short story – Page 7 – Prolific Pulse Blog

New Horizons

December 23, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

“My dear girl, you are young and it’s good to check out new horizons, especially when where you’ve been has not brought you enough joy,” Clarabelle responded to Shandy, her new friend to be, “I also sought new horizons when I was younger; I suppose it was a different time back then, maybe more simple, but I knew I had to find something other than the sadness…umm, well, you know, life sometimes needs change, don’t you think?”

Shandy patted Clarabelle on the back of her hand and smiled, the two just looked at each other for a brief moment when the bell rang for orders to be picked up, “please stick around, and I will be back, that is, unless you have some things you need to go do, I don’t want to keep you, but, well, you are so nice and, well, it’s something I don’t see enough of, especially when people come in and don’t look at me, and, well, uh, you see me,” and Shandy went off to pick up her orders.

Clarabelle sat and sipped her tea and contemplated her next stop, not desiring to go there and having a little time, she was glad to wait for her new friend to come back for a visit; Shandy came with a piece of apple pie ala mode, “this is on the house; and I am done working for this day, thank goodness, and I thought I would join you for desert,” each with their dessert plates and drinks, the two ladies chatted up to get to know each other.

Shandy shared that she was an only child and that her life was just a simple one, but with both parents deceased, she had nothing to hold her in North Carolina, and she decided to give the Midwest a try; it was colder weather, but she didn’t mind having a change of scenery and truly enjoyed the sunsets and the Mississippi River, and it also helped that her Aunt Rebecca opened up her home and let Shandy stay there; Clarabelle listened with great focus, except when the nagging thoughts about her appointment interrupted her demeanor; Shandy picked up on this and asked, “what seems to be troubling you, Clarabelle?”

Picking at the remains of her pie, Clarabelle looked up at Shandy and confessed, “I have an appointment in about an hour and I am not looking forward to it, it’s for a follow up from my mammogram, and, well, it makes me nervous to think that something could be wrong.”

Shandy placed her hand on Clarabelle’s shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze, “well, you don’t have to do through this alone, now, do you, as I have time to go with you, that is if you want me to go,” to which Clarabelle sighed a relieved sigh and nodded her head, yes.

…..

There you have it! This my response to this weeks Six Sentence Story prompt HORIZON

And you can join us by going to Girlie on the Edge.

This week’s story is a continuation and you can see the prior links here:

Week 1

Week 2

short story, six sentence story

A Budding Friendship

December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

A Budding Friendship

“Shandy’s my name,” the waitress said, patting Clarabelle on her shoulder, “I think my mother liked an Australian just enough to sprout me, and from the look in her eyes when she talked about him, God rest her soul, she never quite forgot the spark she had with him.”

“What lovely sentiment, Shandy, I can tell your mother had a lot of love, because just look at you, a lovely woman who isn’t afraid to work and takes the time to help an old woman like me,” Clarabelle reached up and patted Shandy’s hand and smiled.

Tears welled up in Shandy’s eyes and, looking around and noticing impatient customers, and her boss getting red in the face, well, she was anxious, “Don’t go anywhere ma’am, let me take care of these customers and I will be back shortly, okay?”

Rushing about and sternly giving her boss the stink eye, Shandy nodded the direction of Clarabelle; Shandy attended to grabbing orders and hurried back to Clarabelle, “I took the liberty of ordering you a special plate that I happen to like, it’s one of the best meals you will get in here without getting heartburn, trust me on that.”

Clarabelle smiled and asked Shandy, “where are you from, dear, you have a bit of an accent and I can usually tell where a person’s from by their accent, but I am thinking it’s either Georgia or North Carolina, am I right on either of those?”

Shandy sat down for just a moment to rest her dogs and nodded to Clarabelle, “I am from North Carolina, in Brunswick county, from a little town called Southport, it’s a tourist town, good for the quiet, slow life, but I needed to make a change.”

…..

And there you have it! This is my Six Sentence Story from the lovely Denise’s prompt “Change” and you can see more by going to this LINK

This is actually a continuation from last week’s story which you can find HERE

Short Fiction, short story, six sentence story

Menu to Start a Friendship

December 10, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

Menu to Start a Friendship

Clarabelle stared at the menu for what seemed a long time, based on the tapping of the pen on the waitress’s pad, her eyes squinting, frowning as if it were her time being wasted.

“I am so sorry, but it is hard for me to decide what it is I want, you see, my dear Herbie used to select what we would have to eat, it was the only time he made such decisions, usually it was up to me to decide what to cook, so you see I cannot decide, do you have a suggestion?”

Rolling her eyes and then alerting to a focus, the waitress suggested the steak and eggs with a side of shredded hash browns with onions.

“Oh, thank you, so much, that sounds lovely, how kind of you to help me, this is so hard…” her voice trailed off and a tear rolled down her cheek and edged on her deep berry toned lips, “I am so sorry, it’s just that…” and she bent her head down and soaked her now freely falling tears with her napkin.

Softening her frown into a soft smile, the waitress reached across and patted Clarabelle’s shoulder and said, “ma’am, I am so sorry, Herbie must have been quite the man.”

Clarabelle looked up at the waitress and really probed into her eyes and said, “thank you, he was, what is your name?”

Be sure and go to Girlie on the Edge and add your story 🙂

poetry, short story

Meet Me in the Middle

August 26, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

“You have me bending over backwards every day and I am sick of it!” Meghan stomped out of her and her husband’s house. They had another daily spat over one more thing and one more thing was enough to break Meghan’s ever patient mind.

“It’s unacceptable to be constantly running around all day long and not get anything done; look at this house, it is a pigsty,” exclaimed Clarence right before Meghan ran out on him.

Looking at the house, there were the morning’s dishes piled in the sink and yesterday’s laundry in the basket to be folded, while Clarence sat at his computer and played games, waiting for Meghan to wait on him, while he also ignored the children; and that’s when things got loud; Clarence opened his mouth and asked when would lunch be served. This was right after Meghan just got home from picking up their children at school, along with running errands for groceries, gas, getting his list of “necessities” and not grabbing a latte.

As Meghan drove away, she heard this song and made one of her own.

Just a little bending

Takes so little effort

Putting down that plaything

Would be more acceptable

Over unacceptable responses

Killing chances at harmony

…..

There you have it! This is my Six Sentence Story – Double Feature 😉 A little prose, a little poetry and away we go! Want to join us? Go to Girlie on the Edge and have a shot at at.

And bonus points for checking out Living Poetry for the other prompt for this week. Win:Win

Short Fiction, short story

Math Problems

August 17, 2020 Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld

Perry Jameson always thought his station in life was to follow in the footsteps of his father, an accountant. There was only one small problem, Perry did not understand math. His father sat with him poring over math homework, Perry, staring of the numbers, his father scratching his head, rubbing his eyes, tapping his pencil in frustration. Determined to use the old school methods of writing out the problems, Perry’s father insisted that Perry must get the answers correct and they spent numerous hours, often on weekends, too. Then, it occurred to Perry’s father, when he was working on a reconciliation of accounts, that Perry may not see the numbers in the same way as his father. When he got home from work, Perry’s father sat down with Perry and they worked closely, one number at a time, not working on problems, but writing down and reading numbers and using some tools he learned about in his research; gradually, Perry gained a better understanding about math and his father sighed many sighs of relief and was, frankly, more than embarrassed that it did not occur to him, as one of the rules of accounting is to check for transposition of numbers when errors indicated this, which was obvious, when using proper tools.