The rules for Six Sentence Stories, a bloghop hosted by Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, are simply to include the prompt word (this week’s word is “WRECK“) and write a story in precisely six sentences. The following is a scene from something I started earlier in the summer, from another missed prompt I never finished, not yet anyway. It may be incomplete here, but maybe I’ll go back and finish that story now. Link your six sentences or read others HERE.

Still Strong by D. Avery

Grandma’s Subaru was not spared by this year’s flood, which, by the way, came a year to the day after last year’s, but once again, Grandma’s manufactured home (she doesn’t ever refer to it as a trailer) somehow missed disaster, again, so that’s good, but the river now winds even closer, clawing at the crumbly bank beyond Grandma’s shrinking backyard.

“No worries, just another once in a lifetime flood,” Grandma jokes, the joke being it’s the third catastrophic flood just in my lifetime, though I was a newborn when Irene hit. Grandma’s Subaru still has her ‘I am Vermont Strong’ plate from Irene, thirteen years ago now.

Actually that’s all that’s left of the Subaru, because in this flood mud and gravel from the brook across the road poured down our driveway, lifted and turned the Subaru around, broke its windshield, then filled the interior with thick debris-ridden silt, but somehow that VT Strong plate remained visible, flagging the mound next to her manufactured home as Grandma’s car.

“A total wreck!” Grandma declares, “But the insurance payout should cover this.”

Grandma hands me a laptop computer, says it’s my very own so I can write all this down, says there are important stories flowing all around us, and she’s counting on me to catch them.

Every week for quite some time now, Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, has hosted Six Sentence Stories, a bloghop with not so strict strict rules: Include the prompt word and write just about anything as long as the sentence (or lines, stanzas, verses) numbers six. She even keeps a bowlful of semi-colons and em dashes for participants to avail themselves of. You’d think it’d be easy. This week’s word is “FOIL“. Link in HERE.

Foiling Around by D. Avery

The writer sighed, stymied by the insurmountable and non-sensical quota, for while she struggled to come up with “only” six sentences, she could easily enumerate half a dozen reasons why, in a five-fingered world, six sentences was simply too much, especially with the added rule of having to wrap that six sentence story around an arbitrary prompt.

She tried, but her words fell flat; the sentences she advanced were like slashing and slicing with a round fencing sword, no point, no sharp cutting edges.

The writer took a lunch break, and though she wasn’t really hungry, she enjoyed the complementary contrast of the sharp cheese and sweet tomato in her sandwich, which made her think maybe that’s what she needed, two characters whose disparate qualities made each more interesting.

She pulled a roll of Saran Wrap from the drawer, for she would finish her sandwich later, after putting more effort into this writing challenge.

But no, she could not come up with a story, could not come up with a sixth sentence.

She was foiled again.

Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, assures us that all that is requires are six sentences (or lines, stanzas, etc.) that include the weekly prompt word, in this case, “punch“. The Six Sentence Stories blog hop link-up can be found HERE. There you will find more stories to read and might link one of your own.

Stirred, Not Shaken by D. Avery

I am old, and now, on top of the accumulated afflictions attendant to that, I must contend with the added indignities from having suffered a stroke that has impaired my speech. The worst thing is that my son seems to think that my inability to articulate words clearly means my mind is no longer clear, so he has taken to speaking for me, over me, and down to me, as if I am a confused child. Because my son assumes moving to Shady Oaks is traumatic for me, he acquiesced regarding the cut glass punchbowl set; it is one of the few possessions I am bringing with me from the house I’d lived in for most of my eighty-seven years. As my son mansplains to the intake nurse that the bowl is important to me, an ancient wedding gift, a relic that serves as a reminder of my husband and parties from earlier times, she catches my eye and winks. She and I already had a talk, with the help of her iPad and its oversized keypad, and she knows that I have future plans for that bowl. She agrees with me that the residents here might like to stir things up and has herself promised to bring the ingredients for my first Shady Oaks punch party, as soon as my son is out of our hair.  

You’ll never guess what prompt word Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, has dreamed up this week for the Six Sentence Stories blog hop. The word is “dream” and I’m in with a dark one, but I’m in. The Six Sentence Stories blog hop link-up can be found HERE.

Scrambled by D. Avery

He was at the kitchen island, still in his pajamas, had just put down the phone, told her he’d called in, he would not be going in to work today. But this she already knew, for everything— every action, every detail of him gathering a bowl, a pan, a knife, the ingredients to make omelets— was exactly as she had seen it in her dream; his returning to the fridge for an onion was like watching a rerun.

She shook her head, as she had in the dream, said ‘How odd’, and he, as she recalled he had in her dream, asked ‘What’s odd, that I want to stay home and make omelets for you?’.

She tried to explain, felt the same frustration she’d felt in her dream when trying to explain that she had already dreamed what was happening now, had dreamed every aspect of each passing moment. As she knew he would, he reached to soothe her but the onion rolled off the counter, and when he bent to retrieve it she, as inexplicably and dream-hazed as before, picked up the chef’s knife and plunged it into his unsuspecting back once, twice, three times, before rinsing it in the sink and returning it and the onion to the counter, exactly as she’d done in the dream.

And, as she’d done in the dream, she glanced at the wall calendar, confirming it was Friday, noting he wouldn’t be missed until Monday, that really all she had to do was just wake up, just wake up from this horrible dream.

The word this week for the Six Sentence Stories blog hop, hosted by Denise, aka GirlieontheEdge, is “hatch”. And I have missed a few weeks again (life) so the following story, in six sentences, no more no less, also contains platform, dial, and swirl. The Six Sentence Stories blog hop link-up can be found HERE.

Earth Bound by D. Avery

Her hands full with the baby, her mind full with the tweenager, that the four-year-old and six-year-old got along so well, entertaining each other for hours with their imaginative play, was her saving grace, and she had smiled to see them carrying a crate, a platform for their rocket ship launch they said.

The astronauts put the platform in place and the youngest climbed into the spacecraft, leaving it to his older brother to shut the hatch, turn the dials, and push the  buttons that would send the craft hurtling into the far reaches of the galaxy. Sure enough, the machine came to life, but instead of rockets roaring, water rose around the intrepid spaceman, who watched helplessly through the glass portal as his brother, sensing the mission had gone wrong, frantically pulled at the hatch. Then he was spinning and swirling in the utter darkness of outer space.

He wouldn’t remember the rest of the journey, or of being pulled from the craft, pulled toward the light of his mother’s shining eyes, who sobbed gratefully as he threw up and gulped at the oxygen of his home planet.

Somewhere a baby was crying.