Red Writing Hood: Salt Water

“The cure for anything is salt water….sweat, tears or the sea.”
~ Isak Dinesen, pseudonym of Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke

Prompt:  Have your character resolve a problem using one of the three (or all three!!!). There are so many ways you can use this prompt so be creative with it, don’t take us where we think you’ll go.  

This is a continuation of this story.



The scales of a dragon are impervious to all things; the skin of a human is not.   While in human form, I was vulnerable should those who hunted my kind find me.  While our children grew within me, my lover Arik would protect us with his life, but what then? 

Somewhere in the back of my mind, in the vast depths of dragon memory, the answer lay hidden.  I was vexed with this problem of vulnerability constantly, even as my belly grew large and I was unable to move very far.  As my body became wracked with the pains of birth, the answer came, pushed to the fore by the same contractions which left me four squalling sons to care for.

Salt water. 

Panting from my exertions and too weak by far in human form, I asked Arik for what was needed.  It was he who gathered the wood and placed his largest cauldron onto the fire, filled it with water, and added as much salt as could be found in the larder.  When the water was boiling, it was Arik who took each newborn from my arms and held it over the cauldron.

I spoke the words, but it was their father who dropped each child into the cauldron of salt water and pulled them out with tongs while they spluttered and screamed.  As Arik returned each child to my embrace, my sons heard the sound of my heartbeat and quickly fell asleep, now protected by dragon magic. 

Remembered: Title/Tagline

Prompt:  Imagine your life, or a part of your life, as a title and tagline.  That’s it. Give us the title, and give us the tagline.


Tales of the Green M&M

Hard on the outside but soft on the inside, she never melted when the heat was on.

Red Writing Hood: Breakfast In Bed

WOE Prompt:  Four hundred words or less, fiction or creative non-fiction, linked up on Friday morning’s post, based on the following definition of  flavor: A substance used to alter or enhance the taste of food or drink.  This is a continuation of previous writing.


There is absolutely nothing like breakfast in bed,  Zenna thought, smiling to herself.  She paused in the doorway.

Boone was splayed out on his stomach, his head burrowed underneath his pillow, snoring softly.  The sheets had fallen on the floor at some point, giving Zenna the opportunity to openly stare at his sleekly muscled body.  She smiled as she sat the tray down gently on the bed.  Boone's breathing did not change. Good.

Climbing on the bed, she made her way slowly up until she was settled between Boone's legs with her upper body resting on his backside. She reached over and grabbed a still hot waffle from the tray, and gently placed it on the small of his back.  A sharp intake of breath let her know that he was awake, but he did not move a muscle. Zenna smiled.  She added butter, then drizzled maple syrup over the waffle. She watched as it slowly dripped onto Boone's smooth skin and started to slip toward a hip.  A muffled moan drifted toward her as she moved to lick the syrup off of that smooth skin.

Zenna paused to inhale the aroma of the waffle and the syrup.  Underneath, she could smell the familiar but indefinable scent of her husband, the barest hint of cinnamon and nutmeg emanating from his skin.

It was without a doubt best waffle she had ever eaten.





NOTE: Yes, this is a bit racy, but you've gotta go where the muse takes you.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take a cold shower.

Remembered: Unfulfilled

Prompt:  This week we’d like you to write a memoir piece about an unfulfilled goal or a broken resolution, beginning with the words, “I knew what I wanted”.  If this sucks, I apologize.  I am extremely tired and fighting off a migraine.


I knew what I wanted. I wanted to lose thirty pounds.  I was going on this diet, I was going to exercise, and dammit, that lard around my stomach was just going to melt off in the face of my determination.  I would be bikini ready by May.   I didn't really see a problem; the weight would just fall off once I started exercising.  This would be so EASY!

I had willpower.

The diet I was on was very restricted,  the portions tiny.   I felt as though I were in the desert, eating a mirage of food, while my tummy did the rumbly thing, usually in the middle of class.  I didn't want to disturb my peers and upset my professors.   It was for the benefit of others that I brought a candy bar to snack on; not everyone is able to focus on their studies with the rumble of empty stomachs rolling about.

The exercise involved running. Lots and Lots of running.  My breath burned a hole in my chest in order to allow a secondary access point  to fill up my lungs with air.  My kneecaps grinding together with every step.  It was a gruelingly strenuous three flights of stairs. I had to drink a gallon of Gatorade to get my electrolytes recharged. Who knew that Gatorade and KitKat bars tasted so well together?

