesday morning free write. It is cold enough to be inside. The croissants are fresh from the oven. I chose almond tea and Rick went for hot chocolate.

Rather than pick a person walking by, we picked the cat who sits outside a flower shop and spends his day curled up in a chair inside, once the shop is opened.

D-L's Free Write

They were late. The bells in the church tower had struck twice, which meant it was 8:30. People walked by, but not the ones who had a key to the flower shop.

The cat was cold. He had found a new place to sleep at night in a deserted house, protecting him from the Tramontane wind.

He hoped they would arrive soon. He had work to do, curling up on the chair where the owners put his cushion.

Clients would ooh and aah over him, putting them in the mood to buy more.

There he was, José, the owner. He was carrying a bag of kitty kibbles, the cat's salary for being the Official Store Cat.

There was kitty litter in the back room, but he preferred to use the grassy spot across the street later in the day.

José poured the kitty kibbles in the cat dish. "That should hold you."

The cat jumped down and tasted. One of his favorites. 

Life was good. 

Rick's Free Write

He was there every morning, well before the flower shoppe opened at 9. seated on the doorstep, mewing at every passerby: "Let me in please," or since he was a French chat, "SVP, ouvrez la porte."

No one remembers when Felix first appeared. Or whom he belonged to. Probably just one of the many semi-feral cats in the village who sleep rough but exist on the kindness of elderly women who put out kibbles and water.

No doubt he snuck in one warm, sunny day after the shoppe started and the gentile young couple who own it decided he was not much of a bother. 

Each day when they opened the door, Felix would bounce inside and head straight for the chair in the corner. He might easily be mistaken for one of the ceramic knick-knacks on offer he was so still.

Mostly black with a couple of strategic white highlights on the nose and tail, Felix fancied himself high class. 

After all, he did own a flower shoppe.

FlashNano2023 27 Nov. Going deeper into the woods

 

"How much more?" Ellie whined.

"Until we can't see any houses," Melissa said. 

Ellie couldn't see any.

She stormed ahead and a branch hit her in the face. Ellie almost dropped the box she was carrying.

The woods smelled damp from yesterday's rain. The path was narrow. Overhead only small glimpses of blue sky were visible.

"Here." Melissa stopped. Pine trees surrounded the small, muddy clearing. 

"I don't understand Mother wanting her ashes to be scattered here. She said terrible things happened in the woods." Ellie held the box tighter.

"She was talking about teenagers having sex. Mom was probably asexual," Melissa said.

"She had us." Wind blew Ellie's hair across her face, but she didn't want to let go of the box.

"Put it down." Melissa had always been the bossy older sister, the preferred one, not just by their mother, but by teachers until Ellie went to a university in another state. 

Now she was back in her childhood home, sharing a chore with her sister that she didn't want to do.

Melissa broke the seal on the box. "They said to be careful of the wind, or we would be wearing Mom."

Ellie stepped back as Melissa tripped the box onto the ground. Her mother looked like kitty litter. That kitty litter had made her unhappy for so many years. 

Why had she let her? 

She promised herself, if anyone did that to her again, she'd think of them as kitty litter.

She turned and walked back thru the wood not waiting for Melissa.

The Twisted Cigar

 

"You can blame me," Rick called out the car window as I walked to the store where we had bought the twisted cigars.

Our friend and my wantabe brother RB2 has asked us to pick up some Mauler champagne and the cigars from this Swiss store near our home and take it to him the next time we were going to Southern France where he lived.

We did, but RB2 only needed on box, not two of the cigar boxes.

Rick suggested I would do better trying to get a refund because of his hearing and my French.

I walked into the store with the box of cigars and the receipt.

At eight in the morning, the store was deserted except for the cashier behind the cash register. 

I did the smile and the customary polite bonjour before preceding. 

"My stupid husband bought two boxes of cigars when he should only have bought one," I said in French. "He's always doing that, buying much to too much. I did an eye roll unlike any I'd done since my teenage years.

