Bosom Buddies

Bosom Buddies

BFF #231

She was devastated.  The trial of the past year had taken such a toll not only on her but the family and her friends.  Everyone seemed to smile and look at her through pity filled eyes at her.  It was a difficult road, she was having difficulty letting go of the stress.

Weeping into her handkerchief, gasping for breath, she peeked over her hands to look out the window.  She dreaded the sight before her.  Hating the knowledge that her tear stained cheeks and red puffy eyes were going to tell the story before she had a chance too, she gathered herself from the window seat and began walking towards the door. 

Her date was pulling into the drive.  The yellow Thunderbird convertible, with the top down, crunched on the gravel.  Pulling into a parked position close to the front entrance.  With the sound of the car door slamming shut she glanced in a mirror as she passed.  The cool washcloth she had gathered earlier helped, somewhat. They had this date on the calendar for months.  She was not going to disappoint anyone by not being prepared. 

Mom stood there, on the stoop.  Dressed casually in jeans and a sweater. And of course her trade mark smile.  Mom always wore a smile that took in not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole upper body.  Like she just wanted to wrap those angel wing arms around you and hug all the hurt away.

 They had a date, the two of them.  They were going shopping.  This day had been planned for months.  Just the two of them.  Spending time together, lest anything else untoward should happen.

Calling themselves the “Bosom Buddies”, they were shopping for lacy, sexy, colorful bras for Mom.  Her breast cancer in remission.  The mastectomy scars healed.  The bruising from the implants nearly indiscernible, she was determined to face her future surrounded by things she loves.  Feeling fortunate to be counted among those loved items, she put on a brave face to, as he mother would put it, “sally forth”.  

leigh

Sandra's Writing Prompt - Close

Sandra’s Writing Prompt – “Close”

I enjoy the aroma of fresh fruits and vegetables. Peppers, of all sorts, tend to give me a mental as well as physical boost.  The clean smell of firm ripe yellow and red peppers invigorates me.  My energy level rises.  The arthritis in my fingers and thumbs automatically recede, giving way to flexible fingers.  Could I play the piano, “Flight of the Bumblebee” would peel through the neighborhood.  This simple task of cleaning and cutting, for freezing, has this old body ready to dance again.  

leigh

Bottom #2

Bottom

GBE 2: Blog On

Part 2

The big “crash” came around 7:00pm EST on December 21^st, .  Just as “they” had predicted.  At least “they” got the date correct.  The aftermath hasn’t been quite as predicted. Arriving on a Friday evening, here in America, most people were at home with their families.  

Solar flares on the heels of a solar plasma release, annihilated nearly all of the satellites orbiting the Earth.  This cut off much communication.  Isolating pockets of people.  In turn, each speculating that they were the only survivors.

The solar storms and flares hit the Earth.  While the destruction was unpredictable, the chaos that ensued was deplorable.  Another emergency with no Emergency Broadcast.  At least, no alerting notification for the minions.  I can only speculate who received an early notification and who didn’t.  As one of the minions, I am not privy to that knowledge.  However, a rather larger than normal coalition  emerged from the underground safe haven, located in the Mountains. 

These people, politicians mostly,  contend that by virtue of hiding underground, their double helix genome would be still intact.  At one point, they attempted an edict stating they would be the only ones to sire any children.  Let me tell you, that didn’t go over very well.  One of the many reasons for the riots. 

The gamma ray radiation that hit the Earth, took its toll.  There are many factions still trying to reason why some perished while others did not.  Other than hiding at the bottom of a mountain like a troll so as not to be hit with any of it.  Some died immediately, some perished plane later, some were altered, and some had no found side effects at all.  

Those that died immediately, were absolutely incinerated.  Gone.  JUST like in the books.  Their clothing and any jewelry left in a pile, untouched.  Eerie to run across, let me tell you. 

Those who perished later left in varying degrees of excruciating pain.  The radiation had obliterated many people’s organs or body parts.  The one’s who lost all of their brains died the most quickly.  Some lost differing parts of their brains.  It was sad to watch those whose Medulla Oblongata (located in the cerebrum) quit first.  If they were not found soon enough, or even some that had, simply died as though they had been smothered.  Not being able to breathe is a frightening thing, worse to watch someone go through it.