After all that work, I needed to come home and relax with the television, closing my eyes.   A large bowl of popcorn was in my hands when I woke up!   Dang, it's slathered with salt butter, too.  But I can't let it  go to waste, because I would feel bad.   Starving kids in China and all that. 

I gained 10 pounds in a month.  Depression set in.  I felt horrible, and drowned my sorrows in pizza and beer.  Obviously, I was meant to be sort-of-round-shaped.

Red Writing Hood: A Walk in the Woods

Prompt: Good writing plants the reader’s feet into your story. Good writing is also concise. So when you’re trying to decide where to spend your words – where to use the most imagery and details and senses – I say setting is where its at. Close your eyes, paint the picture in your mind, and then use your words to paint it for me.

This is the visualization that I use sometimes when I need to relax. Which is every five minutes.

The lush emerald of the forest beckons me, and my bare feet are relieved to step on the softness that is my path. The soles of my feet sink blissfully into the moss; looking down, my eyes follow the dark green fuzziness that has crept up the sides of the trees.

I look ahead of me. The trees on the edge of the forest where I stand are saplings and young trees reaching for the last bits of sunlight. I begin to walk down the path, and I look with wonder at that which is before me. The young trees give way to tall and sturdy trees that extend high above me. These older trees have joined hands, and their branches have created an unbroken, verdant canopy. I become enveloped in a pool of twilight. Birdsong echoes around me, circling, as if everywhere at once. The path extends into the center of the forest, where there is a small clearing around an enormous and ancient oak tree.

As I step into the clearing, a hush falls. I sit at the foot of the oak tree and feel cradled in the arms of the Mother herself. I close my eyes to listen to the breath of the trees and the heartbeat of the Earth.


...and if I'm not relaxed by this point, I have to break out the emergency chocolate.

Red Dress Club: Not Yet

Prompt: This week we’d like you to explore romantic heartbreak. For you fiction writers, here’s a chance to really delve into the psyche of your character. For you non-fiction folk, well, maybe it’s into your psyche you must delve. We all remember that first love, just like we all remember when our hearts broke for the first time. This is fiction.

There was something on my chest. A gargantuan, invisible demon was standing on my chest, it seemed. I could not even take a shallow breathe; the weight of the words fell on me like body blows.

My focus became pinpointed on the idea that I needed. To. Breathe. I would be okay if I could breathe.

"...and I think that this is something that I need to do, for myself. You just don't fulfill my needs anymore. Candace really gets me. She anticipates my wants and she brings them to me. You won't. I will come back tomorrow to get my things, when you aren't here. I can't even stand to look at you anymore. Candace is waiting for me in the car." Scott looked at me, as if he were expecting something.

That angry demon was reaching into my chest and wrapping their hands around my heart. Squeezing. I could feel claws sinking into me. I could not form a coherent thought, so I simply stared, my eyes wide with shock. My eyes were starting to tear from the pain.

Not yet.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Scott's face took on a familiar sneer. He stepped closer.

"Hello! I am breaking up with you! Don't you get it? Don't you have anything to say?"

The patronizing tone snapped me upright, my shoulders back, my chin high. Difficult to manage with claws deeply embedded in my chest, but I did it. I stood tall, even though I felt like crumpling to the floor.

Not yet.

"Well?" another sneer at me, as if I were too stupid to understand, when I understood all too well.

Demon claws squeezed ever tighter.

Not yet.

I walked to the front door and opened it, pretending calm. I could see Scott's Jeep at the curb, a silhouette sitting in the passenger seat.

I should have been angry. I should have yelled, thrown things, punched someone in the face. Instead, I stood there at the open door and showed no reaction at all. I inclined my head toward the door and tried to keep myself breathing, even as my chest seemed to constrict.

Not yet.

"I am so out of here." Scott walked out of my life, disgusted with my silence. I watched him drive off with a squeal of tires. As I locked the door, I was finally able to take that breath I'd been wanting.

Now.

Those waiting claws ripped into my heart with the malice of the past ten minutes. I felt as though my heart had been eviscerated, yet it was still beating. The pain threw me to the floor, and my numbed reactions now came spilling out of me, an avalanche of anger, fear, hurt. As I lay there, crying, I could finally speak, and I just needed to say the words.

"Don't go."