The cashier called her manager. She repeated what I'd said without the eye rolls and the over-buying comments.

The manager checked it out, being careful that the seal wasn't broken, and told her to refund my 57 CHF, which she did.

I thanked her.

Back in the car I told him, I blamed him.

 

FlashNano 2023 Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water

This is the 26th day of 30 days where participants write a flash fiction piece from a prompt. The 26th prompt was to include at least one of  the four elements of yesteryear earth,wind, fire and water. I've tried for all four.

James looked up from reading his book as his daughter raced thru the room. They should have named her Windy instead of Wendy, he thought. She sucked the air out of a room when she breezed through.

She created whirlwinds of activity wherever she went, never mind destruction of things she knocked over.

At four when his wife Maddie was planting tulip bulbs, Wendy dug a hole in the earth so deep, he could have buried an animal the size of a fox. When she played in her bathwater there would be floods on the bathroom floor.

They had always known she was active, but only when her day care owner said they could no longer keep her, did they seek medical device.  

The doctors called it ADHD, Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity Disorder.  They'd tried amphetamines and methylphenidate treatments, but when they didn't seem to help they went through a pharmacy of other drugs. None really helped.

Raising Wendy left him and Maddie exhausted.

At the same time, Wendy could concentrate when she was really interested. They'd given her a water color set and when she spent hours working on paintings, sometimes becoming angry when she didn't get the result they wanted, they sent her to art classes where she used acrylics. 

Her painting of a fireplace hung over the fireplace. Her teacher said she had talent. She wanted to go to art school. He and Maddie were investigating.

Wendy thudded downstairs, rushed through the room and as she opened the door called back, "Be back later." 

James went back to reading his book. His daughter was 18. He accepted it was what it was.

FlashNano2023 Disapearance

 The Missing Blue Folder

The blue folder wasn't in the file cabinet where I'd left it. It was the only blue folder to make sure it stood out from the 1 red (bills) 5 green (letters) 2 black (contracts) 4 purple (documents), 3 white (certificates), and 2 yellow (guarantees) 7 gray (taxes) and 1 brown (insurance) folders. All the folders had flaps and elastics so things wouldn't fall out.

Years ago, before my second marriage to Bill, I'd worked out the color coding. 

The blue one was special because it contained all our important papers in one folder: birth certificates, passports, Bill's divorce decree, my late husband's death certificate, a list of important contacts, bank account numbers, doctors, medicines. If something happened to Bill and me at the same time, I'd told my daughter and his son where to look ... one stop shopping so to speak to settle stuff.

But it was gone. I searched the room that I used as a office. I'm a writer and work at home. Nothing.

All the documents were scanned but so often when we needed to do something official people wanted originals which was another reason I'd made the blue folder.

Although I had a deadline, I spent most of the day trying to find the folder. 

Bill came home at his usual time. Most nights I'd have a cooked meal, not that he expected it. It was just if I sat too long at the computer, I'd get stiff and getting up to cook this or that was movement.

Bill would cook too, sometimes. Or we would go out or get take- aways. It worked.

We have a no pussyfooting rule. When something is wrong we tell the other and it usually starts with "Do you know what your stupid spouse did?"

I told him.

He laughed. "I thought it was redundant so I emptied everything into other folders."

Very seldom am I annoyed at my husband. We usually laugh at each other's idiosyncrasies. The one thing he does, that I don't laugh at, is when I arrange things he rearranges them.

This was more than annoyance. Anger at an unasked-for change to a system that had worked for decades, ran through me almost to the point I could picture myself recreating the blue folder and adding his death certificate along with the newspaper stories on how a wife killed her husband.

I didn't kill him. I bought a new blue folder and went through all the other folders until the blue folder was like it was before my husband's interference with a working system. 

I now hide the blue folder under the mattress in the guest bedroom. Our kids know where to find it. Bill does not.

