The prompt for week four was "Tears of God or Tears of the Gods." Frankly I had a really hard time with this one. Not so much because I couldn't think of anything but because everything I did think of was more appropriate for a novel or at least a much longer story than I wanted to post here. So, this is what I finally came up with (at the very last minute too!)


"The tears of God," Rose stretched out her hand, watching the raindrops fall on it.

"No kidding." I was in a foul mood. Everything seemed to be going wrong lately. First my computer died, then my cell phone was hacked and, finally, my boyfriend cheated on me--with a man. "Are you sure these are tears? I mean why shouldn't God be pissing on me, everyone and everything else in my life is."

"I'm not," said Rose, "but if we don't hurry I can't make any promises."

I sighed and followed her into the office building. We were headed to the Obstetrician's office. Rose was expecting her first baby. Since her husband was in South Africa on business, she begged me to go with her because she wanted someone with whom to share the experience. I really wasn't interested--I don't plan on having any children myself--but she is my best friend.
The waiting room was filled with pregnant women. I had the creepy feeling it might be catching and I folded my arms tightly around myself as though that would prevent me from "catching" a pregnancy. Rose sat next to me, completely unaware of my discomfort, leafing through magazines.

As the wait lengthened, she began to jiggle her foot and shift in her chair. I knew what that was all about. The amount of water they make you drink before these things is ridiculous. It's a wonder they don't cover the waiting room furniture in plastic to protect against leakage.
Finally, the technician called her name. I followed along and watched as Rose climbed onto the examining table and pulled up her blouse so that the technician could spread goo over her stomach. "Nice," said Rose. "I thought it would be cold."

"I warm it ahead of time," said the technician. "Something icy cold on your tummy can only make for accidents, you know."

The room was dark; the only bright spot was the computer screen of the imaging machine. The technician slid the probe across Rose's protruding stomach, all the time looking at the monitor. Then she flipped a switch and a loud shush, shush, shush sound filled the room. "There is your baby's heartbeat." She looked at me. "I know Rose has heard this by now, but I thought you might like to hear it."

"Should it be so fast?" I was afraid that something might be wrong but neither Rose nor the technician seemed to be concerned.

"Baby's hearts beat very quickly," said the technician. "It can be as high as 160 beats per minute."

This was more interesting than I had expected. I moved closer to get a better look. To me, the image on the screen resembled a RADAR display. There were a lot of shadowy shapes and they seemed to be moving. I couldn't pick out any details that looked like anything resembling a human. Then, as the probe approached the very lower limits of Rose's stomach, I suddenly saw a shape. It looked like a silhouette of an embryo as they draw it in textbooks.

"There is your baby," said the technician. She hit a key on the keyboard and then using the cursor, she pointed out the baby's head, one arm, a leg, and then she said, "Do you want to know what you're having?"

"Yes," I said. I realized that I was holding my breath.

"Your partner clearly wants to know," said the technician. "How about you?"

Rose laughed. "She's not my partner, she's my best friend, but yes, my husband and I want to know. Boy or girl?"

"What you have here," said the technician, "is a little boy. See this?" She indicated something that looked like no more like a penis than any of the other shadowy shapes on the screen. I was willing to grant that the head and arm looked sort of like a head and arm, but I thought maybe she was stretching things a bit calling this little blob a penis. She clicked several buttons and there was a small whirring noise. She handed Rose a print and said, "Here is the first portrait of your baby boy."

Rose was clearly thrilled. She smiled at the picture, and even in the darkened room, I could see the tears in her eyes. I suddenly felt like an intruder. This was a private moment--a moment that should be shared between the mother, the father, and the baby. The technician and I were superfluous. "I wish Don could have been here," said Rose softly.

"We'll tell him all about it tonight," I said much more loudly than I had intended. My eyes were feeling a little bit misty by now as well. When the exam was over, Rose ran for the bathroom. While I waited for her, I examined the picture of the baby she had given me to hold for her. The technician had drawn an arrow on the screen, pointing to the little blob and typed in the words, "Baby boy!"

Despite my reservations about making this visit, I was beginning to think that I had seen something quite miraculous. I had shared a glimpse into something that only people in the modern age were allowed to see. I had looked inside a living human being and watched another human being formed. How can you look at that and not feel awe?

When we went outside, the rain was ending. A rainbow arched across the western sky, stretching from one side of the valley to the other. "These may be the tears of God," I said softly to Rose, "but today they are surely tears of joy."

This is my entry for the third week in the Brigits Flame writing competition for July 2008. The prompt for this week was "Happiness is..."


