June Free Write...Boy on Blanket

The three of us are still in two different countries, but sharing the prompt by email. Hopefully, next week we will all be in Geneva. The prompt was this photo of a little boy on a blanket next to a marché stand.

Julia's Free Write

Market day in Southern France and this particular one is seething with vendors and clients. Each stand more colorful than the last: here one piled to the brim with melons, water melons, oranges, apples, pears, grapes and everything else that can be grown in the sun of the South; there another again quickly being depleted of its abundance of zucchini, bell peppers of all four colors (I refuse to purchase or eat the green ones having had to submit to one too many stuffed peppers in my youth), eggplants all gleaming, carrots that looked eatable right off the table, onions, potatoes, you name it, it was there.

Then what to make of the stands of local cheeses – how to choose? The availability of last season’s local wines – hmmm stop on the terrace for a glass with friends. Of course one could also sample any amount of fresh fruit juices, of local ciders or even strong liqueurs: well maybe not this morning.

Then there are the cooked meals, the pastry stands, I could go on and on and on, each thought making me hungry although it’s only mid-morning.

Then I saw him: the little boy. Oblivious to everything, he lay there on the ground a cell phone in hand playing a video game. I am afraid for the next generation.

Rick's Free Write

Three years old is much too young, even for child labor. But his mother could not leave him alone when she went to work the marché, so along he came – with a cell phone and games to amuse himself. For three hours !

Fortunately for Sebastièn, the café in the square had a toilet, and it was only 50 feet away from the space where his mother earned a living by braiding hair.

The phone games kept him occupied, for the most part, but occasionally Sebastièn would roam the square. There was no danger from cars or motos, as the entrance roads were barricaded.

In his wanders, vendors would give him bits of brownies or cookies, a little juice, a couple of olives, a slice of saucisson. By the time his mother took Sebastièn home for lunch, he wasn’t terribly hungry.

If he could talk, Sebastièn would say that he was bored, that he’d like to have a dog to play with, that he misses his father, who left them a year ago.

D-L's Free Write

Tommy was so tired. His mother knew he hadn't slept much last night.

Neither had she.

What a fight she had had. The police had been called and had taken her husband away.

As for the damage in the living room, she'd clean it after the marché and after she signed the restraining order.

She couldn't miss setting up her stand selling women's underwear.

She wishes she could have left Tommy in bed, but she hadn't found a sitter.

She would always remember his face peeking over the banister crying, "Make it stop, Mama."

She had stopped it long enough to put him back to bed. 

This morning, when she went to wake him, he was asleep under the bed.

Always before she had given in to her husband, hoping his promise to never hurt her again would come true.

Now she was in charge of "never again," not just for her, but for Tommy. 

***

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com