 

FlashNano2023 Use limbo, keen, garden, possess, secretive

 

FlashNano2023...a prompt a day for every day in November. write a flash fiction piece. Today's prompt...Use these five words in your story: limbo, keen, garden, possess, secretive

Paul never understood why his wife Sandy became such a keen gardener. When he first bought the house, she didn't care that the backyard was a mess and the front yard was overrun with dandelions.

She hired a man to turn over the backyard.  "What possessed you? We don't have that kind of money to pay people to do this stuff."

Before he knew it, they had beans, tomatoes, aubergines, two  kinds of salad on the table. Sandy was canning the veggies they couldn't eat before they spoiled.

"See," said. "We saved more than we spent."

Then she tackled the front. It became a forest of flowers, which made the Homeowner's Association write a letter listing the flowers that were against their regulations. 

He had just come back from one of his many business trips to find it on the hall table.

"You'll have to dig it up. Put in regulation grass."

She refused. Whenever he tried to talk to her about it she went out into the garden and just sat there. It wasn't like her to be so secretive. Usually he couldn't stop her chatter.

Yet ... whenever he came back from a business trip, one part of the backyard would be dug up and planted over. Sandy claimed that whatever veggie had been destroyed had some problem. She gave those problems Latin names.

He felt he was in limbo between his non-cooperative wife and the Homeowner's Association who had hired a lawyer.

"Maybe we should just sell. Move to a place where there isn't a homeowner's association. Sandy balked. He called a real estate agent.

Since the house was in his name, he agreed to the price, and signed the papers. The real estate agent said it was the gardens that sold the place. The new owners had not been told about the homeowners association.

Paul and Sandy had been in their new home three weeks and two days when the police came to their door, asking about the bodies buried at their old home.

Now it fell into place, the frantic gardening, the secretiveness, the dug up spots. He didn't miss his wife, the serial killer, as much as he missed the fresh veggies.

John F. Kennedy

 

 

It was 60 years ago today.

My husband, at the time, and I were living in Stuttgart, Germany where he was a trumpet player in an Army band.

It was a beautiful day for late November. A sergeant in the band had to do an errand at Robinson barracks. He had picked me up along with my German shepherd, Kimm. He often did that so Kimm could run free.

My husband, RickI  had taken over someone's night duty. He did that whenever he could for for extra money.

Once home, I read, I knitted, I listened to music. I even did some cleaning.

I'm not sure what time I went out to call RickI. I usually called him whenever he was on all-night duty. There was a phone box around the corner of where we lived on Olgastrasse.

My hi was cheery. His reply wasn't. "The president has been shot. He's dead." It was hard to take in. 

I'd seen JFK once as he rode on the back of a convertible in a 4th of July parade in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Despite coming from a Republican family, I had been pro Kennedy in the election.

I went back to our apartment and cried.

Neighbors, who never really bothered with us, knocked on my door to express their condolences. The one neighbor who was friendly, a student, invited me to see the news clip.

The next morning I went to buy a newspaper. I wanted the story in German. The dealer, picking up on my accent, expressed his condolences.

At night there was a candlelight parade marching down the hill into the city. Their flickering lights went on and on and on and ...

It was more than a week before we could see the coverage, so unlike today when news comes almost at the same time as the event. There was a news reel at the Jay Hawk movie theater on base, It showed everything, including Oswald's shooting and John-John's salute to his father.

It was my first national tragedy, unfortunately the first of too many. It felt strange being in another country, a feeling that would be duplicated in 9/11. If only the distance, which made it seem so unreal, really was just that -- unreal.

Free Write Old man with little girl in stroller or push chair

 It's our Tuesday morning free write. Rick and I are back in Vandoeuvrues 10 minutes outside of Geneva. There are about 2400 residents, a combination of farmers, diplomats and business people.

We go to the boulangerie and eat fresh baked croissants, drink tea, hot chocolate.

Sherlock, our dog, agrees reluctantly to sit on the floor when we take out our pens and notebooks to start to write.

Rick's Free Write

It had been a dreary start to the day. Streaked layers of gray and grayer clouds. A light drizzle. everything damp from yesterday's steady rain.

