KEEPING UP APPEARANCES - a 100 word story

It's Thursday, so I'm only a day late on parade this week. My excuses are manifold - I am heavily involved in our local Arts Festival, we had a leaking pipe that almost brought down the kitchen ceiling, and the tail end of a hurricane has battered my garden. It's only a very small plot, so tidying up didn't take too long, but the sunflowers are definitely looking ragged in the petal area.

Which leads me nicely into telling you about a bit of verse I wrote a long time ago, about a different garden, and linked this week to Twitter, where one of the vss365 prompt words was 'garden'. You are cordially invited to pop over to my 'VERSES' page and read it.

And finally, welcome to Carole Anne Carr, my 103rd 'follower' - thank you, Carole, for taking the trouble to read my stuff!

Meanwhile, here's this week's story, prompted by a photo on Rochelle's blog,   https://rochellewisoff.com/      
Photo taken by  Na'ama Yehuda.

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KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

‘Take your umbrella, Sanji.’

‘But Mother – it’s so old-fashioned.”

‘A hundred other boys wanted that Government job but you won – carrying an umbrella is expected.’

So Sanji took the despised umbrella, with its curved handle worn smooth by his father and grandfather, and hung it beside his coat.

When the flash flood hit town unexpectedly, the umbrella’s metal tip broke through the office ceiling, the handle hooked a rafter, enabling Sanji and his colleagues to climb to the roof, and its black silken circle sheltered them until rescue arrived.

Eventually Sanji passed the treasured umbrella down to his son.

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Do please leave a comment before you go - on this story and on my bit of verse!

SKYLIGHT - a story in 100 words

SKYLIGHT

Every day Martha slaved in the kitchen, the outside world only blue sky, scudding clouds, or rain clattering like pebbles. In winter, snow masked the light, reducing her prison to Stygian gloom.

Her mother said she was lucky to be warm and fed, but Martha relished the weekly walk home, the crisp cold a blessed relief from the blast furnace of the kitchen range.

But home was four miles away, and when she twisted her ankle on an icy puddle she was alone. They found her the next morning, her hands frozen around a hambone she had stolen for her mother.

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This week's story is another hurried one. I am heavily involved in our local village Arts Festival, and have to dash off in a minute to lock the church so nobody can walk off with one of the lovely paitings on display. Also my elderly mother has had a few falls in the past week and sitting for hours in A&E waiting for various tests is not conducuve to writing.
Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers and to J Hardy Carroll for the atmospheric photograph that is this week's prompt. You will find other stories by following the Blue Frog from Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/

BLUR - a story in one hundred words

BLUR

Cataracts.

Operation.

No guarantees.

The words drop like stones. She stumbles home in a blur of eye drops and fear.

The day arrives. More drops so no reading for distraction – nothing to do but wait and worry. Bright lights, a blur of movement, the nurse’s hand a lifeline squeezed bloodless.

She goes home wearing a pirate patch and a relieved smile. Gazes at her unfamiliar reflection, restyles her hair, and walks in the rain without the blur of raindrops on glasses.

Now she’s a veteran. Cataract operation? Nothing to it – a doddle – you’ll be fine!

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'She' is of course me - I had both cataracts done last year and, after a lifetime of -9.5 myopia, I now only need glasses for reading. I could have written another story about having to dot several pairs around the house because I am unused to having to put glasses on for reading! 

I was AWOL last week due to various family matters, but I missed you all so here I am again. Thanks to CE Ayr for the photograph and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog, from where you can follow the blue frog link to read other stories. https://rochellewisoff.com/