Wanting to write for the Six Sentence Story blog hop is not the same as actually doing it. To make amends to our gracious host Denise, of GirlieOntheEdge, I included the last two prompts that I missed in this response. So, tucked into these six syntactically strained sentences you will find table and option as well as this week’s dust. Some of you might recognize the shop and its proprietor from long ago Sixes. Click HERE to link up.

Another Look by D. Avery

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the What-You-Seek Boutique she saw row after row of small glass jars on endless shelves and it wasn’t until after she wondered out loud if she was in some kind of apothecary that she noticed the old man behind the walnut counter, his bespectacled eyes twinkling as he said no, she wasn’t in an apothecary, that what she was seeing was “a most interesting collection of the ages”.

She picked up one of the jars, noting that it appeared to be empty, but the old man told her to look very closely, that there was, in each and every jar, a bit of dust, that each jar held a sample from a different time and place, and then he suggested she give the jar a good shake and look again.

She gave the man a slight indulgent smile as she shook the jar then set the jar down on a narrow table to peer at it steadily as her smile turned to a look of incredulity.

The jar was now like a snow globe with the scene and characters inside the jar fully animated and ones she was intimately familiar with, for one of the miniature figures was herself, and just as she felt the old anger and resentment begin to return, the scene replayed again, only this time it was as if she was the other person in the scene, seeing from their eyes, feeling their feelings. She shook the jar again and again and always the same episode repeated, always revealing each person’s perspective, not just hers, and when she finally looked away from the jar her wet eyes met those of the old man at the counter who gently asked, “Now can you consider forgiveness as an option?”

Then she was standing outside on the sidewalk underneath the weathered ‘What-You-Seek Boutique’ sign that swung on its rusty chain in the dust laden wind.

The rules for the Six Sentence Story blog hop are so simple- write a story or poem, or what have you in six sentences, or lines, or stanzas, or what have you. And you must include in some way some form of the given prompt word, which this week is Interest, provided by the venerable host of the Six Sentence Story blog hop, Denise, aka, GirlieOntheEdge . I have a six sentence story this week but at what cost, those six periods? Countless commas and conjunctions, the odd dash and semi colon go into the creation of a six sentence story. Read at your own risk, and thank you for it and for your comments. Click the link up to link up your story and to read others.

Space by D. Avery

He leaves his motorcycle out in the yard, uncovered, even though there is all kinds of space in the barns, and she isn’t sure why that bothers her so much, but it does, more and more, and when he just shrugs when she mentions that he could keep it under cover she feels like she could explode but she doesn’t, she walks away, startled and uncertain at the intensity of her feelings.

Of course parking her old Toyota inside didn’t keep it from gathering dust; out of sight out of mind, it slipped further down on his unwritten list of things to do until finally she pushed it through the big double doors and back into the yard where she lifted the hood and checked what she knew how to check, replaced what she knew how to replace, but still it would not start.

Then he was there, and after saying “Let me have a look at it,”  it was all grunts and utterances, but he was clearly interested in solving the conundrum of the stalled Toyota  now and after many trips back and forth to the shed that housed his tools and to the lean-to that housed spare parts he said he needed to go to the auto supply store in the village and would be right back, said her truck would soon be purring like a kitten and running like a cheetah.

While she pondered how he could go hours without a word then say things like that, he, without even brushing off the caterpillar-like birch catkins that clung to the seat and to the sun faded helmet that had sat on it and now sat on his head, kick started the old motorcycle to life and rode off.

Overhead, clouds rolled in and out, cold and shadows made more intense by the thick canopy of leaves of the tall trees that enclosed the sun pocked yard, and she went inside, where she stuffed clothes into a big black garbage bag while waiting for him to return, all the while marveling that a man would put off for two months a task that he could complete in little more than two hours.

The next morning was decidedly sunny, already warm by six when she walked past the motorcycle, started her Toyota, all fixed and purring like a kitten, and drove away without looking back.

What?! Two in a row? Yep, Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, has posted, as she does every Sunday, the latest Six Sentence Stories prompt, this week with the simple yet rich, “patch“. A character who has showed up for a couple Carrot Ranch prompts stepped up for this prompt. As an homage, these (two!) Six Sentence Stories are also in 99 words, no more no less.The link up time for these and your own Six Sentence Story(ies) will be Wednesday at 6:00 PM. See you in Sixville!

Patchwork, by D.Avery

“Great Aunt Fannie, this is a big deal, they want to hear your life story. Couldn’t you wear something nicer than those rags?”