"Happiness is extremely over-rated," said Alice Clarke. "Why did I ever let you talk me into this?" She adjusted the full skirt of her Snow White costume and tried to determine by feel whether her black, page-boy wig was on straight.

"Oh come on, it's for a good cause." Maggie opened the curtains and peered out at the audience seated in the Carpenter's Point High School auditorium. "Besides, you needed to get out and have a little bit of fun for a change. You've been an absolute recluse since the divorce."

"If you think this is so much fun, then why aren't you performing?"

"Some of us do, while the rest of us just inspire the ones that do to—" She shrugged her shoulders and finished, "well, do."

"From the moment you conned me into playing Snow White for the BPW fundraiser, I've been unhappy. My kids resent the fact that I'm out almost every evening for rehearsals, and I'm tired of making a fool out of myself, pretending to love some ideal Prince Charming as though there really was such a thing as happily ever after."

"Well, cheer up, it's almost over." Maggie watched appreciatively as Bob Stevens, 'Prince Charming,' got directions to the dwarf's cottage from a wood cutter. "He looks pretty good to me," she murmured softly.

Alice found herself watching too. She had to admit that Bob was the best looking man she'd seen in ages. Not that she'd been looking. Her husband had seemed perfect too. Yes, Philip Clarke had been a real prince, right up to the day when he left her to marry his nineteen year-old secretary with the big boobs and hair, leaving her to raise two little girls alone.

Then she'd met Bob and he seemed—well, perfect—too perfect. She sighed. He was good looking, smart, and had a way of making her laugh that was surprising. Yet, despite his perfection, she found herself bristling whenever they got close. And they were close often. When he heard that her kids resented the time she spent rehearsing, he had brought over a pizza and charmed all three of the Clarke women with his wit. Still...

Suddenly time, which during rehearsals had passed as slowly as a bicyclist riding up a steep hill, revved up and ran over her like melted ice water in the springtime.

"Ready for your big scene?"

She spun around. "Oh, it's you."

"Who else?" With an exaggerated leer, Bob said, "You're looking lovely today, my dear. Just the ticket for a lonely prince."

"How dare you?" Alice was simultaneously outraged and flattered. Carefully hiding her pleasure beneath an angry voice, she said, "I'm not just some cute little girl you can flirt with whenever it pleases you. I'm a woman and I demand respect."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. R-e-s-p-e-c-t—I get the idea." He paused and then continued, "I think I was quite respectful. Face it, Alice, you are beautiful and desirable. It's not disrespectful for me to tell you so."

"All right, you two, get ready to lock lips." Maggie was back and she looked from one to the other, eyes sparkling brightly with curiosity. Then she said, "All right, Snow, time to get into your coffin."

As Alice lay down, she considered the time she'd spent with Bob over the past few weeks. Too bad they just couldn't seem to get along. She listened to the dwarves and the prince as they discussed Snow White and then the lid of the coffin was lifted and Prince Robert, the charming, leaned over her. She felt his breath caress her cheek as he whispered, "When will you understand that I'm in love with you and admit that you love me too?"

She watched through slightly parted lashes as his face approached and then closed them completely as his lips moved gently against hers. They hadn't actually kissed during rehearsals, but this time, well--this time was different. As his kiss became demanding, she found herself returning his passion with her own. The kiss went on for an eternity until she heard the voice of the announcer saying, "I said, 'Snow White awoke from her terrible slumber.'"

Alice's eyes snapped opened and she jumped up, nearly knocking Bob over backwards. Taking a step backwards, he helped her to her feet and led her to the apron at the front of the stage. She felt the heat on her face but the audience didn't seem to mind. As they roared their approval, "Prince Robert" turned her towards him and kissed her again. Dimly, as if from a great distance, she heard he announcer's voice say, "And they lived happily ever after."

"Maybe," she thought. But for the first time in a long time, happiness seemed like an idea worth exploring.

This is my submission for week 2 of the Brigits_Flame July writing competition. The prompt was "It hurts when I do this."

“Ouch!”

Arlene took a deep breath, tweezers poised, examining her face in the lighted magnifying mirror. She ran her fingers over her chin, searching for the tiny hairs which she was sure others could see even if she could not.

“I really hate getting old,” she said and sighed. “Not only do I have hair where I never had it before but I can’t see it well enough to get rid of it.”

She opened a pair of pantyhose, black to make her legs look slimmer, control -top to trim the tummy she could no longer hold in by sheer will power, and so tight that she had to contort herself into strange new shapes to get them on. By the time she was done, she was out of breath and seriously considering calling the whole thing off.