Red Writing Hood: Jeans

Prompt: Jeans. They can evoke so much emotion in us: the hot jeans we wear on a date, the skinny jeans we can finally fit into, mom jeans we vow never to wear, the comfy jeans we’ll never throw out. The assignment this week is to write a piece – fiction or creative non-fiction – in which jeans play a prominent role. You can even write an ode if you’re so inclined. This is fiction, except that I used the names of people I know, because it seemed to give it a flavor. Yes, I said flavor. I'm kind of hungry.

The sunshine felt great after sitting in a freezing room learning about the War of 1812. I lifted my face toward the sky as a gentle breeze whispered of the fall weather to come. My friends and I were sitting on a stone bench in the Quad, chatting before it was time for our next class. Cathy and Barbie were arguing discussing the Dallas Cowboys and Laura was occupied with picking hairs off of her new stunning black sweater. I glanced about, watching the people standing in groups around us or hurrying to class.

And then I saw them.

They walked leisurely right past me, a little higher than eye level, but arresting just the same. They were Levi's 501s with the button fly that everyone wore at the time. Except these were so very much more.

"Holy S***!" was all I could say.

All rational thought left my head, and every last hormone surged through my bloodstream. Barbie and Cathy noticed my face, stopped arguing talking, and turned to see what all the fuss was about.

"What are you three going on about n--" Laura turned, saw my face and looked toward the object of my transfixed gaze.

"Oh my!" was all that she could manage.

We all stared at the jeans. The sounds around us faded into silence, and the jeans seemed to move more slowly, almost teasing.

They were filled out, firm and rounded, and moved with an almost catlike grace. The muscles were fluid, just under the surface of the denim, and my hands tingled with the urge to touch those muscles. Muscles that flexed when they walked. Muscles that appeared strong enough to sweep a girl off her feet. And keep her there, if she were so inclined. There seemed to be some wear on the inside of the thighs; could these jeans be worn from riding a horse? I wondered vaguely. The jeans flowed downward and ended, a bit frayed, at a pair of black cowboy boots. Those jeans called to me, like the song of the Sirens, as they made their way up the stairs and into the Arts and Literature building. I am a bit dangerous and very wild, they seemed to say, what can I do for you?

For just a second, I thought about chasing those jeans through the Quad, just to fling myself around them.

I sighed heavily, remembering that I had Botany in ten minutes and there was a test.
Three other heavy sighs sounded in unison with mine. I whirled around, the spell completely broken.

We all shared a girl-moment of giggles, and a little embarrassment at being so obviously taken, as we went our separate ways.

Red Writing Hood: The Ritual of Changing

Prompt: For this week’s prompt, write about a season of change for your character or you. It can be literal or metaphorical. I am trying to continue what I started here. I apologize in advance for any spelling errors; it was late when I wrote this. Concrit is appreciated!

My time came upon me, and the urge to create life became too strong. It pulsed through my blood in rhythm with my heart, until I could not sleep. I must mate.

How?

There were no other dragons, just me, I thought bitterly. I lay in my cave, despairing, and then remembered a story once told by the clan Seer about the Ritual of Changing. I had only heard the story once, and could barely recall the name of the Ritual, much less the story. Now I had hope.

I searched through what archives I could find, traveled from cave to cave. By day I read the rocks. I could find nothing! Until my eye spotted something gleaming on the side of a lonely spire nearby, I was growing desperate. A forgotten dragon lair, with the bleached bones of a human outside its entrance. The gleaming was a sword and shield. Daylight found me poring over dragon archives that were hidden away deeper in the mountain than I ever knew possible.

It was here that I found the answer, in the ritual magic of the dragons. I carefully copied what I needed on a rock of my own; I did not want to disturb this lonely place by removing the secrets it had held close for so long. I took the sword and shield with me, and dropped them as I flew over a pasture on my way home, reasoning that if I had been able to see their gleam, other humans might also.

I prepared for my own Ritual of Changing. I would be unable to eat while in my temporary form, but I would only be changed for a short time. I gathered the required materials; emeralds, obsidian, the bones of a deceased human, a knife made of silver, a small Aspen tree, a plant called rosemary, and a snow-fed lake.

