Being Good
28 Days of Flash — 19 of 28 I hear the first line of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese in my head — you do not have to be good. You do not have to be good. I do not have to be good. I do not have …
Tend Your Garden
28 days of Flash — 18 of 28! Weaving two stories together around metaphor “Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today as a penitent man. I have done you the great disservice of not being a constant shepherd of our flock. A shepherd who …
Go Write
28 days of flash — 17 of 28. A study in second person essay. You’re too comfortable here. TV off. A single lamp creating shadows under the angles of the built-in entertainment center/dresser/desk/wardrobe on the opposite wall of this hotel room, all in varying heights of …
Quitting Pickleball
28 days of flash — #16 of 28 — fiction Sylvia had only booked the appointment with the hypnotherapist to get out of going to her pickleball group. Aggie was too competitive and it made Sylvia uncomfortable when she would scream and demand Sylvia return her aggressive high …
Parts Work
28 days of flash — 15 of 28 — Non fiction essay She’s still here. She’s buried under a clutter of crumpled paper, blank journals, and wasted keystrokes. Her giggles echo amid her whispers as she reads to herself from the dark green books filled …
The Lifetime Achievement Award for Doing Things Yourself
28 days of Flash — 14 of 28 “Can I help?” I don’t know why GenX seems to hate admitting we might need help with ANYTHING. Was it because we had keys to the house at 8 years old? Since we could make our own afterschool snacks, …
The Lighthouse Keeper
28 Days of Flash — Lucky 13 of 28 As Thomas climbed the 203 steps up the center of the lighthouse, he whistled a song he wrote himself which had exactly 203 notes. It made him smile to fill the echoing tower with music whenever …
Flashing Yellow Light
28 Days of Flash — Fiction 12 of 28 — a study in first person POV (trigger warning: narcissistic abuse) I sat at the flashing yellow light waiting to turn left. A never-ending stream of cars roared by me, and their fumes fused to the …
Thanks for the Memories
28 days of flash — Fiction 11 of 28 “I’m surprised she came.” Shannon picked up her brother-in-law’s whisper as soon as she walked through the door of the church. The vestibule was an echo chamber. It always had been, even when she had gone …
The Mist Trail Mom
28 Days of Flash — Non-Fiction #10 of 28 The throng of people on Yosemite’s Mist Trail hear a woman saying something loudly in German to a boy who is leaping around on steps cut into the rocks. Clearly mom has noticed her son is behaving in …