But finally there appeared patches of blue sky, so Jacques decided that he and Felicity could walk to the village marché after all.

Down the elevator in his daughter's apartment building, then up the gentle slope of the sidewalk he pushed the pram, two-year old Felicity chattering away as they rolled.

His destination was the first vegetable stand, hers the chocalatier. who had returned at last after the hot summer and unseasonably warm autumn.

Some of the other villagers avoided them. Was it his shabby clothes? Felicity's brown skin?

Wendy didn't care about about either. She was an outsider in the enclave of privilege herself. She gestured for Jacques to sit at the small, round, metal table then offered Felicity a piece of the best dark chocolate in Switzerland.

"How is Angela?" she asked him.

"She's working," he replied matter-of-factly. 

"But how is she?" she persisted.

"She has her good and bad days. Don't we all?"

"Don't we all."

D-L's Free Write

Paul wasn't sure how he ended up pushing the stroller, even if it was his granddaughter. It was a first. He'd never pushed his own children. He'd always been too busy.

A lawyer wanting to make partner worked 60 hours a week and that was an easy week. Eighty to a hundred hours was more like it.

And he'd made partner.

Now he was retired, not his choice. The heart attack and triple bypass had done him in. Even with his recovery, he knew he couldn't go back.

"I'm tired of you sulking around the house," May had said. His constant presence was frustrating. "Go see Holly."

His daughter wasn't sure what to do with him either. "Take Jennifer for a walk."

Before he could say no, his three-year  old granddaughter was bundled up and they were out the door.

He pushed her stroller to the center of the village. She chattered endlessly about fallen leaves, a dog and two pigeons.

"Judy, Judy," his granddaughter called.

The woman pushing her son smiled. "You must be Holly's father. She looks like you. Without the mustache of course."

She suggested they go for coffee, which she did every weekday morning. At the café, three other mothers drank coffee as they watched their kids play in the nearby sandbox. Jennifer ran to join them.

Paul wondered it he could become one of the girls. That wouldn't be too awful. Would it?

FlashNano2023 20 Sorry

 "Sorry."

"So, so sorry." 

"My condolences."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"At least he didn't suffer."

Karen responded to each one with the proper expression which she had glued on her face and a nod. Soon it would be over and people would have left, forgetting about her. forgetting about his accident.

Son Jack had flown in from California. Daughter Marilyn had driven to Maine from Boston where she was a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University.

Jack was threatening to stay for two or three weeks to "help" while Marilyn said she'd spend her Christmas break with her after Jack left so Karen wouldn't be alone. She'd deal with that in the morning.

Tonight her children would sleep in their childhood bedrooms.

The fridge was crammed with casseroles, crudities, pies and who knew what all. All their friends must be secret caterers. Marilyn had taken charge, refilling the dining table for the horde swirling around.

Looking at the people, Karen wondered which one of Seth's students was this year's lover. Probably the blond with red eyes being comforted by a girl with a black pixie and oversized earrings. Seth had been a much loved prof. Much loved.

Karen slipped into the bedroom, shut the bedroom door without turning on the light. She didn't want a sliver of light to slip under the door, revelaing her hideaway.

Picking up her mobile from the nightstand she speed dialed Tom's number.

"How's it going?"

"As horrible as I thought. I do play the grieving widow well."

"Next week at this time we'll be in Hawaii."

The expression on her face came unglued, replaced by a real smile.

 

 

FlashNano2023 number 19 The door

 

Ellen sat in her car of Jana's apartment building parking lot. She was early.

She could see cars park, people get out, and walk to the front door. They were all bundled up against the cold, the light snow that was falling.

"Don't come before eight," Jana had said, explaining she was going to be late getting home from work.

Ellen wanted to be home, in her PJ's with a cup of cocoa and the book she'd been reading. She needed to know when the main character, Marcie, would learn her husband was cheating. The cover blurb talked about how Marcie would rebuild her life.

