The nightmare came again. Yellow goo swallowing me into a diseased COVID haze. I dare not lay back, lest the yellow muck of phlegm and mucus my body is suffocating me in, in its feeble attempt to wash these toxins from my ailing cells, drowns me instead.
Shaking my fist at the irony of man in his attempt to salvage life, to make it last longer, to be healthier; has inadvertently created an illness that converts, changes, metamorphosis’ into something even man’s feeble drugs can not touch.
The body aches for release from this torment. I shall not give in, I shall not let COVID win. I sleep.
The Surprised Sun glanced down from his perch light years away, To study the tiny round speck circling him in a perfect revolution of 365 turns.
The loud thunder arising from the tiny planet was a little unsettling, Particularly when it awoke his paramour, Lady Moon snagged in a nightmare of unseasonal fear.
What is it Love? She asked sleepily, urging the twinkling stars around her be still so she could hear her true loves response from across the void of never-ending space.
I think it’s those pesky bipeds again, trying to recreate the power of Me, he answered with the haughtiness of time and wisdom. “Go back to sleep dear,” he said to his Lady and she did.
It was my grandsons first day of kindergarten. I had acquired custody three years prior. He was determined to ride the bus the first day, which he did with glee. His smile so contagious and his energy so massively infectious, that I was bursting out of my own seams that afternoon waiting for him to come home and tell me all about it.
He stepped off the bus, smiling but way less enthusiastically than he had gotten on. I asked how it went and he said he had great fun but didn’t much think he was going to like mathematics. I asked which was his favorite subject so far to which he answered immediately, “Recess and lunch!”
That same night after dinner, bath, teeth brushing, a story and a song and his final kiss goodnight, I was nearly out of his bedroom door when his voice speared me through the darkness, landing a dagger in my heart.
“MeMe?” He asked quietly, “Am I chocolate or vanilla? You know, black or white?”
I assume he’d gotten questioned in school.
Although we have talked about his heritage at great length, I guess nothing says it’s real like peer pressure.
“What do you consider yourself to be my love?”
He held his arm up against mine, my summer tan fading while his luscious color stayed put.
He said, “I’m not black skinned, I’m not white skinned, I’m not pink skinned like you. I’m olive!”
“That you are!” I smiled and explained the meaning of an olive branch, he really liked that.
“But the color of your skin holds much deeper meaning than just the color. You hold so many different stories within that little body! A world history of cultures, struggles, triumphs, eons and eons of information we can explore together over the years. Then if you decide you want to follow one path over another when you are older, you can do so based on fact, research and what you feel in your heart.”
I looked down to see he was sound asleep. He will have a plethora of culture, genetic imprinting and family history to choose from. Here are his familial bloodlines; Black, White, Puerto Rican, Scotch/Irish, Celtic, Native American (Sauk & Fox Tribe, Tama, IA) and Swedish, to start.
In response to Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Temerity and the limit, 69 words.
Illness after illness has besieged me from a fairly young age. I was diagnosed, in the dark ages, with severe growing pains. With hyper-intuitive nerve ball endings, with shingles, with herpes, with over excitable pain receptors in my brain and later, as a teenager and budding woman, as a hypochondriac. Very dark ages!
Now it’s called Lupus. My secret for survival? Stubborn temerity!
Sitting down at the dinner table, finally! Only after a ten hour work day, driving my youngest teenage son to his soccer practice afterward, a row with my seventeen year old daughter about the mess not only she had bursting through the seams in her room but left everywhere she went! A trail followed behind her like Lionus from the old Charlie Brown cartoons, that was her. Except, the dust cloud of chaos followed behind her, generally, and not all around her. But, something had changed this evening.
I did notice she was eating very slowly and watching her covertly, I could tell she was having difficulty eating. Several emergent scenarios ran through my mind in a matter of milliseconds. Cavities, loose teeth, a sore jaw? Oh Lord no, no wisdom teeth removal expenses right now please Lord.
As I watched something glinted and caught my eye.
“Daughter,” said I. “Open your mouth please?”
She clamped down hard, and winced. Now I was angry. “Tell me I didn’t just see what I thought I just saw?!”
“Ahh Ma, don’t go getting all hysterical. It’s all the rage, it’s brand new and I love it … see?”
My sweet, innocent first born opened her mouth after swallowing her food and there in the middle of her tongue, sat a massive silver ball. She lifted her tongue to display the clasp on the other side, holding her new tongue piercing in. It was swollen, red, looked grotesque and I just wanted it out.
She hurriedly explained that it had to remain in until healed to prevent severe infection. Yes, I verified this via telephone with the parlor that I reminded them, had performed this illegal service on a minor without parental consent.
The parlor apologized profusely stating she looks 25 and in fact, would turn her away if ever she returned.
“Ma! Now they will never let me back in their store!” My daughter was livid. Getting up from the table to stomp back to her room. “Everyone I get something new, you take it away or forbid all together!”
“Daughter,” I whisper quietly through her now closed bedroom door, “Just because something is new, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s welcome.”
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is our charming host for the Friday Fictioneers in 58 words photoprompt, picture from Brenda Cox.
Picture provided by Brenda Cox
His Works
By Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris
The crowds race past the aging artist, no one paying heed to the beautiful paintings being created within the open air shack on the street corner.
A small child, less than six years entered, exclaiming how beautiful the cypress tree painting was. Kano Eitoku gifted it to her. Years later, the painting appraised at over $200,000 American dollars.
“We have to get down there Spock!” Jim Kirk’s voice nearly inaudible in the frigid wind.
“Captain, she could not have survived that fall and if she did, her Valerian blood would not tolerate the cold. She’s gone Jim.” Spock’s ever pragmatic voice, usually a comfort, only irritated Kirk as he leaned further and further over the precipice.
“Captain, it would accomplish nothing if you also fell to your death,” Spock held tightly onto Kirk’s hard biceps.
“Spock, what is it? Spock?” Now it was Kirk’s turn to grab Spock by the arms, shaking him.
Spock’s back had gone ramrod straight, his eyes glazed, his body unmoving.
“Jim, she is alive. She has asked permission to mind-meld with me in order to raise her core temperature.”
“Then do it man!” Jim’s voice cut through the wind.
“I am attempting to establish a connection now Captain.” Spock sank to his knees in the frigid snow and ice. “Jim, she is injured, she is shielding me from her pain.”
Kirk already had his communicator in hand. “Scotty, lock onto these coordinates. Beam Special Attaché Kyrie directly to sick bay, stat!”
“I’m sorry Captain, no beaming from down in the canyon. All three walls are solid iron ore, there’ll be no transporting from in there,” Scotty said. “We’ll have to do it the old fashion way with ropes and pulleys.”
Hours later, Kyrie lay in sick bay, her right leg immobilized, various scrapes, cuts and bruises tended to.
Above her stood the two men in her life. Both with their own degree of worry etched upon their faces.
Spock, “I’m still unclear as to how you fell Kyrie?”
“I didn’t fall,” she answered quietly “I was pushed.”
Gypsie’s Wonderful World of Words 