Now, that’s a Conundrum!
(it’s also one of my favorite words!) 🙂
Oh those millennials!
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Category Archives: Daily Prompt
Please, do not kill me!
And the Bee spoke:
“Please do not let me perish. I am important to the world.
About one in three mouthful’s of your food is because I pollinated it.
My friends and I pollinate over $20 billion worth of crops each year.
Do you like flowers? We pollinate about 1/6th of all the flowers in the world.
We make a nectar called “honey.” This honey is an antioxidant and helps you improve brain function. We need you to eat this so you will remember how important we are.
Maybe because of our honey, we are very smart. We can figure out the shortest possible routes between flowers.
We work very hard. Because our wings beat 11.400 times per minute, we can buzz to our own music.
We have been around a very long time. Fossils of my ancestors date back to 150 million years ago.
WE NEED EACH OTHER! So, please, keep your poisonous pesticides away from us.
Thank you.” – Queen Bee
If Only…
Eleven-year-old Emma June just wants to Flee away from the bully and go to the flea circus . But she doesn’t listen to her instincts. And that’s when everything went wrong.
“Not over there, Carla. That boy gives me the creeps.” <Emma June>
“It’s only Rachael’s brother, for crying out loud.”
I remember the time I stayed overnight ay Rachael’s. Brandon kept peeking through her bedroom window trying to scare us by pretending to be an axe murderer.
“He’s a sixteen-yea- old bully,” I say.
“He’s not that bad. I’ve seen his good sides.”
“I’d rather go to the flea circus. They’re trained, you know. They can turn a miniature carousel two thousand times their size.”
“And they’re itchy.” Carla grabs my hand and leads me toward the Knock-Down-The-Milk-Bottle tent where Brandon stands motioning us forward with a bona-fide moonshine jug in his hand.
(excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket)
Hee, hee, hee
The Madam is PISSED!
Madam Fannie is furious after learning “soiled dove” Sadie snuck out to attend and heckle the Women’s Christian Temperance Union meeting!
photo used to make the point!
Reba returned to the stove, hissing like her frying bacon.
My temples throbbed. If the ache continued, I’d have to take a spoonful of that sorry laudanum and tuck myself in bed. “Now, I have to figure what to do. You have put me in a terrible situation. The girls know you betrayed my trust. We have rules in this house, and by God, girls in my establishment will Abide by them. How can I possibly let you get away with this?”
Quiet now, Sadie crossed her arms and laid her head on her forearms. Her shoulders quivered a silent shrug.
Reba shook her head. “Thinks I’m about to have another sighting, Miss Fannie. It’s starting to tell me something’s fixin’ to change around here.”
It didn’t hurt for Reba to season the disobedient girl with the fear of being fired and turned back out on the streets.
(excerpt from The Last Bordello)
Cono’s Cigar Box
“A cigar box alone may have no meaning, but the Treasures inside tell a story.”
I go to bed real happy. It had been a real good honest day’s work. We’d sold three dollars and twenty cents worth of those little seed packets and after tomorrow’s sell day I know I’m just one step closer to having me a brand new geetar.
I wrap my money in a dish towel and stuff, tie it up with a string and put it in my box of specials hidden under my bed. Nothing like an honest day’s work to make a feller wore out. I put my head on my pillow and go straight to sleep, out like Lottie’s eye.
The first thing I do next morning after waking up is pull out my cigar box. My other specials are in there; my Devils Claw, toothbrush, Tiger, my pocket knife, my piece of boxing glove lace, my penny from Uncle Will. But my dishtowel of money isn’t there. I leave my room and find Aunt Nolie sitting at the kitchen table eating a biscuit.
“It’s gone!” I say.
“What’s gone, Cono?”
“All my money’s gone. It ain’t where I put it!”
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper
“Fanatics” Against Prostitution!
Greta, one of Sadie’s fellow prostitutes at the bordello, tries to comfort her after they learn members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union are coming to town to Protest against vice. (From The Last Bordello)
Greta put an arm around Sadie. “I love you truly, truly, dear,” she sang.
“Stop it!” Sadie unclenched her fists long enough to wallop her palms on the table. “Your piping doesn’t help.”
Greta puffed her cheeks and blew out a huff. She placed her hands around her throat. “Geez, kill me now. You’re actin’ like you been slurpin’ asshole soup again.”
“Hypocrites, all of them.” Sadie’s face reddened. “Those protesters make me sick. Religious fanatics who can’t mind their own damn business, preach like they’re better than us.”
Her last comment, barely a whisper, I knew Sadie was thinking about her religious nut of a mother. She rarely spoke of her, but when she did, she referred to her as Lucinda the Lucifer. The woman had forced Sadie to recite Bible passages before allowing her to eat and preached the sin of men’s unbridled passion until her ears burned. Who wouldn’t run away after that kind of upbringing?
It’s your soul, no one else’s
When music is gone
The Notes Sadly Vanish
Oh, how the music drew me once
a cadence with my own
the perfect pitch, the unison,
the harmony of tone.
But change of keys, a sharper chord
A melody postponed
That left behind a requiem
of death from whence it’s grown
Saints or Sinners Matter Not
Is Life Not Sacred?
Deep beneath unhallowed ground
The coffin flies await
Their hunger grows, discerning not,
Twixt sinners
And mere Saints.
-CDW
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 