She needed to read about women who went on to have good lives after their cheating husbands had left them for that other woman. She took those stories as a manual to show her that she could reset her life now that Bill's closet was empty.

Well, better to get it over with. The sooner she found out what Jana wanted, the sooner she could go home, feed the cat, take a hot shower, get into those PJ's and read her book.

She rang Jana's bell. 

Jana had been her friend since uni. They had worked for a huge company in different departments. The last couple of years that hadn't spent much time together after both had changed companies. 

Ellen wondered why Jana had been so insistent that she come over that night. Maybe she wanted to commiserate with Ellen, although Jana had been widowed five years before so maybe not.

The door clicked. 

The lobby was warm after the cold of the short walk from her car.

She found Jana's door open a crack, but it was dark inside.

Lights came on.

"Surprise!" Five women, all whom had been divorced, were smiling at her.

Three, she'd lost contact with after they were no longer part of a couple that she and Bill had hung out with. 

One was Jana's cousin. She didn't know the fifth.

"Welcome to the club," Jana said. "The club for women who have learned to live happily alone."

FlashNano2023 The Caretaker

  

The moment I arrived at Mom's I could no longer face the inevitable. It was our regular Sunday lunch, but there were no smells of a roast.

She was sitting at the table with two clocks and two watches and crying. "I can't remember how to set them back." It was two weeks before daylight savings time ended.

I gave up my flat, put my things in storage and moved into my old bedroom. I took down the Duran Duran posters and put up a favorite painting that had been in my living room, painted the walls and hung new curtains. I bought a new duvet cover.

I missed my old flat. I missed my boyfriend Hamish, especially Sunday morning breakfasts when he'd stayed over. He thought I was crazy to give up so much to go take care of my Mom. He gave me a choice her or me, which told me all I needed to know about him.

Thank goodness I can work at home.  

My brother came to Edinburgh from London to see us, the only time he did. He told me I was crazy. We should put Mom in a home.

One day a week we bake biscuits together and use a bird-shaped cookie cutter like we did when I was little. 

I'd read nasty people were nastier with dementia. Sweet people stay sweet. Her dementia increased faster than normal.  I took her after she asked if I could help her find Sally. I'm Sally. Her doctor agreed.

Her heart gave out three years, five months, and two days after I'd moved in with her.

At the funeral, I realized that I'd lost Mom twice.

FlashNano2023 Nov. 16 Before Sunrise

 The Phone Call

My phone rang in my studio. I stumbled out of bed hitting my leg on the coffee table.

Where was it? I could hear the ring.

I’m usually OCD about putting things away. Even in a small studio, things can get lost, especially when I’d come home late from work, and had to prepare for my night class tomorrow. I’m trying to get my masters while holding down a job that requires lots of overtime.

When I hit the light switch, I could see to follow the ring to my purse.

“This is Melrose Hospital. We have your mother here. She asked us to call you and tell you she was in an accident. You should come,” a woman’s voice said.

I threw on sweatpants and sweater.

Where were my keys?

My coat was hung in the closet and the keys were in the left-hand pocket.

Please let the car start, I prayed. It did on the third try.

Please let my mother be all right. We’d had a fight last week, unusual for us. I had been wrong. She had cautioned me about being over worked. She was right. I told her to butt out of my life. Left. Slammed the door. I should of called and apologized, but I was so busy. What if she died and our last words were angry? That would really suck.

At four in the morning, the roads to the hospital were deserted. So was the visitor’s parking lot.

A guard at reception sent  me to emergency. “The hospital called, they said my mother, Johnna Lewis was in an accident, I told the nurse on duty. She asked you to call me. I’m her daughter.”

“We don’t have a Johanna Lewis. There’s only one accident patient, and she asked that her daughter be called.” She looked at her notes. “We talked you and I.”

I was confused. “Is your number 617-555-2881?”

“617-555-2882.”

Now the nurse looked confused. “Oh my God, I must have hit the wrong key.”

