The Occupation

From https://randomwordgenerator.com/picture.php

(c) 2021 by Pamela Schloesser Canepa

Fear took its place

at the center of my heart

Can you tell fear and love apart?

It spread to my nerve endings

Put me on edge, no pretending.

A heart frozen can not be open.

A heart that flees has no hoping.

A heart always ready to fight

Is not occupied by light.

You will not know the peaceful dove

because fear overshadows and poisons love.

The calm of feeling I belong,

A hug or a tranquil inner song

Help refocus me when everything feels wrong…

Focus on fear brings darkness and blight

Love and forgiveness let in the healing light.

Which will show in your face?

Fear and distrust have no grace.

Fear’s stronghold can be released,

Love must always start with peace.

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Neither Rain, nor Snow, nor Sleet. #FFfAW

Photo credit, (c) Yinglan.

He was always at this park on Saturdays.  I’d notice him whenever I took my dog for the nightly walk.  After I’d lived here for about nine months, I noticed the weather didn’t matter.  He was here every Saturday evening, and only Saturday evenings.

His clothing was shabby; his cheeks, red.  I imagined on the nights I didn’t see him, he must stay at the shelter.  One night I stopped to talk.

“Hey, I’m Fran.  Isn’t it a little cold to be out here?”

“Doesn’t bother me.  My lady and I, we’d come here every Saturday night.  I can picture here right there.  We’d sit on that bench.”  Shivering, he showed me a smiling photo of her on that bench.

“When is the date over?”  I asked, worried he might freeze.

He looked at a broken wrist-watch.  “Half an hour.”

“I don’t think she’d mind leaving early.  It’s a bit cold.  Can I walk you to the shelter?”

He shrugged and smiled sadly.  “Yeah, there’s soup.  Maybe she’ll show up next week.”

**172 words

***The challenge is to write a short piece of flash fiction in response to a provided picture prompt of 100-150 words (+ or – 25 words, thank goodness :)).  You can view other stories or jun the fun at FFfAW.

Thank you for stopping by on a snowy evening!  You never know the difference you could make.  Of course, it is not snowy here, but I can imagine.  🙂

What’s in Your Heart? #FFfAW #amwriting

“Daddy,  why is everyone sad?”

“We’re honoring those whose loves were lost.”

“But isn’t the world good?  Why did someone kill them?”

“That someone was sick, honey.  He meant them harm, but he didn’t have any reason.  All we can do is spread our love, so there aren’t many more like him.”

“If you could be their daddy, they’d all want to spread love, too.  They’d never want to do harm.”

He smiled, and knelt down to put his arms around her.  Perhaps he had been doing this parenting thing right.

“I wish Mom was here to show her love to the world.”

“So do I, dear.”  He stood and took her hand again.

“She wishes she was here, too.  She still loves us, Daddy.  She tells me every night when I’m in bed.”

He squeezed her hand, this wonderful, intuitive creature, who was already so much like her mother.

~150 words~

 

To learn more about the weekly Flash Fiction challenge, go to flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com

To see more of this week’s great stories, go to https://flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/fffaw-challenge-week-of-october-3-2017/

Thank you to Elaine Farrington Johnson for this week’s photo prompt and inspiration!

L is for Light. #AtoZChallenge

Photo taken with my Smartphone.wp-1480187397080.jpg

John 1:5:  I think this Scripture is quite appropriate for Good Friday.  L is not only for light, it is for Lent.  In my faith tradition, Lent is a dark, somber corridor which leads us to the light.  The story of Good Friday is one of the hardest for me to relive in my mind, and the hardest to share.  It tells of mankind hitting rock bottom.  It is an ugly story of an innocent, loving man being betrayed, whipped, beaten, and crucified.  Such is the darkness.  Yet, the light will come, because this loving man (also part of God, the tricky part to explain) forgives us.  What an ultimate example of unconditional love!

Scripture:  John 1:5  New International Version

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Whatever faith you practice, may you feel the presence of the light today.

 

**The AtoZ Challenge theme for my blog is “Who I am.” Yes, it’s wide open.  In April, I will blog from A to Z to include little tidbits about me, poems I’ll share, and stories. Each day I will write something based on the next letter in the alphabet.  It’s been fun so far, yet it has really given me a chance to pause for reflection as well.

Want to know more about the A-Z blog challenge?  Visit http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

A Date to Remember, Ch. 2. A Tale of Love in 2063. #amwriting #shortstories

wildflowers-1559029_1280 2-14-2063

A Date to Remember, Ch. 1   Find the first installment, a Flash Fiction piece, here on my Niume profile. (If you haven’t discovered it yet on WordPress).  http://niume.com/post/251559

A Date to Remember, Ch. 2 © 2017.  By Pamela Schloesser Canepa. All rights reserved.

