Shelter Pet

 

You turned away when I looked at you in your cage. Shy, they said. Unfriendly? I worried. Could I love you enough? Your turned-away head said Take me home. Take me home. Take me home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post was written for the Trifecta Writing Challenge . This weekend's challenge was to write an approximately 33-word post repeating a phrase three times.

 

 

Desperado (Waiting for the Train)

 

 A flash fiction response to two writing challenges (see below)
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Another head-on collision with the morning, another coffee and croissant in the train station cafe. Crescent roll, Ellen thinks rebelliously, pulling at the dough. She hates pretentious words. She takes off her sunglasses and reluctantly looks at herself in her pocket mirror. Her eyes are rusty. The imprint of last night, of too many last-nights, on her skin, never satiny at its best.

“Ellen. I thought that was you.”

She flinches at the unwelcomely familiar voice but nods. “Ryan.”

 “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Likewise,” she mutters. 

She’s silently willing him not to sit down. The kid thinks every woman in the office between eighteen and fifty enjoys being eyed by him.

“Oh, well, I spent the night with a friend.” His self-satisfied half-grin makes her want to smack him. A “friend?” Probably the new trainee he’s been chatting up at breaks. Poor girl, she thinks. Then: poor both of them.

His grin is more insinuating now. “Hey, we’ll probably be seeing each other here again.”

“I doubt it.” Then, impulsively: “I’m giving my notice today.”

Now it’s her satisfaction to see the smirk sink off his lips. “Oh. Wow. Better job offer?”

She doesn’t answer. She picks up her cold cup of coffee and downs the rest, trying not to grimace. “Excuse me. I have to use the restroom.”

She turns on the cold water and splashes her face. She looks up. She’s still careworn, but there’s an unexpected light in her eyes now, and she understands: she told Ryan the truth. Somehow he dug out what she needed. Relief comes rushing at her like the next train. Less is more, she thinks. Just one other—obstacle—to face, and she’ll take care of that tonight. Her life will be new, hers and no one else’s, from now on.

She puts the sunglasses back on and smiles widely. It’s the best she’s felt in years. She hears the train whistle. She opens the door, humming Richie Havens’s “Freedom.”

 

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This story was written in response to the following two prompts: Nicole Pyles' Flash Fiction Photo Prompt blog hop , using the random words crescent, head-on, imprint, satin, and careworn and the photo below; and the Trifecta Writing Challenge, which is to write a story of 333 words or less using the third definition of a word. This week's word and definition: Rust: of the color of rust; dulled in color or appearance by age and use.

 

 

 

 

 

This post was written for the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week’s challenge is to write a 33-word story inspired by the idiom “third time’s the charm.”

 

Awakening

 

I am falling asleep when my eyes open. I see the pores in his skin, the tiny dark hairs, the shining sweat. I smell us. How, where, who…? I sigh. The third time.

 

 

 

 

Trifecta Writing Challenge

Trifecta Writing Challenge—Week of June 10

 

I am entering this week’s  Trifecta Writing Challenge. The challenge is to write a story between 33 and 333 words using the third dictionary definition of a given word. This week’s word is light; the definition is “a source of light, as a celestial body, candle, or an electric light.”

 

The Jump Shot

The small forward with the sweet outside shot stands behind the arc, so far behind that it’s almost midcourt, leaps, feet kicking up behind him, and lets it go. The ball rises higher and higher, then pauses at the apex, a moment fractured, a sliver left suspended, like a newly birthed star. The points of light from the stadium ceiling gather around it, turn it silver, radiate outward, here and gone as your eyes gasp, breath held, waiting for it to concede to gravity, curving gently downward like a small comet, finding the inside of the rim without touching.

When love is on the rise, one man thinks, that fraction of a moment is waiting ahead of you, that point of gleaming light when time is held in suspension and only beauty exists. But there’s no holding it there, not the ball, not the split second of glittering light, not the joy. They rise and gleam and fall; the ball slips through, the lover walks away, and what they leave behind—an empty net, an empty heart—still tremble with what went before.

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the Hook Again

 

I am officially off the DL after spending a few months battling tendonitis in my right wrist. I was finally able to get a cortisone shot from my doctor and, a week later, I’m happy to say I think I’m almost all healed.