Back in my car, I was still shaking. I’d accepted the nurse’s apologies. I felt so sorry for that woman, for her daughter. I supposed I should have been angry about the mistake, but the nurse had said she was on a double shift, staff shortages, but that wasn’t an excuse. I thought it was good enough. I’m so tired so much of the time, I make mistakes.

Even though it wasn’t yet dawn, I called my mother even though she wouldn’t be up. “Mom, I’m sorry about last week,” I said when she answered.

Poison Ivy

 

In third grade I'd had back-to-back measles, mumps and then a low grade fever for 8 weeks. It was Saturday and I was due back in school on Monday. 

I wasn't worried about being behind. I'd done all the assignments. Third grade was boring. I'd been in a private school in West Virginia, going three hours a day. The owner/teacher was a harridan Miss Blanche who taught by terror.

My desk mate Bobby had messed his pants because he was afraid to ask go to a bathroom.

Now I was back in Massachusetts in public school.

Miss Berry, my third grade teacher, was a sweet heart. The problem was I was tested on a fifth grade level in everything but math and that was because of fractions. Third grade required less than the 12x tables, which I had in first grade. We had much more difficult history, geography and science in West Virginia. We had been writing cursive but suddenly I was forced back into printing on double lines. 

 

 

Instead of thin Crayolas, the school's crayons were thick and not much choice in colors.

My mother didn't want me promoted because I was tiny and she was afraid socially it would be harder for me.

I didn't want to go back and took control. I found a poison ivy patch and rubbed the leaves on my face.

Sunday morning my face had huge blisters. Dr. Halligan arrived (yes doctors made house calls then). He prescribed a clear lotion.

My mother used the entire bottle by Tuesday. Pain, pain, pain.

When my mother tried to refill, the pharmacist asked if she had diluted it, one part lotion to ten parts water.

Although I was never able to get a good tan, the little I got that summer had the outlines of all the blisters. Fortunately they faded over the years.

I never confessed what I had done to my mother.

 

The bag

 

 

City: Lisbon, Portugal

Date: 11 November 2023 

The Place: Restaurant Santa Marta

For our last night in Portugal after a grueling week of an eight hour drive from Argles to Geneva, a three-day writer's conference, a flight to Lisbon, another conference, we were looking forward to a quiet dinner with local food.

Sheila, the manager of our hotel recommended Santa Marta. We decided to take a taxi rather than walk or take what we discovered was a great metro system, but we were tired.

We were early, but we were greeted in Portuguese by the owner. It was a uni language staff, although the owner had a minimal amount of English, no French, no German, but the menu was in Portuguese and English.  

We ordered. I was excited they had grouper. Rick ordered chicken.

Suddenly he jumped up and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. He looked around and under the table. "I left my man bag in the taxi."

Fortunately, Rick had his phone in his pocket. He called Sheila, at the hotel, who said she would try and track down the taxi. 

My phone and meds were in the bag along with with a few things of his. 

Luckily our passports were not. 

Our ID cards were not. 

His wallet was not.

We picked at our food. Neither of us excel at waiting.

I remembered. He had put my phone in the bag. "My phone, call my phone," I said. 

Rick did..

The driver answered. 

Unfortunately, he didn't have any English, but the restaurant owner had just enough English to translate. He arranged for the driver to pick us up at the restaurant and return the bag and then drive us back to the hotel.

Neither of us felt hungry enough to finish. We paid the bill and walked to the corner where the taxi said he'd be in 20 minutes. He showed up. 

The bag was intact.

This will be a dueling blog. http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com.

 

FlashNano2023 The Trees

There was a huge tree near where Jim and I walked the dog. The bark was thick cracks. Its roots spread out at least two feet, some intertwined.

Other trees nearby were big, but smaller, which wasn’t hard.

The trees lined a field that now only had sunflower stalks, the flowers long harvested for oil.

Fido, yes we gave our golden retriever that boring name, loved to run in the paths circling the field while Jim and I sat on a bench in the middle to watch. 