The phone rang as she applied her lipstick. She jumped, creating a dark red smear across her cheek that looked disturbingly like blood.

As soon as she recognized the voice of her daughter, Heather, she knew it wasn’t going to be happy news and it wasn’t. “I just wanted to let you know that we won’t be able to make it to dinner tomorrow. Jerry has to be in court early Monday so we have to stay close to home.”

“You and the baby could come. I’d love to have… no, I understand.”

“So what are you doing tonight, Ma?”

“I have a date with that guy I’ve been chatting with. I told you about him. His name is Paul and he’s got his own business.”

“Why do you do this to yourself? You go out with one creep after the other. You always end up hurt for one reason or another.”

“That’s not true. What about George?”

“You mean the one who made you pay for everything?”

“He did not,” said Arlene. “Sometimes we went Dutch and sometimes he paid too.”

“Yeah, like when he made you drink water with dinner because he was too cheap to buy you a soda. What kind of date is that?”

“Well, nobody could be like your father.”

“I know. So why do you try?”

“I have to find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I can’t be alone,” said Arlene. She felt the tears prickle beneath her eyelids and blinked rapidly until she had them under control. Then she tucked the receiver under her chin and tried to scrub her cheek clean with a wad of tissues. When it didn’t work, she spat on the tissue and tried again, all the time listening to Heather’s lecture on how it is better to be alone than to take  a chance in this day and age. “Ma, you had a happy life with Daddy. Why do you keep looking for a replacement?”

“It’s not that. Your father has been gone since you were five years old. I raised you, concentrated every minute of my time on you for over twenty years. Now you have your life and I want to find something for me.”

“But—“

“But nothing. You have your man, let me find mine.”

 “Oh Ma, that’s just ridiculous. What would you do with a man if you had one?”

“What do you think?”

“Ew, come on, that’s more information than I needed,” Heather paused. Was her daughter ashamed of her? The silence began to become uncomfortable before she finally continued, “I’ve got to go. Maybe we’ll see you next weekend but I can’t promise. I think we’ve got a big party for Jerry’s work on Saturday and, you know how it is…”

“Well, why don’t you bring Meggie up on Friday night and leave her with me. We can get to know each other.”

“Oh, Ma, don’t be silly. You have enough to do without chasing after a toddler. Besides, that’s what the nanny is for.”

“Oh sure,” said Arlene, “a nanny who doesn’t even speak English. How many two-year old American children do you know who speak with a Russian accent?”

“Nonsense, Ma, she’s learning Russian and English at the same time. Don’t you think it’s great that she’s bi-lingual? How many languages do you speak?”

“One is good enough for me,” said Arlene. “Besides, I haven’t had five minutes alone with my granddaughter since she was born. Don’t you think it’s time we had a chance to get to know each other?”

“I don’t think I could stand to be away from her for that long,” said Heather.

“Nonsense,” thought Arlene. “It was easy enough for you to go to Paris for three weeks at Christmas, what difference could one or two nights make?” But aloud she said only, “Well, one of these days soon then. You could both come and spend a couple of days. You could take a break and I could play with the baby. We’ll have a good time.”

“We’ll see, Ma. I’ve got to go.”

Once off the phone, Arlene quickly repaired her makeup and then checked herself in the mirror. “Not too bad,” she thought. “At least, not bad for an old lady.”

She grabbed her shoes, black velvet pumps with ridiculously high heels, and went downstairs to wait. It was always best to put on the shoes at the last possible minute. They might make her legs look sexy as hell but they made her feet feel as if she was already there.

She glanced at the clock. Nearly time. Between pacing back and forth, circling the house from living room to kitchen, down the hallway and back to the living room window where she would peek out, trying to get a first glimpse of her date. When he arrived, nearly half an hour late, Arlene was disappointed to see that he drove a faded red, much-dented, Dodge Ram pickup truck. It was going to be difficult climbing in and out short as she was, especially in spike heels. “But you can’t judge a person by their car,” she thought.

She bent down and forced her feet into the shoes. The toes of her left foot almost immediately went numb but she managed to get both shoes on in time to get to the front door simultaneously with the ringing of the doorbell.

“Hello at last, what a—“

She couldn’t think how to end the sentence. The man standing on the welcome mat looked nothing like the photographs that he had sent her. She wasn’t even sure the pictures had been of him. The handsome, slightly graying man dressed in a dark blue pin-striped suit, the man that had looked at her so directly and confidently from his e-mail, surely had no relation to the nearly bald, pudgy man in front of her.