As you can well imagine, some lost differing parts of their brains, thus the zombies.  These zombies, unlike those we used to watch on television, couldn’t create new zombies with a bite…but they did bite!  Mean shits!  And, as on television, they cannot abide the daylight.  It doesn’t disintegrate them as though they were a vampire…yeah, some need the extra proteins only available through direct intake of fresh blood.  We have vampires.  Our transformed world reads more and more like a sci-fi story with each and every passing day.  The more I see and learn, the more I realize those with the ability to imagine had the better grasp of the day-to-day future than any of the zealots. 

It is said, that less than one quarter of the human population survived the first day.  Of those people who survived the first week, another 30% perished from after effects.  Most lives were lost based on the building materials they were near or surrounded by.  Radiation doesn’t travel well through some materials and very well through others. Steel, for instance, depending upon the thickness used for building shielded many people.  Unless they had a window office.  But for those who were interior of steel constructed building, they were mostly untouched. 

The governing powers are not all pleased with the surviving minions.  We are too spread out to be herded as the sheep of an overcrowded populous.  We are survivors with definite minds of our own.  The old ways have passed.  We live on, stronger through our very survival, kinder for our losses, and wiser for our experiences. Many people were lost to the gamma ray radiation, many people subsequently died from injuries, others yet perished from broken hearts. 

Well, I’m here to tell you.  Not all of us perished.  Some of us live on. 

leigh

Retrospect

Retrospect

GBE 2: Blog On

It wasn’t like anything I had imagined.  Nothing I had seen on television came close to what actually occurred.  Nothing could have prepared us for the truth, except the truth.  Nothing could have altered the outcome. 

Don’t get me wrong, thousands of people handed out their “predictions”.  It was as if everyone had suddenly become a soothsayer.  Depending on your philosophical, political or physical point of view the predictions had different outcomes. 

Some thought it would be the Biblical “Rapture”, others thought the Human Race would be obliterated (why just human kind and not the rest of animal life I don’t know), the Earth would rotate on her axis, Zombies would be created and pro-create with biting people,  earthquakes and hurricanes would demolish everything and everybody, and still others said nothing would happen. 

The Mayan Day-keepers viewed the date as a “rebirth”.  The start of the World of the Fifth Sun.  A new era as the solar meridian crosses the galactic equator and the Earth aligns itself with the center of the galaxy.

They were all wrong, and yet they were all eerily right.

December 21, 2012 came as every other day had during December.  People shopped, celebrated the holiday season, made plans for the New Year’s celebrations, shoveled their driveways, collected paperwork to file their income tax returns, in general people went on living. 

Then evening fell.  And so did the radiation flare.

I have since learned that it takes eight minutes for the radiation of a solar flare, from the sun, to reach the Earth.  Typically, this has happened on a daily basis for time on end.  Earth was born within radiation showers…we were not.

We had all experienced the problems of the Suns eleven year cycle, called the ‘solar maximum”. The amount of solar flares interfered with our; cell phones, internet, i-pads, and all types of navigational gadgets.  Slow downs, lock ups, dropped connections were just a part of everyday life during 2012.  We, the laymen, did understand sun cycles.  Most of us knew this would pass and uninterrupted life would resume.

The debacle on September 11, 2001, of the Emergency Broadcast System, was repeated.  It seemed this time for different reasons.  Not for lack of attention.  Many eyes had been watching the skies.  The minions were not warned because the underlying funds to keep the system in place had been funneled into some pet project of a certain senator.  No one was manning the air waves. 

For hundreds of years, every year, there was some cult leader predicting the end of times.  Every culture spoke of it in their history/legacy/legend and myths.  From the; Mayans, Hopi, Edgar Casey, Bible, Torah, Koran, or Nostradamus, they had all predicted the fall of human kind through fire and water. 

Well, I’m here to tell you.  Not all of us perished.  Some of us live on. 

