Constant Companion – Trifextra Week Eight One

This weekend, the Trifecta team’s Trifextra challenge asks us to write only 33 words, inspired this beautiful photo project by Erik Solheim. Here is the still – 3,888 images from a year’s worth of pictures taken of the view from his window.

One year in one image - Copyright Erik Solheim

One year in one image – Copyright Erik Solheim

The Trifecta team have obviously been disturbed by our affectation for the dark, the depressing, the sinister and the bleak, so we have been requested, nay ordered, to give the dark side a swerve this week. Joy, light, happiness are the order of the day! A heck of a restriction for some of us!

So, after much joy-induced angst, here’s my offering this week. I hope and pray that it fits the bill! Let me know your thoughts, and why not visit the Trifecta website to read the brilliant offerings of others, and take part yourself whilst you’re at it?

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– Constant Companion –

Cat adopted me on my arrival.

Now I leave, Cat in tow; my familiar.

She and I have communed with this land in mute admiration.

In return, the trees whispered to us incessantly.

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Havana – Five Sentence Fiction

It’s time for my second offering to Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction, a weekly prompt where there is no word limit, just a limit on the number of sentences. Plus, although she provides a word prompt, it is just for direction only – you don’t have to include the word itself in your contribution.

This week, the prompt is FABRIC. And this week, I managed not to use the word itself (result!).

Let me know what you think! And whilst you’re at it, why not take a look at everyone else’s offerings (I’m sure they’ll be fabulous), and even give it a go yourself…

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– Havana –

Laila surveyed the packed room, delighted at the brilliantly-clothed, rainbow-hued guests passing gently to and fro, each of them grasping a fizzing champagne flute.

The low murmur floating above their collective heads was punctuated frequently by echoing belly-laughs as small groups shared a joke, their joy bouncing off the walls and raising smiles all around.

“You’ve done a brilliant job, there’s not a sad face here, nor a shred of black,” said her uncle, giving her a reassuring squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “It’s everything that he would have wanted; a final last hurrah to send him on his way.”

“Chin, chin, Dad,” she whispered, and raised her own glass to the sky where she imagined him to be, smiling down on them all, fat cigar in hand.

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Last Chance Saloon – Trifecta Week 90

Below is my offering for Trifecta’s week 90 challenge word, which is ‘grasp’. As you will see from the Trifecta blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘grasp’ is:

– to lay hold of with the mind : COMPREHEND

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! Please check here for the other entries!

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– Last Chance Saloon –

Once in a while you see your life for what it really is. Mine’s crappy – that’s me bein’ polite. I could use worse, but them kids are always listenin’.

Tallulah brought me to my senses. I wanted to marry her, back when we were kids. But she kept on sayin’ “You’re such a good friend, Billy” and I would die inside. You don’t marry your friend.

So, I kept shtum, too sappy to open my mouth. It got so that just seein’ her drove me damn near crazy. So, I moved away. Got a job in the mines, made a new life for myself, kinda.

I got paid plenty for the danger and all. Didn’t really care what happened to me, to tell the truth. I was careless, had an accident, got my pal Sammy killed too. I carried that burden around, along with my bad leg. They gave me a job in the manager’s office, I married Sammy’s widow Cally, even took on the kids. Then she died last year havin’ my kid, the mine closed and here we are, just them and me. No money, no future. I just couldn’t grasp the state we were in, how we’d got there. So I did nothin’. Like always.

Then Tallulah appears, like she blew in on the wind. She looks me up and down as I’m huddled over my Scotch, takes two steps and smacks me in the cheek. It damn well hurt – she was a lady, but not lily-livered.

“Billy, I could kill you, but you’ve near enough killed yourself already. Why in hell have you let things get this bad?”

I looked at her, all fine and fragrant and healthy looking, like I used to be. Then I looked at myself in the mirror slung up behind the bar. I looked crappy, like I had nothing to lose. Which I didn’t.

“Will you marry me, Tallulah?”

“What took you so long, Billy?”

I’m guessin’ that’s a yes.

Copyright - Freya

Copyright – Freya