“What rags, these clothes are patched, just the opposite of raggedy; patches show care, pride; resilience and resourcefulness. My life story is the work that wore out these once new clothes; it’s the memories held in the material used to patch them; it’s the know-how and patience required to stitch ruin back into usefulness. These clothes are reinforced, stronger than when they were new, still functional, and in my opinion, more beautiful.”

“Like you, Aunt Fannie.”

---

The two women, one young, the other old, sank into either end of the worn sofa.

“Phew, thank you, Aunt Fannie, for sharing your stories today.”

“Mine’s been a patchwork life,” the old woman said, picking up a throw pillow.

“Wow, even the pillow has a patch, a valentine heart cut out of hunter plaid wool, but what’s this, the other side is only half a heart— what’s the story here?”

“One I’m not telling, but I will say this, some things can’t be patched, but you have to at least try.”

“Okay,” her niece sighed, “I’ll call him.”

Every week Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, puts out a prompt to inspire writing. Some too few weeks I participate. This prompted writing can be any form as long as it is in units of Six . Here is my effort with this week’s Six Sentence Stories prompt, which is “Tone“. Link your six sentences and read others HERE.

Tone Deaf by D. Avery

It seemed to be a nice enough house but over time she began to suspect that there was something wrong with the acoustics in their home.

Voices were either too loud or too soft, hard to understand either way, so that they invariably responded to the other, if at all, with, “What?”, even though both tested normal for hearing at the doctor’s.

More and more she focused on this matter of acoustics, trying to pinpoint the problem so that she might find a solution. There was the blare of his devices, but also a persistent silence that echoed throughout the rooms, throughout their days and their nights.

She finally spoke with him about it, and the tone of his response made her solution clear.

She would leave, find a place where she was heard.

Every week Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, puts out a prompt to inspire writing. Though titled Six Sentence Stories, she kindly accepts poetry as well as prose, stanzas or lines as well as sentences. Easy-peasy. So why do I go months without participating? Dunno. But here is a six sentence story. It is another scene from a work in (non-)progress first sampled as a Six Sentence Story HERE. Link your six sentences and read others HERE.

Word To the Wise by D. Avery

When the rain stopped, or at least slowed to a drizzle, and the mud and gravel stopped coursing across the road and over and under and through Grandma’s Subaru in the driveway, and the river below her manufactured home was no longer rising, was in fact receding, she and I went and sat on one of the logs deposited by last summer’s flood and watched that mean muddy water of this one flow by.

As we sat there a spider emerged from the fissured bark and made its way towards Grandma. When she smacked it dead with her palm I said Don’t, if you kill a spider it’ll rain!, and she said that’s a cliché, and I said No, it isn’t, it’s an old wives’ tale, and she snorted and flicked the spider off the log into the dripping wet weeds.

The river was still running very strong, in fact as we sat there a mattress came whirling and wheeling downstream.

As the mattress plunged and spun along in the roiling water, Grandma said “You make your bed, you lie in it.”

I don’t know if that’s a cliché or another old saying, or both, but it got me thinking that maybe all of us have thoughtlessly killed too many spiders and brought all this rain and flooding down on ourselves— a karmic accumulation of cause and effect.

I kept my thinking to myself, even though I figured Grandma would know I was speaking metaphorically.

The rules for Six Sentence Stories, a bloghop hosted by Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, are simply to include the prompt word (this week’s word is “WRECK“) and write a story in precisely six sentences. The following is a scene from something I started earlier in the summer, from another missed prompt I never finished, not yet anyway. It may be incomplete here, but maybe I’ll go back and finish that story now. Link your six sentences or read others HERE.

Still Strong by D. Avery

Grandma’s Subaru was not spared by this year’s flood, which, by the way, came a year to the day after last year’s, but once again, Grandma’s manufactured home (she doesn’t ever refer to it as a trailer) somehow missed disaster, again, so that’s good, but the river now winds even closer, clawing at the crumbly bank beyond Grandma’s shrinking backyard.

“No worries, just another once in a lifetime flood,” Grandma jokes, the joke being it’s the third catastrophic flood just in my lifetime, though I was a newborn when Irene hit. Grandma’s Subaru still has her ‘I am Vermont Strong’ plate from Irene, thirteen years ago now.

Actually that’s all that’s left of the Subaru, because in this flood mud and gravel from the brook across the road poured down our driveway, lifted and turned the Subaru around, broke its windshield, then filled the interior with thick debris-ridden silt, but somehow that VT Strong plate remained visible, flagging the mound next to her manufactured home as Grandma’s car.

“A total wreck!” Grandma declares, “But the insurance payout should cover this.”

Grandma hands me a laptop computer, says it’s my very own so I can write all this down, says there are important stories flowing all around us, and she’s counting on me to catch them.