Leigh

Wishing Well BFF 228

Wishing Well

BFF #228 - 500 Words or Less 

 

So early, even the birds had yet to awaken.  Wind barely rustling the leaves of the trees.  Dew drops hanging from fern fronds just waiting to be brushed aside, loosening their droplets onto the yet dry ground.  Pearl laden spider’s webs cross the walk path.

Drawing fresh water for morning coffee, tea and bathing.  Fresh water for the household of the Lord and Lady and of course, all of their guests.  The house was filled with well wishers for the bride and groom.  Relatives from all over the county came to stay for the festivities. 

This was the best time of the day.  Her time of the day.  No one else around.  No mistress, no cook, no one ordering her to “get this” or “fetch that” nor “be quick about it girl”.  Esmeralda had the mornings to herself to think as she liked about what she liked.   And this morning, she thought she might like to take the first bath in the water.  Since the bath water is always shared, until it’s so scummy even she wouldn’t bathe in it, she would need to be extremely careful.  Drawing more water than normal would not be noticed since the entire house was full. 

Perhaps it was this very reason she didn’t notice the shadow near the well.  Resting her yoke on the uprights, she began to draw the water bucket upward.  The bucket swung back and forth, tipping much of the water out, as she drew it upward. Hand over hand; she pulled on the well ropes.  The water bucket inching it’s way ever upward.  Finally, the bucket drawn to the top,   Esmeralda carefully poured the water into her ewers. Once they were filled, she shrugged the wooden yoke back onto her strong, flat shoulders, and toted the water to the kitchen for heating.  She would fill the vats several times for all the baths to be taken this day. 

Back to the well Esmeralda scurried.  She was already anticipating the warmth of the water as she would slide into the metal tub.  She had sparked the fire for the stove, wrestled with the privacy room divider encircling the bathing tub and then piled a nearby table with all the soaps and lotions she could find.  Many were mere slivers she had rummaged out of the trash, but they still carried some fragrance therefore she was going to use them.  Contemplating the benefits of using lavender over lilac, Esmeralda startled when something dark dashed across the path in front of her. 

“Damn cat, always getting underfoot.  Like to trip you up and hurt yer self if yer not careful like.”  Esmeralda muttered to herself.  Talking out loud seemed to calm her nerves.  “Getting gittery will only make you do something stupid, like drop the water and run.”  Laughing, she shook her head at herself.

A thick spider’s web had sprung up across the path.  “So quick, these bugs. Must be hungry too.”  Balancing the yoke with empty water ewers, Esmeralda reached out a hand to brush the web out of her face and hair.  In the pitch black, she could not see the shining eyes looming at her.  She had paused too long.  

Leigh

Blue Moon

Blue Moon

BFF 225

My mistress strokes my back and scratches between my ears.  Setting me back onto the floor, she shoos me away.  I know she doesn’t want me to go very far from her, so I settle down for a quick nap.  Lying near her chair.

     I enjoy the tease of the rocking chair.  Often, on cool evening like this, she will strike a fire and we will while away the hours with her rocking back and forth while I swish my tail back and forth.  The dance of the burning logs in tune with our dance of tail to rail.  I am the master of that dance.

     She has a book on her lap.  A large scrap book filled with pictures and words.  She slowly turns the page.  I can see she is searching for something specific.  I sigh, laying my head on my paws, curling my tail around me.

     My mistress rises and walks to the stove.  Picking up a large wooden spoon she stirs the pot.  All the while, mumbling about a blue moon.

     It all started long ago, shortly after I came to live with her.  We sat on the front porch, just learning to dance, watching the night bugs impale themselves on what she called her bug zapper.  We had recently made a deal, I would keep the rodents and skunks away from her home and she would give me a cozy place to stay inside when I wanted it.  It seemed an equitable transaction to me.   

     Making certain the perimeter is well marked, and catching the stray vagrant, beefed up my reputation as guardian”.  Not to be trifled with.  Do not attempt to sneak inside the distinct walls of this domain.  Even the birds asked permission to gather berries and bugs.  I do not take my responsibility lightly. I much prefer hearth and home to hiding in a hollow of a tree against the winds of winter!