That night, I moved rocks into a circle next to the lake, and breathed onto the broken bits of Aspen in the center to start a fire. I picked up the rosemary plant and walked in a clock-wise circle three times, chanting the ancient words that were now embedded in my mind. I began to sense the bones of my Ancestors stirring in the earth below me. I then held the rosemary over the fire until it began to smoke, and walked the circle another three times. The circle closed, and suddenly my Ancestors were whispering; they surrounded me. Their power filled me, seeking, but I was determined and therefore unafraid. My chanting never slowed as I placed the human bones in the fire, then the emeralds and obsidian. The Ancestors took up my chant. The fire rose higher in response, and the flames appeared blue, indigo and violet. I picked up the knife, held it with both hands over my head. Then I used the knife and sliced open a vein by inserting the blade between the scales on my arm.

Bleeding heavily, I walked into the fire. The flames seemed to feed on my blood and rose even higher. I could hear my Ancestors screaming. Then the Change began; the sudden pain as my bones began to reform made my back arch as I screamed.

I fell, curling up with the pain, the seething pain, and the flames grew even higher, consuming me. I knew no more for a time. I came to myself with the flames still cradling me, and hurled myself from the fire. I staggered, crawling, and finally was able threw myself into the cool waters. I felt the hiss of the steam upon my body. When it stopped, I rose to the surface, stood on two legs instead of my four, and made my way to the shoreline. My scales were gone, and as I looked down my pale skin gleamed in the moonlight.

I would appear human for the next ten days. Now I could mate, and bear offspring.

Jealous

Note:Aaah...jealousy. We all have it. We all feel it.

And now we'd like you to write about it. We'll leave it open: you can write about something or someone you envy, or a time when your jealousy got you in trouble, or maybe how it makes you feel to be envious. Whatever you want.

And it can be fiction or non-fiction. This is Fiction! Although I probably am the Neighborhood Crazy Lady. Word limit is 600.




As I stood out in my front yard, watering my roses, there they were. It was my next door neighbor's daughter, home from college, and a friend of hers. Two young, lithe bodies sunning themselves on the front lawn of my neighbor's house, where everybody and God could see them. Of course I stared. That's what they wanted, I realized. Why else would they have been out in the front yard, instead of in the backyard with the privacy fence? I stared.

Those long legs, smooth and evenly tanned.

Glutes that were almost granite.

Breasts, perched upright and proud way above tiny waistlines.

Flat, washboard abdomens.

Svelte hips.

Blistering white smiles and full, pouty lips.

Long hair radiating gold in the sunlight.

All that beautiful, luscious, ripe youth, stuffed into tiny bikinis that left nothing at all to the imagination.

Who wouldn't stare? They were wearing the kind of tiny scraps of cloth that I used to wear when I was their age. When my body looked like that. Only better, because I had the benefit of hindsight.

The two not-yet-women-but-no-longer-girls finally noticed me, the Crazy Neighbor Lady, standing next to my pink roses in my front yard, staring at them. They leaned toward one another, and one girl put her hand over her mouth to hide what she was saying. They giggled at the old neighbor lady staring at them while she watered her flowers. I turned away from them and moved toward my yellow roses.

I thought about my varicose veins, which make my legs look like a map of the interstates.

The thighs so covered in cellulite they looked hail damaged.

The breasts stretched oblong from breastfeeding and age.

The hips misaligned from carrying children on one hip.

The arms that jiggle so much they are recorded as seismic activity.

The dull, lifeless hair.

The double chin. The jowls. The feeling that my face is slowly sliding down into my cleavage from the gravity of my years.

A feeling came over me. An urge to run over to my neighbor's front yard and grab those two girls by the hair and pull every last strand out. To throw them out of those lawn chairs and into the hot street where the asphalt had the same temperature as the sun. The urge to claw that smooth, flawless skin to ribbons. My stomach clenched, and I could almost feel my fingers piercing soft flesh.

What was the word I was looking for? Then it hit me. Jealous. That was the word I was looking for. I was jealous of those two girls because they were young and beautiful. I am not either of those things, not anymore.

But I do have a petty side to my personality.

I turned and squirted both girls with the hose.

Temptation

NOTE: This week's prompt is simple: write a piece, fiction or non-fiction, inspired by the delicious shot. I chose to write fiction, and I don't even know anybody named Casparelli.




That damned doughnut would kill me, I thought, right here in the break room. There it sat, a brightly colored pastry of deep fried lard, butter, flour and sugar, in a box on the table in front of me. I had made sure this was the last doughnut in the box, and it was therefore the BEST doughnut in the box. I desired that doughnut in the same way a sailor craves shore leave. Under other circumstances, this doughnut would have been a mere memory, but this one was special. I suddenly realized that I had someone looking over my shoulder.

