Someone's Playing the Piano

Small pudgy fingers carefully press one white key at a time, jumping and skipping from one to the next, but being careful never to land on more than one key at a time. Not always so careful, they've learned not to pound or hit all the keys at once, if they wish to keep playing. The rule of the house is to only hit one key at a time, except when the big kids that take lessons are there and their fingers fly across the keys, mixing notes in a beautiful song.

Church of the Unbelievers

They kept telling us the rapture was coming. They said we needed to be saved, to join their church, to evangelize to all our non-believer friends. They called us non-believers and never took the time to listen to what we do believe, after all everybody believes something.

Then they had their “last chance” worship service. They said everyone was invited but fifteen minutes after the service started a dozen or more non-church members came back out of the church. They reported that the church members had told them if they weren't ready to join the church and testify their belief in the imminent rapture they were beyond saving and no longer needed to be there.

Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, or just an excuse to party, but while the church members prayed their way to rapture the rest of us ate, drank, talked and laughed. It was ironic the way the tension of disagreement and arguing about beliefs dispelled that night. Everyone who knew they were going to be raptured was in church busy praying, and the rest of us were willing to accept each other as we were.

Some of us kept looking over at the door to the church to see if and when they were going to come out thumping their Bibles, but they never did. In fact some of us were out all night and nobody ever left the church. And nobody went in looking for them. They might have been right but it was much more peaceful without them.

This post was written for Flash Fiction Friday.

Flash Fiction - Hide and Seek

I finally decided to write something for the flash fiction prompt a writing group I'm in sent out a few weeks ago: "That's when I realized I could control time and space"

Hide and Seek

I was only six. My brother had yelled at me for the millionth time that I wasn't allowed to play with him and his friends. He said I wasn't old enough and I would cry when I wasn't any good at what they were playing. He'd only reluctantly agreed to let me join them when Max told him to just let me play so I wouldn't go crying to our mom.

I saw Max whisper something to him and him nodding before he told me “We're playing hide and go seek. You get to hunt first, but you have to find everyone in ten minutes or you're out of the game.”

One of his friends snickered “She'll never find us all.”

“Close your eyes for one minute so we can hide, and then you get ten minutes to hunt.” My brother issued his final instructions to me then turned to his friends “Come on.”

I closed my eyes and started counting silently before remembering the new watch I'd gotten for my birthday had a second hand on it, so instead of counting I quickly pulled my head and arms into my coat and stared at my watch. I willed the second hand to move faster as I waited for the big kids to hide, and it seemed to work. I burst my head and arms back out of my coat yelling “ready or not here I come!”

Silently I prayed for ten minutes to be long enough to find them. That minute had seemed to move so fast, I willed time to slow down. I knew the territory for our game spanned the space of six yards, but I tried to convince myself that wasn't half as big as it seemed. Looking up the houses seemed closer together, and even smaller then usual.

That's when I realized I could control time and space, and my brother and his friends didn't have a chance.

Going Far

I remember eating Chinese with the Leadership Now crew. We always had good food, but that day we ate Chinese, and the fortune in my cookie was perfect. I remember reading it, and thinking it was so appropriate, so perfect, so fitting to the group I was with. I wanted to keep it forever. To always remember it and to always hold on tight to the friends I was with. It was something about friends. And something about going far. I nearly forgot it. Until a moment ago I thought I had forgot, but I think it said something like “with good friends you'll go far.” We giggled and laughed; go far we would. As we ate we were preparing for the biggest trip of my life so far. In a few months time we were in Africa. Good friends going far.

Prompt from A Writer's Book of Days: “We ate Chinese.”

P.S. I'm so excited I got that book for Christmas :-D My (highly ambitious) goal is to write something for every one of the prompts this year.

Untitled

A cluster here,
a group there,
circles of friends,
cozy up inside,
against the winter chill,
they group together,
to paint a picture,
of who they are,
creating one image,
like constellations of stars,
but I'm alone,
blue as the moon.

Writing prompt from A Writer's Book of Days: "Write about winter constellations."

Walking the Labyrinth

Faded paint,
soft echoes,
of stories told,
memories caught,
upon cold stone.

Quiet voices,
whispers on the wind,
creating anew,
todays stories.

Worn soft,
threads of time,
holding us together,
tying past to present.

Handprints left,
to mark this place,
a space to be,
alive with God.

Finally!

My cousin and I wrote this story about a month ago, and have been waiting for the entire thing to be published a sentence at a time by Gloaming Gap before posting it elsewhere. I hope you enjoy :-)



“Sleep Tight: A Gloaming Gap Story” by Beth Dombach and Jeannine Burkholder


Dr. Frederick von Bedstein squirmed between the storage boxes and a few stray shoes under Emmi’s bed. It was too neat, and she no longer kept fun things under her bed. The only thing the least bit amusing he found was an old bell with bits of string tied to it, and the cat had already informed him that was NOT for him to play with, nor was it Emmi’s to share.


