Helen could feel her father’s warm hand holding hers, running it over the soft spikey leaves of the grass.
“We’re home,” he said. “The green, green grass of home.”
The world smelled right again. At the hospital, it had smelled sharp and cold, in the city streets outside, the air was thick and made her cough. Here, it smelled sweet. She was home.
The Doctors had used a lot of words she didn’t understand, congenital… impairment… permanent, but somehow it was this word that bothered her: this word she couldn’t understand that meant home.
“There’s two kinds of chairs, comfy ones and worky ones,” my Grandpa once told me. “You can’t work properly if you slouch.”
Grandpa was a worky chair himself: straight-backed from the army, always kept you on your toes with his rules. Grandma was the comfy chair – all hugs and kisses and tears.
I thought that was how men and women were, until I met Dave. Dave was what my Dad would call “so laid back, you trip over him”. Not so much a comfy chair as a bean bag. And when I needed him, he was there to sink into.
Extroduction
Nothing much to report on the story front, other than it’s pure fiction.
I’m off on an adventure this afternoon – Joy and Jen Take The Train Again (the sequel). We’re heading to Halifax and back over the next week, leaving husbands, kids and other responsibilities behind. So apologies if I don’t read as many FF stories this week.
Thanks to Fleur Lind for this week’s photo prompt.
Freight is great
Driving to piano lessons, we cross the railroad tracks. If we’re lucky, the gates close and we wait, windows rolled down, both thrilled by the sight and sounds of the passing train.
“Ooh, it’s a cargo train!” Dominic squeaked on Monday.
“A freight train, yes. Freight is great!” I resisted the urge to sing.
“Is freight a real word or a you word, Mama?”
“A real word,” I said, distracted, enjoying the rush of the passing train. When my brain caught up, I laughed. “Yes, it’s a real word.”
“Not like catfish?”
“Not like catfish.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
Extroduction
Ok, this week really feels like it needs an extro. The story is a true one, but I promise it was also 100% inspired by the photo. You see, like many families, we have a lot of in jokes. Not even jokes, just phrases and words that only mean what they mean because of their history in our family. There’s a bridge in Yorkshire where you have to say “Merry Christmas” every time you drive over it, because once we were driving to my grandparents’ house and hit that bridge at midnight on 24/25 December; parking spaces where two are empty facing each other, so you can drive in and out forwards are “Grandad spaces” because they were his favourite kind, and you can’t say freight without saying (ideally singing) Freight is great from the song in Starlight Express.
You also can’t see a barn owl without the phrase “Not barn owls anyway” (from the beautiful Jill Tomlinson book “The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark”) popping into your head. And to me, Fleur’s picture wasn’t a tree with a fairy door in, it was a tree with a barn owl, halfway up the trunk, facing left. So this week’s inspiration went: photo –> barn owl –> not barn owls anyway –> weird family phrases –> conversation with Dominic on the way to piano.
Catfish, by the way, apart from being catfish, are also the family name for wind turbines: Whiskery blighters, marauding across the landscape.
I know what you’re thinking. My kids have no hope!
Thanks and credit to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for this week’s photo
American Dream
Rohit is so tired from the factory, he falls asleep even over the machine noises that ring in his ears.
Every night, he dreams the same dream. Stars and lines. Red, white and blue, swirling together. He sews it by day and dreams it at night. His brother, Bo, says it’s the flag of America.
“Everything is free in America,” Bo says. “The stars shine in a blue sky just like the flag. We will go when we are grown. Live free and rich and never work again.”
But Rohit wonders if the blue is sky, what is the red?
Extroduction
Looking at Rochelle’s picture, I began to wonder how many people around the world are printing or sewing stars and stripes into clothing, hats and other products having never set foot in the Land Of The Free, and how many of them are children, underpaid, badly treated or working in appalling conditions. I bet the answer isn’t zero. Rohit and Bo are my nod to those people.
I couldn’t choose between 2 songs today, so here are they both!
Thanks to Susan Rouchard, who supplies another great photo this week.
TW: Covid lockdowns.
GreenWorks
Trapped inside with nothing green visible through the window, Laurie can’t remember what grass looks like, or feels like under her feet.
She’s read so many books, the piles nearly block her view of rooftops and sky. Friends leave them outside her door, along with food, toilet paper, bleach. They used to leave empty promises too – See you soon – but the promises stopped.
Someone on TV suggested injecting bleach to inoculate against the virus, but it’s the insanity Laurie wants to escape. She chuckles. A more certain use for the bleach. She stares at the bottle. It’s green.
Extroduction
(A reminder that the extro is totally optional – my stories are intended to stand alone, this is just extra info for those who wish to dig deeper.)
I avoid talking about those years as much as I can. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet, even typing this, all those emotions rush back in, the tears well and my hands shake. Still, as soon as I saw Susan’s photo, that’s where the muse went and I rarely succeed in steering her course. Laurie is fictional though, and her lockdown sounds bleaker than mine ever was. Greenworks, by the way, is a brand of green (both in colour and in its environmental claims) surface cleaner here in Canada.
