While walking through the neighborhood overcast by a blur of rainclouds Charles passed a young girl urging her two brothers half her size to keep up with her.
One said, “It’s gonna rain,” but she answered, “No.” Then the other said, “It’s gonna rain,” and she repeated, “No.”
Charles also thought it was going to rain. He hadn’t brought an umbrella, but after hearing the girl’s words he slowed the pace of his walking convinced in spite of the clouds that it wouldn’t rain.
Whether to fulfill a child’s prophecy or to give Charles something to think about it in fact did not rain, at least not until both he and those three children reached the shelter of their homes.
Red bougainvillea made a splash against a white wall as Tom wondered where he was.
When his mind wandered he’d sometimes get lost in imagined disasters he could do nothing about. Fortunately, although they seemed determined to mess with him to the extent they still could, he had enough sense to reject dark demonic misdirection.
Then Tom saw Phyllis wave to him in the distance. He hadn’t seen her in a decade, not since the funeral. Her smile and the joyful brilliance of the bougainvillea told him his journey was finally over and a new, better one had just begun.
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Denise offers the prompt word “mess” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
They sat outside our dorm singing the Moon Song. It was his favorite. Even she knew it. He sang, “Yadda yadda goo goo.” She responded, “Doodoo doodoo wah wah.” This would go on and on.
I imagined them singing the Moon Song for decades even after a long day of fighting and making up. When they grew old I imagined them singing it to each other in their hearts.
Indeed I hope so.
But we didn’t have air conditioning. My window was open. This was exam week. And that’s my lame excuse for shouting, “Shut up!”
Stanley didn’t like to swim but living near the ocean he didn’t mind, should the Spirit lead him, to take a sunrise stroll along the water’s edge.
The huge quantity of water brought Noah to mind. “That’s where all the water went,” he told himself. Then he provided the explanation that mountains rose while deep sea basins formed to collect the runoff which carved canyons along the way.
When Stanley told others the story of the water no one believed him (except those who did). Perhaps to taunt him for telling the tale of its failure to drown the remnant in that boat, or perhaps to merely remind him what it could still do, the water lapped its waves upon the sandy shore licking off any trace of Stanley’s footprints.
It didn’t require a visa to get where Pete went only a willingness that none of us had to go through that unpromising hole-in-the-wall. Perhaps some of us should have gone with him to point the way back, but we didn’t care that much what happened to him so long as whatever it was didn’t happen to us.
Today decades later and buried in memories our delightful destinations reached their dead-ends. Admittedly we knew this would happen, but we didn’t think it would happen in next to no time.
Pete told us to come along, but were we still welcome in spite of demonic reminders that we were not? Was the breath that coughed its way through our lungs evidence that there was still a bit of mercy left even for the likes of us?
In an attempt to make conversation, or perhaps scare away snakes that might be sunning themselves on the trail, Stephen said to Dale, “What makes deception work is all that true enough sky-is-blue stuff that serves as the delivery vehicle for the poison we don’t know we’re being fed.” He then added the next thing that popped into his head, “Of course, we only think others can be fooled so we happily open our mouths.”
Unwilling to follow just any non-sequitur where it leads, but also unwilling to remain unsociably silent, Dale countered, “Things haven’t changed much since that snake messed with Eve.”
Meeting the challenge Stephen observed, “You can tell by the cautious way the snake phrased its words that it was worried Eve was going to bite its head off if it made a wrong move.”
While pointing out the direction where the trail forked Dale noted, “She did want that lame excuse to eat forbidden fruit.”
Since this was Stephen’s first time on this twisted trail he only added by way of conclusion, “But after they took those bites—surprise!—they and that snake had plenty of other things to worry about.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “Surprise” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST.
If you want to read the brief dialogue between Eve and the serpent to see how far I’ve gone off the trail see Genesis 3:
Scrooge, the knot tier, saw threads come apart and got busy. Unfortunately the threads didn’t like the way he thought best to tie them together so they slipped through even the toughest knot Scrooge knew how to tie.
Meanwhile a prophet passed by and told Scrooge that he wasn’t anointed to tie knots. Frustrated with the threads this further bit of abuse pushed Scrooge over the edge triggering him to ask the prophet what exactly did anointed mean and what exactly does this prophet think Scrooge was supposed to be doing anyway instead of his own job tying knots?
Considering the unraveling state of the world prophets are very busy nowadays. He had no time to waste giving Scrooge any further word than “Merry Christmas!”
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Denise offers the prompt word “knot” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST. The next episode will be on January 1st, 2023.
Below the vault of the small chapel’s roof Brad watched a singer in the band step back from the microphone because her daughter approached. They stood calmly embracing and bracing each other through two songs of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord and a prophetic word. It was getting late, but the service was nearly finished.
That night the chapel held about twenty people including those leading the worship. There’s not much to this tale because all that happened, as if that weren’t enough, was mother and daughter both about the same height but decades different in age rested their hearts in support of each other.
Brad wanted the same love in his own family that those two shared.
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Denise offers the prompt word “vault” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST.
The range of colors of the leaves went from greens to bright reds and oranges before they fell. Dylan listened to Rene’s parable of letting go like those trees do in the fall so that with empty hands they may receive new blessings in the spring. It sort of made sense to him, but the nature sentimentality was a bit much.
Later that day Dylan and his wife assembled the Christmas tree in anticipation not of Santa, reindeer and presents, but of children coming home with their families.
He recalled Rene’s parable remembering how once green leaves had turned red over the years as a consequence of his own past deviations from what he knew he should have done. Now, however, he longed to see the children to bless them and to remove any curses he might have brought on them as he and his wife wished them a “Merry Christmas”.
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Denise offers the prompt word “range” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Associated with these prompts is a YouTube Channel, Two Guys and a Girlie, discussing the writing of these stories featuring Clark, Nick and Denise streaming live on Sundays at 2:30 PM EST.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 