Em’s eyes shot open and she blinked for a moment into the pitch blackness. “What time is it?” she groaned nearly inaudibly and shifted to see the LED display read 12:47 AM. “Oh my God, SERIOUSLY? That STUPID CAT!” Em froze at the sight of a long-since-forgotten tail slithering under the edge of her bed, the only thing she would possibly be able to see in this darkness. “Ugh, now I’m seeing things too!”

Frederick froze as he felt the bed shifting above him. He hadn’t meant to disturb her sleep. He didn’t even know how he would tell her. It had been years since he’d even stopped by – over ten since he officially retired from being her bed monster – and here he was trying to give her a message. He shook his head to clear it. He didn’t know how he’d make her understand, but her daughter’s safety depended on it. He stretched his hands and examined the sharp claws he’d carefully hid from her as she grew up. Reaching one clawed hand out from under her bed, he scratched noisily at the floor beside her bed.


Em could feel the goosebumps rising on her arms. Her logical grown-up mind told her that she was, of course, still imagining things. It had been a rather stressful day. Several people in her department had been laid off today, including Andrew, the guy on the other side of her cubicle wall. He had seemed nice enough, but he was, like all the other men, more interested in Rachel in marketing… Em saw the claws and her rambling mind stopped mid-thought.

Frederick slowly pulled his hand back under her bed. Even if she was all grown up, he didn’t like scaring his girl, but he had to warn her. He took the oath he’d made so many years ago seriously, but some of the younger bed monsters were less concerned with keeping promises and more concerned about getting attention. His Emmi’s little girl was unfortunate enough to be paired with a rebellious young monster that made no qualms about breaking the lesser of the rules in the oath, and now he heard rumors that her monster would even break the most sacred of laws. Frederick wasn’t one to get in the middle of things, but he knew it would hurt his girl if her daughter were injured, and even after all these year’s he couldn’t bear to see her hurt.


That claw was not the cat — real or imagined! Em had a sudden urge to walk the 20 feet down the hall and check on Cassie. She felt suddenly uneasy, with the sudden reappearance of her long-forgotten imaginary best friend, Mumble… Mubboo… what did she call him? He hadn’t had claws though… at least, not that she’d ever seen. What did this “mutant version” of her strange friend from her past mean? Cautiously, she inched her head to the edge of the bed to look down, feeling silly and a bit like her seven-year-old self. Not sure what she was doing, she whispered, “Mum… Mumbly-Boo?”

Frederick flicked his tail out from under her bed. It had been a long time since they’d played these games, but he hoped to catch a glimpse of the delight she always showed when he flicked his tail. Remembering what he came for he let out a low grumble. He hummed a few lines of her mother’s lullaby – the one he used to try to copy, and then in a low growl he changed to a tune he’d heard make her daughter cry when it came on the tv earlier that evening.


Em was filled with a mixture of pleasant nostalgia and irrational fear. She still wasn’t sure if this whole exchange was real or just a nightmare, but there was something strangely familiar in this. As terrified as her friend made her from time to time as a child, she knew he always had a reason. And she’d learned decades ago to trust him implicitly.

Frederick hooked a sharp claw on the edge of her blanket and gave a little tug. He needed her to get up, needed her to realize her daughter was in danger. If he let Cassie’s bed monster inform her of his existence it could be too late. He growled the scary tune a little louder, willing her to go check under her daughters bed, not that she would see anything there….


The blanket fell to the floor, and Em jumped out of the bed, no longer even wondering whether it was only a dream, and barreled down the hall. She flung the door open in time to see Cassie gasping for air, her face a pale bluish-white. Em reached her side as Cassie’s little eyes fluttered open and she coughed. “Mama…” she whimpered. “C-can I sleep with you? ….I don’t want it to come back….” Em brushed her hair back from Cassie’s forehead. “Of course, sweetheart,” she murmured.

Relief flooded Frederick as he watched a small set of bare feet patter into the room next to his grown-up Emmi’s feet. He heard Cassie’s small voice, so much like his little girl’s, asking if it would ever come back, and felt the bed shift above him. He stretched, readjusting himself to get comfortable under the unfamiliar bed, and quickly pulled the tip of his tail back into the dark.


Em glanced over at Cassie and pulled her closer as the little girl’s eyes widened. Cassie had obviously seen the flicking tail too. “It’s ok, sweetie, it’s just Mumbly-Boo. He’ll keep us safe tonight.”