"Go on and take it," I said to Mr.Casparelli, even as my mouth watered uncontrollably. My boss had the same look of covetousness on his face that I did. I could see saliva beginning to pool in the corners of his mouth. He pushed his glasses back up to the top of his nose.

"Oh no, I couldn't," he replied. It was a well-known secret that the boss often rummaged through the fridge and unoccupied desks, stealing food from his subordinates. Only yesterday, he had been observed by my coworkers stealing a box of Girl Scout cookies from my desk. He wasn't fooling anybody, pretending he didn't want this doughnut.

"I insist, sir," I smiled. "You deserve it."

"Well, since you insist," Mr. Casperelli chuckled and swiftly lifted the luscious pink doughnut to his mouth. He took a huge bite and sighed, the beginnings of a smile lost as he began to chew. I kept the smile on my own face as he walked back to his office, munching away, and shut the door. I poured myself a cup of coffee, then went to my own desk to start the day.

Mr. Casperelli would be alone in his office for the next hour or two, officially making phone calls, but in reality to take a nap. Considering the amount of foxglove I put into that doughnut, he would not be waking up. Killing my boss had been surprisingly simple, I thought. The hardest thing had been resisting the urge to eat the doughnut myself. I opened a drawer in my desk, pulled out a box of Girl Scout cookies and opened it. I bit into the dark chocolate.

NOBODY steals MY Thin Mints.

Tipping Point

NOTE: This week's Red Writing Hood assignment is to write - fiction or non-fiction - about a time when you took a detour. Where had you intended to go and where did you end up?



The thought crossed my mind that sleepless nights were meant for introspection, some sort of mental airing out of problems. And as my fiance' snored next to me, I gave myself to an internal glare in the mirror. I had my entire life mapped out: finish grad school by 26, get married at 27, have 2 kids by 30, and live happily ever after. I was close to finishing grad school, and I was engaged, perfectly on schedule.

Except that it wasn't perfect. Just that evening, Jason had grabbed my arm brutally, pulled my face close to his, and told me in no uncertain terms what he was going to do to me if I defied him again. I had done something I wasn't supposed to do without his permission. Something that would seem trivial to others, such as taking out the trash and saying 'hello' to the man who lived next door on my way back to the apartment, was not allowed. I had to learn my place, my fiance' told me, his breath hot on my face. This time I did not flinch at the pain in my arm, and when he let me go, I went to the freezer for an ice pack without saying a word.

There had been glaring red neon signs along the way, of course, that told me in no uncertain terms that this man was going to be abusive. But Jason was the only one who had ever asked me to marry him, and he 'fit' into the map of my life. I moved in with him, pretending that his emotional and now physical abuse would get better.

What I did not foresee on my road map was the tiny blue flame that was kindled the very first time Jason told me that I was stupid and worthless. Each new derogatory comment or insult fed the fire growing inside of me, and this was the culmination. I felt white-hot with the conflagration within me.

I would kill this man sleeping next to me if he hit me. He would hit me and I would kill him. I knew this certainty within my bones. I lay there next to him, and I thought very hard. I could stay where I was, marry this abusive man, kill him, and go to prison. Or I could leave him, go on with my life, and to hell with what everyone else said about where I was supposed to be at my age. I sat up in bed and looked at Jason. I could barely see him in the darkness.

So not worth prison time, I decided. If that meant never marrying, so be it. My road map was adding a detour. I have never looked back.

Vegetables

Note: The prompt for this post is to share a memory about a vegetable, and not the politician-kind.



My grandmother's house was pink when I was little. Not a flamboyant, flamingo pink, because that is not the way of farm women of 'True' German descent, but a respectable shade of Bright Blush. The paint store probably had that color on sale or clearance, I always thought, even as a kid. The Not Flamboyantly Pink house was pretty isolated back then, off of a gravel road somewhere near Camp Point, Illinois. My parents and my brother and I would visit my grandparent's farm at least once a year, usually during the summer.

My grandmother had a garden behind the pink house, where she would grow tomatoes and other vegetables. When I was much younger, I would 'help' my grandmother gather the vegetables for the evening meal. We would talk while I 'helped'. Our conversations, as I recall, consisted of lengthy monologues by me on topics of significance to me, and my grandmother's responses to all my pronouncements were always the same.