     As I was saying, we were whiling away a few hours on the porch, lazily nodding to the sound of the cicadas when a pick-up truck rumbled into view.  We don’t get many people driving down our dirt road.  Sometimes a young couple will think they have stumbled upon “the giggly weeds”, but not too many people venture this far away from the town.    

     We both watched as the truck came to a sliding halt, backed into a small area to turn around, opened a side door, then sped off back the way it had come.  They left something behind.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, my tail swished fervently and I began to hiss.  I warned my mistress.  She took no heed.  Instead she rose from her chair and started running to the turn-around.

     Standing there, sobbing their eyes out with bewilderment, stood three little people.  I believe you call them children.  Someone’s unwanted offspring.  Lucky for them, they were simply dropped off in what their parents thought was just the woods.  Unlike many of my kindred, who are shoved into a burlap sack and tossed from the nearest bridge.  And you humans wonder why small cats don’t like water.

     My mistress gathered the three children into her arms as she, too, began to weep. The infant couldn’t even walk yet. (at this stage, I can’t tell what sex they are without rolling them over)  Human babies take so long to mature.  The tallest of the three was a young boy.  I would guess his age about four or five years old.  The middle child was female, perhaps two.  The three had been tossed aside as unwanted garbage. 

     Walking to the small huddle, I bent myself inward and rubbed on the legs of the boy.  He stopped crying long enough to bend down and stroke my soft fur.  Attempting to pick me up, he staggered and dropped me.  I was very glad and scampered out of reach.  The infant began to wail.  Mistress ushered them all into our home.  She quickly reached to the shelf above her small refrigerator, moved some boxes aside, there at the back of the shelf was the prize she was looking for.  A baby bottle.

     Using rags as diapers, altering old clothes to cover all three of the children, Mistress was busy for quite some time.  I had not felt “happy” emitting from her in a very long time. 

The children were warm to snuggle up with during the night.  I kept a watchful eye on the mice and rats that would attempt a raid on our kitchen. They laughed as Mistress put me in swaddling as if I were a baby, and while sitting on the porch swing, would allow me to be held by the two older children.  All the while, she would be rocking the infant to sleep.

     Mistress seemed ecstatic to have these three little ones living with us.  The only drawback was the note.

     Folded neatly, in bold printed lettering, was a note tucked into the infants swaddling.  The note read “I will be back to gather the children, upon the Blue Moon.”

     My mistress rises and walks to the stove.  Picking up a large wooden spoon she stirs the pot.  All the while, mumbling about a blue moon.  It’s been six short years, and with every blue moon, Mistress worries the stove pot, her eyes fervently darting to the drive.  Loathe to have anyone driving down it.   

Leigh

Impulse

GBE 2: Blog On

Week # 69   Impulse

Watching them, hidden behind the dumpster and a small clump of bushes, he grew more and more frustrated.  What was she doing with him?  They had conversation just the other day about that loser.  He wore too much product in his hair, his clothes were passé, his grades were mediocre and he didn’t even own a car just a small motorcycle. 

Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut tight.  His fists had already clenched and his teeth ground.  Slowly, opening his hands, he pulled his windbreaker up tighter around his neck and ears.  The wind and drizzle were also getting on his nerves.  Betrayal seemed the buzz word for the day.

Why hadn’t she gone home like her brother told her to.  Why was she standing so close to him.  They shared her umbrella, the one he had gone to the store with her and her mother to pick out.  The pink umbrella with the yellow flowers on it, to match her pink slicker. 

His first impulse was to jump out and scream at them.  Reining in the anger, Jimmy decided a revenge would be better.  This interloper, this blond haired goon who thought he would move into Jimmy’s neighborhood and take over the interest of her!  Not while he had breath in his chest.  He would do something, he had to do something.  This could not go on.

On his hands and knees, Jimmy began rummaging his hands along the ground.  Finally, he found what he was searching for.  A brad.  Three inches long and a quarter inch wide nail, with a fine point on the tip.

Slowly inching his way around the hardware store to the parking lot, he quickly located the offenders motorcycle.  A Susuki motorcycle.  A crotch rocket.  Head banger ride.  Blue.  It wasn’t until he got close enough to wreck havoc that he saw the model was a “Boulevard”. 

