A single thought

When she saw the ship slowly moving into the port she knew her freedom was over. She had married him in that spur of the moment movement that was sweeping across the country in the first years of the war. He had been funny and handsome and was leaving in the morning for the war front where he might possibly die. They had spent one night together, their wedding night and in the morning he was gone. She was not even sure she could really remember what he looked like. She had spent the last three years marveling at the freedom the wedding ring on her finger gave her. With a husband over seas fighting she was granted the freedom to live alone and work and spend as much time with her friends as she wanted. It was the first time in her life she had never had to report her whereabouts to anyone and she loved it. Every minute of it. Free, like the waves of the ocean which were bringing that freedom to an end.

He sat on his bunk as the waves of the ocean lapped at the sides of the ship that was slowly making its way into the harbor. He tried to drown out the voice in his head by listening to the slap of those waves against the ship, but it was no use. The voice kept repeating one word over and over and over again. That word was Idiot. He had been an idiot to marry a girl he had just met and knew nothing about the night before he left for war. But he had been sure he was going to die in that war and she had been funny and pretty. And now here he was. Stuck, trapped, and imprisoned in a marriage with a woman he did not know. As the waves drew the ship closer to shore he closed his eyes and tried not to think about the freedom he would lose when this ocean voyage ended.

They walk together side by side

The dog is old, the man is not. Despite the leash laws in our city no one seems to mind that his dog never wears one. The dog is so slow and crippled that no one fears him. The man is slow too, they have the same gait. I often wonder how the man was broken. War, car accident, always. I am embarrassed to ask. They wander our streets, this pair, slow and methodical, side by side, each step a torture. What will happen to the broken man when the dog is gone?

A Pirate's Life

In honor of talk like a Pirate Day!

She stood at the front of the ship as it moved swiftly through the water toward the other ship. She dressed like a man but no one would ever mistake her for one, with the long blond curls hanging down her back and her feminine curves accentuated by the tight breeches. As her ship pulled along side the french supply ship, she unsheathed her sword and lead her men in a vicious attack. She may have looked like a soft woman with her rounded checks and bright eyes but she was a pirate after all and soon the crew of the french ship surrendered to the Valkyrie and her men. She had grown fond of the nickname bestowed on her by a conquered ships crew many years ago. She felt like a Valkyrie on days like this where she and her crew celebrated another capture. She had not always been this wild and reckless pirate. A long time ago she had been another young women on the marriage mart attending balls in London. In that first season she was out and looking for a husband she quickly realized that the life of a docile wife married to a Peer of the realm was not the life for her, but with few choices open to a women she felt she had no choice. But then the most amazing thing happened, on a voyage to the colonies the next year to visit her sister her ship was captured by pirates and she was at their mercy. Instead of whimpering and crying at fate she decided that perhaps this was a good thing and quickly she not only won over her pirate captors but joined them, eventually earning her own ship and she never looked back. Now, years later she regretted nothing. She liked the freedom she had, she liked the sea, she liked her men. She was a happy women. She sat back in the chair sipping the delicious brandy they had taken from the french ship, watched her men celebrate and thought about the handsome young captain of the french ship in her hold, perhaps she should invite the captain to dinner to discuss his surrender.
Yo ho , ho, ho, she thought, a pirates life for me!

The Hunger

It came upon her so quickly these days. It gnawed at her belly until she grew so weak from it that she would have to stop her horse and lie down on her bedroll. She had been travelling for weeks without seeing another person so when she saw the town in the valley as she rode over the hill she was for a very brief moment happy, until the hunger returned. That is how it always was these days. Brief flashes of joy, happiness, and even peace and then the hunger would smash the joy right out of her. She knew that she had to finish this, finish what he had started and she would end. There was no other way. Until the hunger was gone she would never be able to live again. Never have peace. So she rode toward that town with a grim look on her face. When she walked into the saloon that night she knew that soon it would end. She sat at the bar ordered a whiskey and waited. Soon enough she heard what she needed. She ordered another whiskey, swallowed it in one gulp, grabbed her hat and walked out of the saloon. He was in the whore house at the end of town and tomorrow at noon he was going to die.

To read more of her story read: The barn
and Tired and sore

In the Dead of the Night

There was a single light glowing above the sink in the kitchen as she slowly pushed the back door open and slipped into the house. She began tip-toeing to the front of the house. She had made it to about the middle of the room before she heard the flick of the light switch and she was blinded by the flood of lights that filled the kitchen. He sat on the stool in the corner by the refrigerator. He was wearing his fire engine pajamas and looked like to the entire world the perfect image of the perfect little boy, but she knew better. She knew that in his small blond adorable frame he contained more evil then had ever existed anywhere else on earth and she regretted the errand she had had to run this night that put her in this position. She knew that he would use this to blackmail her into something terrible. As she stood there frozen in the middle of the kitchen and looked at the adorable blond child, a vicious smile spread across his face transforming the angelic child into the monster he was. She knew the moment he decided what her punishment would be and it was going to be bad, very bad. How long was she going to have to continue this charade and how was she ever going to rid the world of his evil. She was the only one who saw and knew and one day she was going to have to end it. When she looked back at the child his smile had slipped a little and she remembered to make her face the blank mask that was her only protection. He looked her up and down and then in his sweet high infant voice said, “You are in big trouble Mommy, you should never have left the house without telling me, this is what I need you to do…..”

Punk Rock Girl

She would sit for hours making the tapes. Sorting through her own tapes to find just the right songs. Painstakingly starting and stopping and recording those songs onto the blank tape, re-taping if she cut the song off too early. It was an art form back then in the time before computers, mp3 players and music on the Internet. She had been an artist. She crafted the most beautiful and outrageous music to ever be combined in one place. If you tracked the time she worked on making those tapes it would have added up to two years, three months and five days. That was then, now with a click of the mouse, what took her hours takes ten minutes and like the one hit wonder by the Buggles says “Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far, Oh-a-aho oh, Oh-a-aho oh.”