"Yup," my grandmother would say. On this particular day she was picking green beans while I 'helped'. When enough beans were picked, we took the bucket of green beans to the water pump to wash them, and then we carried the beans to the porch. There my grandmother and I sat, and we prepared the beans to be cooked. My mother came out to help, and the two older women talked.

This first time, I remember the crisp snapping sound of the beans as my grandmother would break off the ends. I tried to imitate her, but my small fingers did not have her strength. In an effort to try and solve the problem without adult assistance, I decided to bite the ends of the beans off. The taste of those green beans were, well, green. Like freshly mown grass smells; that was the taste of those beans. It was not unpleasant.

My mother noticed what I was doing at this point, and freaked out a little at the realization that I was eating everything BUT the beans, including a few small, unfortunate bugs. (I was five or six, what the heck did I know about what green beans looked like?) She began scolding me. Just the fact that my mother was concerned was enough to make my tummy hurt; I thought I was in trouble.

My grandmother was one of thirteen children. She had raised eleven of her own, including my mother. She had seen it all before, likely worse. She just sighed heavily, picked up the bucket of beans, and went into the house. The screen door punctuated her exit, and that was as effective as if she had yelled at us. My mom and I stared at each other, then got up and followed my grandmother into the house.

ugly

Prompt: Write a short piece, either fiction or non-fiction, about something ugly – and find the beauty in it.




"That has to be the ugliest cactus I have ever seen," my new husband told me as we were moving into our new home.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "It's not that bad."

The cactus was hideous; it was three feet tall, awkward, and narrow, with a couple of stubby outgrowths that couldn't really be called branches. It was covered with so many spines that it looked a mottled gray instead of green. I had tried improving the look by placing the cactus in a brillantly scarlet pot, with no success. It was now ugly in a pretty pot. I had taken to calling the cactus Jezebel.

Jezebel weighed more than I could lift by myself, so I asked my husband to help me move it from the truck to our patio. Larry put his back into the job and was covered in spines before he was able to put the obnoxious plant down. I knew from many firsthand experiences that those spines were painful; they were so fine that they were almost impossible to see and therefore difficult to remove from the skin. Larry complained loudly as he went into the house to change out of the sticker-infected clothing. I resigned myself to spending our first evening in our new house with tweezers instead of a cabernet. I stared at Jezebel sitting on my new patio.

The cactus was ugly, no doubt. I remembered pulling it from a bargain bin at a nursery. I'd nurtured it from a small gangly twig smaller than its spines. I bought it special cactus soil and special cactus food. I talked to it. I did not overwater. I brought it inside when the weather turned freezing. That this particular plant had made it this long was a testament to the will to survive that exists in all things. Still, I had had many opportunities to rid myself of Jezebel over the years.

"Why are you here, Jezebel?" I said aloud. I went back inside the house to finish some more unpacking and take care of my husband.

The morning after an exceptional benevolent spring rainstorm, Jezebel greeted me one morning completely decked out in tiny, bright, purple flowers. I was struck silent by how intensely beautiful it appeared. Within a month, Jezebel was dead. It seemed to me, at that point, that the cactus had only been waiting for the right opportunity to let its true beauty shine forth.

Blasts from the Past

NOTE: This was from another prompt of the Red Dress Club; we were supposed to write about finding a forgotten item in the back of our closet. I wrote in my notebook, and then promptly forgot about it. Seems a shame to waste it, so here it is.

I found a tiny piece of fabric on the floor underneath a box in the back of my closet the other day. I picked it up, thinking that it was something that had fallen from a dress. Then I felt the tell tale signs of an underwire. I looked closer. It was a black lace demi-bra. So tiny! I checked the size: 34A. I was momentarily taken aback. Was this MY bra? I cannot at first recall the last time I wore a size 34 bra, let alone an A cup.

Then it came to me, the memory of a perfect dress of formfitting black lace with the perfect black lace bra, panties, garter, and stockings to go with it. A night, so very long ago, when I looked exceptionally hot and knew it down to my bones. A night of confidence, when I didn't worry about whether I had something green on my teeth or whether my thighs were too fat. A night of dancing, laughter, and fun with my friends. Good times, I recall, and smile to myself. I pause. I cannot remember my date for that perfect evening, and as he was so easily forgotten, he must not have been all that wonderful.