It wasn’t his looks that bother her the most. After all, her own picture had been from a few years back as well, but despite the fact that they had reservations at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, Paul was dressed in faded and torn jeans, steel-toed work shoes, and a faded work shirt that had nearly as many stains as the rags she used to scrub the kitchen floor.

“Arlene?”

“Can I say no? ‘Spose not. I did agree to go out with him, after all.” She took a deep breath. “Paul?”

“You got it, babe. Are you ready?”

“We are going to the Inn at the Edge of the Forest?”

“Right again. Let’s shake a leg,” he said and then turned and climbed back into the truck without waiting to hold the door for her. She finally managed to climb in and close the door and then braced herself as he backed down the driveway, holding on as well as she could to the seat as he peeled out into the traffic on the main street.

The evening was an unmitigated disaster. His manners were atrocious and he spent the entire evening talking about himself, his many ex-wives and even more numerous children which apparently ranged in age from thirty-five down to three. It wasn’t difficult to decide that this wasn’t going to work any better than any of the other men she had met in the past three years. It was almost a relief when the truck roared down the driveway and away from the house before she could even get out her house key.

Once inside, she kicked off her shoes and then picked up the photograph of her late husband that sat on top of the piano. She gently touched the image of his face. “You understand, don’t you love? It hurts when I do this but it hurts even more to be alone.”

"A Heavy Promise"

The crunch of gravel beneath my sneakers was hypnotic. The new day was still a pale blotch on the horizon. My shadow paced alongside, skimming the ground like a low-flying bird. The sensation of lightness, of speed, was euphoric.

Running is a habit. It's what I do. Every day.

Just over a year ago, when I was more than seventy pounds overweight, the only time I ran was—never. I was barely able to walk. Life was at an all-time low. I had just lost my father, my mother had moved in with me. My husband George got along with Mom about as well as crude oil and water fowl. Most nights he ate dinner and went right to bed. Most evenings, after my mother went to bed, I sat alone, watching old movies and cramming comfort food down my throat.

One night I ran out of Ben & Jerry's. On my way to the freezer case at the Wal-Mart Supercenter, I glanced up at the security monitor and saw an overweight, sour looking woman. Her long hair, skinned back into a large bun on the top of her head only emphasized the round puffiness of her face. Her neck bulged over her collar and her ankles were as wide as her calves. Every inch of the body in between bulged and sagged like dough that had been left to rise for too long. When I realized who it was, I left the store without the ice cream.

The next morning I paused in the dining room, where George and Mom were eating breakfast, to announce that I was going out running.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mom looked up from shoveling sugar into her coffee. She raised one eyebrow as she looked at my too-tight sweats. “You must be at least a hundred pounds overweight. You'll have a heart attack out there”

"If I don't start running, I'll have a heart attack right here," I said as I tightened the laces on my sneakers.

“Why bother?” George took another piece of toast which he buttered as thickly as a mason putting down mortar for a brick wall. “You're going to be fifty next year. Isn't it a little late to start something like this?”

In my thoughts I agreed with them. Out loud, I said, “It's never too late.”

"George is right, dear. Besides, you know that you never finish anything you start."

Resisting the urge to stamp my feet—Mom has a talent for making me feel like a five-year old—I said, "Not only am I going to lose the weight, I'm going to run a marathon next year at this time and, what's more, I'm going to finish it."

I jogged out the front door and down the road. That first morning was agony but the next was worse. My legs were so sore, I nearly gave up. For the first four months, I spent more time walking than running. Sometimes, I could barely walk. My mantra became, “Just one more step...” and I repeated it every time I put one leaden foot in front of the other.

Thinking that, with people watching I'd be less likely to quit, I told everyone about my plan. Big mistake. Everyone had advice. Friends, family, and people I barely knew told me what to wear, what to eat and even what route to take on my runs. I began to look forward to running. It was the only time I didn't have to listen to yet another lecture on the benefits of the raw spaghetti diet or the dangers of too much Vitamin C.

One day, my mother met me at the door with hot cinnamon rolls. "I know how hard it is for you to keep up with things now that you're spending so much time with your little exercise program," she said.

The next day it was pound cake. When I turned down the blueberry muffins, she said, "What's wrong with you Ann? Are you so unhappy that you have to starve yourself to death?"

When I was down to a size ten, George stopped nagging and started paying attention to me in more pleasant ways. Mom stopped talking to me altogether. She wasn't the only one. The better I did, the better I looked, the quieter my advisers became.

Seven days ago, I kept my promise and finished that marathon. Now, nobody will talk to me.