Expectations in the Dark – The Last Good Thing (update)

She had always expected grandchildren.  She had expected, even as a young girl, to live deep into her twilight surrounded by chittering, smiling faces.  Even before she had thought of having children or even knew what that meant, she had expected grandchildren.  She had expected full tables at thanksgiving and long lists of names at Christmas.

She could always see it so vividly.

Sitting next to a man who would have looked remarkably like a potato that lay in the cupboard too long whose skin had gone loose as the inside had lessened with time.  She would have borne the years with more grace and would have had tight skin that shone like a mirror as it stretched across her forehead.  She had expected to buy him little sweaters that he would have worn as he sat in front of a typewriter, or sat in his favorite chair reading the paper or a book that he loved.  The sweaters would have always been soft against her face when he hugged her unexpectedly in the middle of a frigid morning.

Expectations In The Dark

 

            She had always expected grandchildren.  She had expected, even as a young girl, to live deep into her twilight surrounded by chittering, smiling faces.  Even before she had thought of having children or even knew what that meant, she had expected grandchildren.  She had expected full tables at thanksgiving and long lists of names at Christmas.

She could always see it so vividly.

Sitting next to a man who would have looked remarkably like a potato whose skin had gone loose after too long in a cupboard.  She would have borne the years with more grace and would have had tight skin that shone like a mirror as it stretched across her forehead.  She had expected to buy him little sweaters that he would have worn as he sat in front of a typewriter, or sat in his favorite chair reading the paper or a book that he loved.  The sweaters would have always been soft against her face when he hugged her unexpectedly in the middle of a frigid morning. 

Helios 12 – Second Draft

            She lay there in the dark chill of her bunk and tried to ignore the grating beep of her alarm.  It had pulled her out of the deep dark hole of sleep a few minutes before but she always hated that damned sound.  It might have had something to do with the fact that she slept so much better out here.  No traffic noise, no birds to wake her, no sun coming up and invading her room through her windows.  The sun was always up out here, but it only came in when she wanted it too.

Morsel – An, as-of-yet, unfinished continuation of “A Place to Rest Your Head”

“Down the wheezing stairs–to the right, the moth-eaten sack hangs on a hook.  Every night I crowd into the moldy burlap and hug my knees until my stomach aches me to sleep.”

       – Morsel           

            There is house in central Vermont at the apex of a cul-de-sac.  The address is 385 Champlain Circle.  There are no other houses in that particular cul-de-sac.  There are no other houses in that particular community.  There are piles of decaying wood and plaster in each lot of that community, but they have all but turned into hillocks dotting a long abandoned landscape.  In the basement of 385 Champlain Circle there is a staircase.  At the bottom of the staircase, just to the right, there is a burlap sack hanging on a rusty hook.  It is slightly green from mold, and if you were to see it at night, it would look quite full.  This is where Morsel sleeps.

Helios 12 – Short fiction from a prompt

  An aching beep pushed its way into her mind dragging her from the depths of sleep with a slow insistence. She opened her eyes and stared at the small blinking set of numbers that told her it was six o’clock in the morning earth time.  She glared at it, wishing–not for the first time–that she could destroy the blinking numbers with her mind.  When nothing happened aside from the incessant beep-blink-beep-blink repetition, she sighed and pushed her arm from beneath the warm blanket and flicked a switch.  A small light popped on at the same instant as the beeping stopped and the ceiling of her sleeping chamber became gradually brighter, giving the appearance of a curtain being drawn back from a window on a Sunny day.

A Place to Rest Your Head – 33 word prompt

Down the wheezing stairs–to the right, the moth-eaten sack hangs on a hook.  Every night I crowd into the moldy burlap and hug my knees until my stomach aches me to sleep.

My prompt came from Trifecta Writing Challenge.