He’s going to love his Valentine’s gift, I thought, almost running back home under gray skies that could not cloud my mood. I had just been to see Roy, who was helping me with this effort.

Tom and I had discussed this, the possibility of a child. We saw Roy and Mavis with their child, Randy, who could not hear but communicated quite well with his hands at four. It was just a pity there was no official education for a child like him.  Since the “system” had decided not to fund or make available any health insurance for those who procreate without a permit, the government believed it could rightly do away with any such education. Those operating outside of the laws of society would do so without any help from society or the government.

Roy and Mavis were actually doing quite well. Mavis was researching and hoarding all the books and video uploads she could find to educate her child on her own. Health insurance? Roy was already a holistic healer (a profession that implied living on the fringes), and his self-studies made him an awfully good unofficial nurse/ sometimes doctor for children who were born to families on the fringes. His own child included. In fact, if I ever gave birth, he’d have to be the one to deliver it. Not to mention, no doctor would help me now…..

Read the rest here at Niume:  Source: A Date to Remember, Ch. 2. A Tale of Love in 2063.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay (Creative Commons)

Want to know how you can use Niume to promote your writing and earn revenue?  Please see my post at https://pamelascanepa.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/use-niume-to-promote-your-writing/

Thank you for reading!

#weekendcoffeeshare A New Year’s rollercoaster

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If we were having coffee today, I’d tell you how I don’t like rollercoasters anymore.  They make me feel whiplashed.  Well, whiplash (a metaphorical kind) is what my life gave me this last week.From watching a rented movie New Years Eve to time spent in an ER New Years Day, to spreading news of my first book now in paperback, I don’t think normal is meant for me.  Even keel?  I have to try hard to maintain it these days.

I am so grateful that through this last week that I’ve had the support of my mom, my significant other, and my church family.  Because New Year day was horrible, getting a call from Shands hospital that my son had been in a bad car accident.  They couldn’t tell me anything else, so I went down there.  And sat, and waited, for at least an hour before someone could tell me his status since nurses and doctors were really busy in the ER.  Let me tell you, that hour is the worst.  Shands is the leading trauma center in our city.  I knew that, and it made me even more worried, not knowing the extent of the accident.

Finally, I got details, and when I saw him they had him sedated and in a neck brace.  I worried about his state of mind.  The next day, when he was in a regular room, he was awake.  Thank God! A day later he was discharged, and he has a concussion.  Considering all of my worries, we are blessed that he got nothing worse.  My writing this week has been seriously affected by this event;  I didn’t work on any writing projects or add to any flash fiction challenges, but I did post a free verse poem that acknowledges the process and pain of a fellow traveler in the ER that day and my struggle of being between two places, grief and relief.  https://pamelascanepa.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/10117/

After resting at home a day,  he went back to work, and so did I.  That evening, I got an uplifting piece of news.  The work I did over Christmas break paid off!  I had gone into KDP at Amazon and converted my first ebook into a paperback.  I had to re-do it a few times, and then after hitting publish, it took a few days to go “live.”  My mother ordered one, and I wasn’t telling anyone until I saw that the finished product was presentable.  It was a lot of hard work to figure out the formatting and their requirements; formatting is not my forte.  But I persevered!  It looks good! I think I should have gone with a smaller trim size (or whatever it’s called).  My mom’s excited because many of her friends love reading but don’t have a Kindle.  Therefore, my writing is getting into the hands of more people, which excites me immensely!  You may view or purchase the paperback of my sci-fi romance, Made for Me, at  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1520250215, and here’s what it looks like:

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I had kept getting error messages about the text possibly getting cut off at the edges.  Well, it’s all there!  It was nice to get some good news after all that went on this week.  While I was a little down about not being able to work on any current writing projects, this came up and reminded me:  “Pam, this is who you are and what you do.  Nothing can take that away.  Rest if you need to, and then come on back to it.  You’ve achieved many things so far, and when ready, you’ll continue.”   That’s my self-talk to get me through the rest of the year.  *sighs with relief.

weekendcoffeesharelogo  Weekend Coffee Share is hosted at parttimemonsterblog.com and is a community effort shared by bloggers worldwide, where we share our insights, our comings-and-goings of the week, latest projects, or anything else under the sun.  Join the chat and add your link at parttimemonsterblog.com, while visiting some of the other posts.  I have met all types of writers and creative types through this effort!

 

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