This means, among other things, that I can crochet again! I haven’t done anything for a couple of months, and I’ve really missed it.

Coincidentally, during my convalescence, I learned that my local yarn shop, just a few blocks down the street, is going to close at the end of May. While this is of course bad news for the neighborhood, it also presented a yarn-stocking opportunity that I couldn’t miss. A friend and I had unused gift cards from this store, so, even though I had no idea when I’d be able to crochet again, we went. (She’s also having trouble with her shoulder and hasn’t been able to knit much, but yarnaholics aren’t about to be stopped by such considerations.)

So on that visit and a subsequent one, I happily added to my stash. However, this was not just willy-nilly yarn buying. I actually do have patterns to make with this yarn.

So here’s what I bought:

 

 

The light green on the bottom (isn’t that a beautiful color?) is Berroco Weekend, and as you can see, I’ve already started crocheting with it. The top picture (obtained at a great bargain price) is Crystal Palace Mini-Mochi, a yarn that’s very hard to find; it isn’t even sold online. About a year ago I downloaded an absolutely gorgeous free crochet pattern for a wrap consisting of squares made with Mini-Mochi. I hadn’t looked for the yarn because I wasn’t sure enough of my ability to make the squares. I would just sneak a look at the pattern every now and then and yearn over it. But now I have some experience with making squares, and when I saw this yarn, I jumped at it. The pattern is made with different colorways of the yarn (not exactly the same as these, but close enough), and I was thrilled to find out that I could buy enough and in colors that will go well together.

So. On top of the two projects I had to interrupt when I hurt my wrist, I now have plenty of crocheting to keep me busy for the rest of the year.

As long as I don’t land on the DL again.

 

 

 

 

Z

 

Zuccaro

When I decided to do Art for A-Z this year, I thought it would be an easier challenge than last year’s, but it was more work than I anticipated. However, I did get to look at beautiful pictures every day, so I can’t complain!

And I did find a Z artist—Taddeo Zuccaro, a Renaissance painter. I thought it would be fun to show his version of The Conversion of St. Paul and compare it with Caravaggio’s, which I presented here. I’ve also included it below.

Zuccaro’s version, which is a preparatory study for an altarpiece, is a pen-and-ink drawing with brown wash, black chalk, and lead white on blue paper. Caravaggio’s, of course, is a full color painting. But the subjects are similar: both portray the moment when Saul of Tarsas is struck by a light from Heaven, hears the voice of Christ, and falls from his horse. Despite the similarities, there are great differences in composition (particularly the dominance of the horse in Caravaggio’s version) and emotional power. I love to see how different artists treat the same subject.

 

Zuccaro's Conversion of St. Paul

 
 
 
 
 
 

Caravaggio's Conversion of St Paul

Congratulations to all A-Zers at the end of this challenge! Now let’s all go grab some ZZZZ’s.

 

Y

 

Young Woman with Water Pitcher

 

Ever since I read Girl with a Pearl Earring, I’ve been a fan of Johannes (Jan) Vermeer. Vermeer (1632-1675) was a Dutch painter best known for interior scenes and for his use of lighting. He tended to use the same one or two rooms in his own home for his paintings, and many of them show the same backgrounds and floor pattern.

 

 

In this painting Vermeer used the natural light coming through the window to illuminate the face of his model. The window was used in several of his paintings, as was the map on the wall and the tablecloth. He was one of the few artists at the time to use the brilliant ultramarine blue of the young woman’s dress. The blue pigment was made from lapis lazuli, a gemstone, which made it very expensive. Vermeer was hardly rich—he did not make many paintings in his short lifetime and had eleven children--but his mother-in-law was quite well to do and probably provided him with some financial support. He may also have received some support from a wealthy patron. Nevertheless, his financial troubles mounted, and upon his early death his wife was left in debt; she attributed his death to financial pressures.

 

It’s unfortunate that Vermeer’s slow and deliberate style of painting coupled with his brief life span deprived the world of more of his paintings, but we can be grateful for the ones we do have.

 

As a footnote, one of Vermeer's paintings was stolen in the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The paintings remain unrecovered.