There was a view of Mt. Blanc that we would oh and ah over, even if we’d seen it every day for years. Sometimes it was hidden in the mist, sometimes when it was clear it was like we could see every tree. Or we imagined we could.

Jim and I would discuss the day to come. We were both retired. Sometimes we would go to a movie or a museum. We’d plan lunch with either or us cooking or going to one of the local restaurants. When Fido was ready to come home, he’d walk up to us and sit down in front of us.

I had not expected Jim to die. One minute he was laughing and then he was gone.

During the first weeks after that day, I was too busy with the funeral and follow up things I needed to do. Fido stayed with our daughter in the next town. When she brought him back, he led me to the bench the first time we went for a walk. The first thing he did was pee on the tree before running down his favorite path around the field.

It was the first time I had even been there without Jim.

As I watched Fido run, I swear the tree whispered to me that it was sorry for my loss. It was probably my imagination or the wind rustling the remaining leaves, but I like to think they were talking to me and I knew what they were saying.

Flash Nano7 The Secret

 

Alicia felt the cold the moment she entered the living room despite the fire in the fireplace.

Seth usually hugged her whenever she came home from anywhere, even a quick trip to the grocery store.

“I’m home,” she said.

He didn’t look up from the book he was reading. He read newspapers and magazines online, but he still liked books in paper. “I see.”

This was Seth’s night to cook. He only worked half a day on Wednesdays. Although they had been married for four years, he would set the table with candles, a single flower in a bud vase. His meals would make a gourmet chef cry with joy.

She had anticipated walking into aromas that fed her hunger. She always ate light lunches on Wednesdays. After the meal they would make love.

Could he have found out about Danny?  They had been so careful. She never talked about her ex with Seth. Never thought about her ex until two months ago they bumped into each other at the supermarket. Bumped into each other literally. Old passions were loosened by that bump, and even if she knew it was wrong, she gave into them.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Nothing. How’s Danny?”

FlashNano2023 5 A Child Star Becomes a Cult Leader

“Watch out.” Anthony yelled at the camera man.

He knew camera movements from his childhood days as Bobby on a hit TV series. It ran for eight years., but when he went from a cute five-year old to a sulky teen, they killed him off.

“Where’s my robe?”

Sister Melissa scuttled to the dressing room. She returned with the purple robe and gold scarf and helped him put it on.

“Don’t mess my make-up.” He had a headache from one too many vodkas last night.

“Teddy, did you find the Bible quote about evil women? Any one will do.” He’d never really read the Bible. His staff took care of finding the right quotes.

“Five minutes, Father Anthony.”

His program was on 35 stations throughout the south every Sunday morning. He had not reached that statue of Joel or Joyce, but he was sure it would happen. His numbers were growing as was his bank account: donations and a good stockbroker.

This time he wouldn’t squander the money he’d made as a kid. His parents had been scrupulous about guarding it, but he took control at 21.

He never wanted to do his program live. You can’t edit a live program.

His mind was half on his meeting with his marketing manager after the recording.

As he walked to his spot, he smoothed his hair. Can’t bring the word of the lord with messy hair, he thought.

 

FlashNano2023 6: A Stranger in the Kitchen

“Who are you? Leah looked at a little boy standing in front of her dishwasher.

He couldn’t be more than seven, if that.

He had dark curly hair which needed shampooing and a Boston Celtics T-shirt which also needed a wash. His jeans were torn but they might have been made that way.

She’d just got out of the shower when she heard the backdoor slam.

She’d put on her bathrobe and rushed downstairs.

Stupid, she thought. It might be a killer. The kid was no killer.

“I’m hungry,” the little boy said.

“What would you like?”

“Can you make pancakes?”

This is stupid, she thought as she added an egg and milk to flour.

“Can you tell me where your mommy is?”

“I don’t know. She fell down and the ambulance took her away. I hid under the bed with Spike.” He held out a dirty stuffed animal of an unknown species.

“I slept in your garden last night. It smelled better than behind the restaurant.”

As she stirred the batter, she wondered what to do after she solved his hunger.