Well la-te-da.  Let’s just see what your Boulevard can do on a wet boulevard.  Jimmy smiled to himself as he crept closer to the bike.  Watching the beads of water slide off the black leather seat, he was so excited he nearly hugged himself.

Digging the brad across the chrome of the tail pipes and across the blue paint of the gas tank.  Wrapping his windbreaker around his fist, he smashed out the head light.  Laughing out loud now, Jimmy was dancing in the rain as the squad car pulled into the parking lot. 

Watching from security cameras, the hardware store employees had called the police.  The young couple came outside through the front doors, as the police were assisting Jimmy into the squad car.  He wrenched partially free to turn facing her.  “I always promised you I would look out for you until we could be married.  Remember?  Remember?  I have loved you always.”  And then he was pushed into the back seat.

The officer gave her a questioning look.  Looking at her feet, her brows furrowed.  “He is my neighbor. We used to play when we were little, like five.  I haven’t even talked to him in at least ten years.” 

The officer shook his head. “Sometimes, these things happen.” 

Leigh

Muse Died? :-(

The loft apartment was the top floor of a brownstone in the So Ho district.  The six flights of stairs were wide enough to accommodate the movement of a piano.  The four burly movers grumbled on each step.  Puffing and panting, they finally made it to the sixth floor.  There were no windows or openings large enough to utilize the roof top hoist.  That would be used for the appliances.  She wanted new appliances. 

He glanced around the room.  Organized chaos.  The room seemed filled with canvases.  The canvases leaned against one another while leaning against the wall.  They were piled up beside the furniture.  The canvases were everywhere. Canvases half filled with paint.  Half complete.  Not finished.  Over and over he had begun to paint her.  Over and over he painted her shoulders, her arms, her slender hands……hands used for playing the piano. 

He glanced around the room.  The piano should be placed near the windows.  Then she could see the view whenever she rested from her exercises.  She could stop and appreciate the view from the top floor.  It was worth the long walk up, just to look out the windows.  The piano should be placed near the windows.

He glanced around the room.  He seemed in a daze, off within himself.  He could almost hear her playing the piano.  He could see her long slender fingers glide across the keyboard, pulling one haunting melody after another out of the instrument.  It had always seemed to him that the piano was an extension of her, another appendage. 

He glanced around the room.  He was bringing her piano here, finally.  He had promised her long ago, promised she wouldn’t have to trudge up and down the stairs to her beloved piano.  He had promised her the new appliances so she wouldn’t be frightened daily with lighting the old stove.  He had promised her that life at the top of the building would be filled with music and the arts.

He glanced around the room.  He could nearly hear the last piece she was working on.  He could “see” her sitting at the piano, pencil in her mouth, as she found the song in her heart and plied it to paper. 

The burly moving men hauled the precious cargo through the doors.  Noticing the multitude of half finished paintings, one of the men smirked, “Stuck in a rut?  Your muse died?”

He snapped back to the here and now.  “Actually she did.  Heart attack.” 

Deja Vu -

Deja Vu        

GBE 2: Blog On

The aircraft hovered soundlessly over the farm.  Its lights glowing eerily through the full spectrum of the rainbow.  A sharp beam of light jutted out of the bottom of the craft, illuminating the pasture.  The ray of light swept back and forth startling the cattle.  The sheep had scattered long before the cattle had sense to try to hide. 

Standing outside of their house, eyes glued to the sky.  Worry and fear crept over the family like a mist growing with the cold front on a hot summer morn.  The suppressed memories just barely surfacing.  None could cry out.  None could move.  Frozen still as if staked to the ground.  Faces grimacing while turned to the sky.

Their faces told the story.  They had witnessed this sight before.  Deja Vu. Every fiber of their bodies screamed out for the entities within the aircraft to leave.  Leave. Never come back.  LEAVE US ALONE. 

The hover craft flew across the low lands, the sightseeing tour taking place after the vicious sun had finally gone down and cool darkness of night fallen across the plains.