I should have put the bra in with the clothes earmarked for Goodwill. I had every intention of doing so, of letting go of the distant past. But somehow the tiny bra stayed in my hand, and was lovingly put into the lingerie drawer. The dress is gone, but the bra shall remain, since it triggered such fond remembrance. Happy memories are like gold, and on my more melancholy days, I find that I have a need to remember the 'transgressions' of my youth, however incomplete those memories might be.

No Water

NOTE: This is in response to a writing prompt from The Red Dress Club. This is my first attempt to write fiction, and I am not sure of myself, so try to be gentle!

In the moments after my car was run off the road, I lost consciousness. When I awoke, my first thought was of my son. He had been strapped into his car seat.

“Michael?” I say his name.

Silence.

A moment of panic spikes through me. I tell myself to breathe. I take a deep breath, and try to turn my head. He is there; I see his chest rise and fall out of the corner of my eye. My son is breathing, and so I now breathe. He is sleeping, I realize. He slept through the entire accident.

Suddenly my car door is ripped open, and I turn again, this time painfully. A gun appears, pointed at my face. “Get out,” a voice says. I glance at the source of the voice, at a man with no hair. His head is covered in blisters from sunburn, and he is dirty. My revulsion must have shown on my face, because the gun suddenly was shoved into my lip hard enough to split it.

“GET OUT NOW!” He yelled. I reached for the seatbelt release, and got stiffly out of the car. I kept my hands up, and let the blood run down my chin.

“Where is it?” A shove with the gun, and more blood gushed from my fast swelling lip.

“What are you talking about?” My incomprehension had to have been obvious.

“Water! Where do you keep the water?” The man's voice was desperate.

Now I understood. Water. I looked around; there was no vegetation to be seen, and lots of dust. There was no more water out here; it had all been piped into the cities, where it was doled out by the thimbleful to those residents lucky enough to be able to pay for it. The ones who did not have the money, went without, and died. Water gives life. Water takes it away. Soon, there would be no more water at all, except for what was in the polluted oceans, and that was unfit to drink.

“I don’t have any water.” I was sorry to have to tell him this, and not just because he had a gun in my face. I could see that he was only sweating lightly in this heat, and that was not a good thing. “I would give you water if I had it.”

“You lie!” The man yelled. “Nobody travels this far out from the city without water!” He looked into the car, and saw my sleeping child.

“Get the boy!” For the first time I realized that there was another man; I had been focused on the gun in my face. My son was unceremoniously ripped from his car seat. He began to cry and struggle. The man who pulled him from the car brought him over to where I was standing, and put a gun to my son’s head. I was instantly angry, and afraid.

“I do not have any water. Please let my son go,” I tried to keep my voice steady, my eyes on my child. It was no use. Before I could shout “NO!” my son turned himself in the man's arms, opened his mouth, and ripped the throat out of the man holding him. I quickly pulled the small knife I had hidden in my bra and sliced the throat of the man holding the gun on me. He had been staring at my son, and was dead before he realized what was happening. I caught him before he landed the wrong way and spilled everything.

“You should have waited until Mommy got out the bucket, “ I told my son. He was drinking greedily and ignored me. I sighed.

Water gives life. Water takes it away. Unless you adapt.

The Scream

I was five or six years old. We lived in El Paso, Texas. We were getting ready to go somewhere, so I was sitting on the couch waiting for everyone else. I can't remember if my brother was in the room with me, but my dad was somewhere else in the house.

My mother is walking to the door, talking to us. As she opens the door, the sunlight that spills joyfully into the living room blinds me and I put my hand up to cover my eyes. I can only see the lower half of my mom's body as she pushes open the screen door, and then she is screaming.

She is screaming and jumping around.

She is screaming, jumping around, and flailing her arms.

My mother is screaming, jumping around, and flailing her arms.

It is the first time I've ever heard my mother scream.

It is the first time I've ever seen my mother afraid.

It's the first time I've ever seen my mother go completely batshit crazy.

I'm fascinated.

My father rushes in by this time to save the day. A tiny garter snake had somehow climbed to the top of the screen door and fell on my mother when she opened the door. I was surprised that the poor snake hadn't keeled over from a heart attack with all the screaming my mother was doing. Once the snake was safely inside a coffee can with holes poked in the lid, my family went on about our day. The snake was later released somewhere which did not involve screaming housewives.