Category: Author

Posted in response to Hammad Rais Blog

All photographs taken by and property of Gypsie-Ami OffenbacherFerris

By Gypsie -Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to KL Caley’s Write Photo Challenge.

I found them accidentally, late one afternoon. I wasn’t very old, just starting my teenage journey. I hated it, being a teenager. If I were honest, it wasn’t being a teenager exactly, although the pimples, flat chest and stringy hair I now sported, did not endear me to these years.

No, it was the other teenagers. Hateful creatures all, or at least most. I had gone from being a happy-go-lucky, out-going, nature-loving tomboy, to an outcast. I don’t know what happened the summer before, but whatever it was didn’t happen to me.

The girls I had played kickball with and climbed trees with; now had breasts and wore makeup and painted their nails. The boys had grown whiskers and gotten taller, and cuter.

Anyway, I became the whipping girl for the entire school. Of course, this is fifty years ago, way before anti-bullying rallies were being held.

There was one girl though. She looked to be my age but she was tiny. I don’t mean little, she was the smallest almost adult I had ever seen. She started talking to me and we became best friends very quickly. Only, she never invited me to her place and never accepted my offer to have her come to mine.

She got on the bus at the stop right after mine. I figured her mom dropped her off, because I didn’t see any farms or houses anywhere near her stop. That’s why I decided to follow her, curiosity mixed with concern. Mostly curiosity.

Except, on the bus home that day; the kids were especially vicious. Calling me names, saying I was crazy because I talked to myself all the time. I told them I was not crazy, I was talking to my best friend. One of the girls yelled out that I had an invisible friend and everybody started laughing. I turned to talk to my new best friend, but she was gone. She must’ve gotten off the bus early to get away from the awful teenagers. I felt very sad that I didn’t see her go.

On impulse, I decided to get off at the stop after mine. My friends bus stop, hoping she would be there. After the bus left, I saw her walking through a field, towards a mound I had never noticed before. As I got closer, I saw there was a door, a little door!

My friend fit through it perfectly. I waited a few minutes and then knocked lightly on the door. My friend answered wearing the prettiest dress I had ever seen. As she moved, the colors ran together and seemed to glisten.

I asked if this was where she lived and she said yes, this was where all the little people lived. I peeked inside and what I could see was wondrous. Multicolored flowers everywhere, a bright blue sky dotted with silver- lined clouds. Hills that went on forever, covered in bright green grass slowly moving back and forth in a sweet, warm breeze.

She started to close the door, but I asked her to please let me see one more time. I asked if I could come in. She shook her head no and said you had to be one of the little people to come in. I said I wished I was a little person. She looked up at me and asked if I really and truly wanted to be. I said that yes, I did, more than anything.

Anyway, this is my letter to you, Mom and Dad, to let you know I’ve gone to live with the little people in the mound, up the hill and in the field. Don’t worry, I’ll be happy here.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

He loved hats. Didn’t matter what kind. Male, female, baseball, frilly, top hats, floppy hats, black hats, purple hats. If we went into any establishment that had hats for sale or even on display, he just had to try them on. All of them!

Imagine being in a hurry at the gas station, running late for some event or another and he spies a rack of cowboy hats mixed with baseball hats at the register, along with a ladies sun hat or two. It didn’t matter if they fit or not, he had to try them on. Every single one!

I tried to be diligent to due financial restrictions and of course, the old “you don’t get everything you ask for or want adage,” but I’ll admit at Christmas and on his birthday, he was loaded up with hats.

Even before Captain Jack Sparrow hit the movie screen, his favorite was his authentic pirate hat, a true tricorn purchased somewhere for some exorbitant amount I can not even remember. If he wasn’t wearing it, he was carrying it with him wherever he went.

Then came kindergarten and hats were not allowed, period. No hats of any kind, not ever, not even on casual day. Things did not go well for a very long time, until I let him carry or wear it in the car on the way to school. Then he had to take it off and put it in the front seat with me, so I wouldn’t be lonely and miss him while he was
gone.

When he emerged from class, the first thing he went for was his pirate hat, before he even said hello to me. I wish I had that pirate hat now. I miss him.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Rochelle Wisoff’s Friday Fictioneers prompt picture! Write a story in 100 words or less using the prompt above and post it to the inLinkz List.

The magnificent red rose stood in an antique vase on the corner of her old writing desk. The scent from this single, red rose nearly overwhelming, yet oddly calming.

The rose arrived every single Friday the thirteenth without fail, without a card stating who it was from or from where. Inevitably, no matter who stayed in this room, day or night; the rose appeared as if out of thin air.

Butler Joseph stated the red rose never appeared until the new lady of the house had arrived, so it was definitely meant for her.

Lady Annalisa was not convinced, yet.

Please check out Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge to discover more about this unique challenge! Current Challenge Series – Fun with Lines Today’s Challenge is STRAIGHT LINES.

A line is straight
Only to those
Looking for it

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Response to: P.A. Moed Creative Exploration in Words and Pictures LAPC #198: Light and Shadow

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to LIVING POETRY Bartholomew Barker’s Monday Poetry Prompt: TREE

My little tree
is just a tiny little tree
with long curly leaves
trailing down in fringy falls

A mere two years old
and all of three inches tall
I’ve been told she will fill out
one day full curvy and so beautiful

I’m waiting and waiting
and pining for that special
day to arrive though it feels
like my life is passing me by

Days come and days go and a new
branch with sprouting red leaves
suddenly peeks up from beneath
the mother canopy of weeping leaves

She’s filling out and growing taller
so fancy and so very lovely
I wonder why the same thing has
never happened for me

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Sadje’s WHAT DO YOU SEE #133-MAY 9, 2022

______________
It rained down
from the black sky above
liquid fire turning all it touched
to ash or blackened rubble and grotesque stumps
The trees screamed in agony as roots disintegrated away and the Earth shifted its course in response

Stone turned to white smoke
above us the ground shuddered
and trembled the walls of the ancient
cave heaved threatening to entomb us all within it
Noise of unbearable magnitude assaulted our ears
Great whirlwinds of burned debris crossed the ravaged land

Unknown days passed by in terrified silence
Untold atrocities and suffering slowly eased and stopped
Earth came to rest in a new space a new place orbit slowing
Darkness that had prevailed gave way to radiant arcs of star-shine the bright tendrils of light and warmth surrounded the spinning orb the end had come quickly and violently and a glowing new beginning begun

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to The Carrot Ranch’s May 9: Story Challenge in 99-words
Posted by Charli Mills – Compose a Mom Selfie in 99 Words

Looking into the mirror, I see my mom looking back at me. The woman in the mirror has the same wrinkles in nearly the same places. Though her eyes were black as coal and mine are a greenish-amber; they are the same shape and size and both having a distant, distracted look.

The shape of our lips and even the color was identical. It’s the outside wrinkles of our mouths that sets us apart. Hers from being a chain smoker, addicted to those Pall Mall cigarettes. Mine from laughter and love.

Too bad I got my dad’s nose!

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