Peering out the viewing windows, spectators of all ages oohed and aahed while pressing their faces to get a broader view. The herd of cattle lowed as they moved into the grove of trees for cover.  The smallest of the group slapped the viewing panels, “Come back.  We want to look at you.  Come back.” Fists balled up at their sides, stoic glares directed at elders who simply shrug and go back to their original preoccupation.

The ray of light slowly moved away from the cattle.  Dancing in ever tightening circles around the outbuildings, the ray of light began to inch closer and closer to the family.  The family who stood stock still with angst written across their bodies.  Suddenly, the son bolted.  Stumbling, he knocked into his father.  Chaos.  The family of four running hither and yon.  Running first into a small grove of apple trees.  Realizing that wasn’t “cover” they darted for the outbuildings.   Arms and elbows dashing for the huge barn doors, urging one another to move faster. Holding onto one another as they ran headlong away from the light and into temporary safety.

“Akzad, you let them get away!” The elder cried out.  “This will not bode well with the academy.  If this were the first time, we could understand your ineptitude. Expulsion may be in your future.  Move.  Allow someone else draw them up for our Biology class.  How can we dissect one of these animals if you cannot even capture it.”  Disgust  fluttered across it’s grey features.  “Tlqid take control of the harness ray.  Capture these animals so we can get back to our other lessons.”

The smaller of the two students, Tlqid, took over the controls.  Long slender gray hands grasped the control with the confidence of “teacher’s pet”.  Concentrating, he began circling the area attempting to locate the people hiding within the barns. 

Backing away from the light source.  Hiding among the hay bales, then at the underbelly of one of the milk cows, covering themselves by holding up a saddle.  The dance of hide and seek went on.  Eyes wide, scrambling to hide the children, the parents sought better and better hiding places.  The parents knew, they recalled, they knew they would not be overlooked.  They knew they would be found.  Hide the children.  Lift the floorboard.  Hide the children.  The old root cellar, perhaps the root cellar.  Shoving the two pre-teen children down the steps of the root cellar, the parents looked to one another.  They hugged one another and assured each other of their love and affection.  Knowing they were going to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to save their children.

Tlqid smiled to himself when he located the two humans with the light beam.  Inwardly congratulating himself for a job much better done than Akzad.  Sure to win the approval of the elders, he altered the beam from the search beam to the capture ray.  Swiftly, the capture ray paralyzed the couple and raised the couple to the air craft.  They floated directly up through the ray of light, as if hoisted on an elevator bed.  They were completely disarmed.

The elder nodded to Tlqid and Akzad.  The two small, big eyed gray beings stepped over to where the couple stood, immobilized.  With words of kindness, they assured the couple they would not be hurt.  To one another they snickered, “These animals.  Look how ugly they are!  Their heads are so small and their feet so big!  Why would they need such big feet to offset the weight of such a small head.  They are so ugly.  And bad breath!  They stink of feces.” 

“Because I was the one to finally recapture these two, I get to choose which I shall work on.” began Tlqid.  “I want the smaller one.  It’s eyes are huge and will be easier to work on.  You can have the larger one, it’s got tougher skin and will take you longer to probe.”

The rest of the classmates gathered around the table to watch the dissection and ask questions.  “Is it true the human animals won’t remember us when we put them back?” asked one, then another, “Is it true that they think we communicate telepathically because they cannot hear the pitch of our voices?” “Do these ignorant animals really think they are the most intelligent animal on the planet?” and finally, “Is it true they think they are anything other than one more animal on our zoo planet?”

“Enough,” cried the elder.  “I cannot answer all of your questions at the same time. We are here to show you some of the workings of each of the animals at this zoo.  One day, you will be the care takers and must know the workings of all of the animals.  It is critical, for our future food source, these animals remain healthy.  They have only so much intelligence and are rather high strung, so they cannot be allowed to remember our physicals.” 

“As you can see, here just at the base of the skull, is the locator implant.  This one is considered docile, see the amber light?”  The elder held a small machine, with flickering lights, to the back of the females head.   “Who can tell me what a blue light would indicate?”

Akzad held up his hand, those long spindly fingers.  “The human animal has been tagged since birth and has already had all of their probes and shots.  The human would be nearly ready for harvest.”