I always hated those “we’re in this together” slogans from rich, powerful men who were often breaking their own rules anyway. We were NEVER all in the same boat. Some of us were riding the waves in luxury yachts with servants waiting on us hand and foot; some of us were clinging to the sides of a leaky dinghy.
Still, we are all on the same earth, and that’s how I like to interpret this song and the beautiful video that goes with it.
Daddy said he was going to the stars. So George watches every night from his window, looking for Daddy’s star and waving. His friends at school say it’s silly; Daddy can’t see him, but George waves anyway.
Mummy says when Daddy goes overhead, he’s closer than MoMo and Pop’s house in Ottawa. George remembers driving there. It’s much too far to wave.
But Daddy said he’d wave to George, and George likes the idea that they’re both waving.
*
Every night, Andy kisses the photo of his son and waves through the window towards Earth. He hopes George is waving back.
Extroduction
Sandra’s photo gave me the title immediately, but the content of this story is probably partly inspired by reading recently about Sergei Krikalev, the Cosmonaut who ended up somewhat stranded in space during the collapse of the USSR. He returned 6 months later than planned, and continued to work in the Russian space program for a long, decorated career. But I couldn’t help wondering if he’d left a wife or kids at home during his extended absence.
Chris Hadfield, one of the best known Canadian astronauts, definitely had a family waiting for him back on Earth. His son runs the Rare Earth youtube series. I recommend checking it out.
JoJo twirled across the ice-covered puddles like the sparkly ladies on TV.
“JoJo Pinner with a double pike twist cross and wait, yes, she’d going for the triple! Ladies and gentlemen, you’re almost certainly looking at the next Lympic champion!”
When she took a bow, a man at the bus shelter clapped. “If you’re going to be a figure skating champion, you’ll need some skates,” he said, handing her a single bill.
Back at home, Mom snatched the money and smacked JoJo hard across the face.
“$100! Just exactly what did you do for him? I ain’t raising no harlot!”
Extroduction
Sorry, JoJo, I wanted you to have a happier ending, but Dale’s photo gave me two things – the dream and beauty of the “Dance” was one, and an ugly barrier labelled “Mom” was the other. I hope she got out and fulfilled those dreams in the end.
Paul Brandt’s certainly fulfilling a dream or two.
Away from my counter today, so please forgive the lack of formatting etc.
Photo credit Roger Bultot
The Target
Max slipped into the apartment and found bottled water, kettle, noodle packets; chair; gun.
Black circle on the lace curtains indicated the target window opposite: The Estonian.
Days later, the kettle boiled the last of the water. Time was up. The target hadn’t shown.
Max opened the curtain. The black target remained – fancy brickwork laid long before the Estonian or Max arrived. In the steam, he spotted a different mark – a message from his superiors: top left window. Where a woman had fed pigeons twice a day since he arrived.
Hungry birds flocked around the closed window now. She was gone.
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields provided her own photo this week.
Spare Wheel
“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!” Danny shouted, bumping onto the sand.
Lucy squealed and put her hand on his.
“Y’know,” said Raymond, “Ronald Reagan quoted that from Back to the Future after they referenced him in the…”
“Yeah, Ray, we know.” Danny caught her eye and winked. Lucy giggled.
“Remind me why we brought your brother?” she whispered. Apparently not quiet enough.
“Mom says ‘Teen pregnancy is through the roof and Raymond’s better than anything at the drug store.’ And I like watching the waves.”
Danny put the Jeep in park and leaned across. “Watch the waves, Ray.”
Extroduction
So much going on in Rochelle’s photo but as a jeeper myself, it was the Wrangler in the background that caught my eye. The original characters here were Lucy and Danny, but I think Raymond’s the one who makes it a story. Wranglers carry their spare wheel on the outside, which I suspect is where Danny’s hoping he can persuade Raymond to be.
And since we’ve found another set of brothers, here’s an old favourite.
Joe had four chores every morning before school. Danny only had one – fill up the dog’s water bowl. Mam said it was because he was only little. Being big sucked.
Their sister, Milly, had a bunch of chores. But she got the bus. Joe had to walk. And now he was big, he had to drop his brother at Kindergarten on the way.
Sometimes he thought about ditching Danny in the park, or selling him to strangers in white vans, but the strangers never seemed to stop.
He kicked over the dog’s bowl on the way past. That’d show them.
Extroduction
Poor Joe, he’s certainly feeling his age. I’ve written a pair of brothers, Matty and Luke, quite frequently, but this story didn’t feel like them, so Joe and Danny were born. I don’t think his daydreams are actually anything to worry about, but I doubt I’d be impressed if I were his mother!
Apparently we’re on a Canadian country jag at the moment. Here’s more Dean Brody for you – and a “try not to cry” challenge I fail every time I watch this one.
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