Home » Search results for 'women warrior'
Search Results for: women warrior
Warrior Women
Strong women run with the wolves, engaging their Wild selves. Feminine mythology extends beyond limiting stereotypes of women. It’s fertile ground for writers to explore.
What might a female warrior look like, act like, sound like? Writers place these women as characters in different predicaments or examine the influences of those they have loved in real life.
The following is based on the May 31, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about warrior women.
PART I (10-minute read)
Rancha Mythica by D. Avery
Drumbeats and dancing feet reverberate like thunder across the lands of Buckaroo Nation.
The usual low, homey campfire is now a blazing bonfire. Flames leap wildly, lashing the night sky. Wild women are illuminated in flashes, scars revealed in the dancing light.
Old stories are told in new ways. Sad stories are told. Yet laughter rings out strong and true. Songs of life rise up like sparks from their fire, sung to old tunes that resonate like a smooth round rock.
The women warriors rise. The women warriors raise one another up. The women warriors of Buckaroo Nation write.
🥕🥕🥕
Valkyries by Charli Mills
Step forth onto the battlefield, Daughters. Brace your feet, remember your training. Adjust your shield and sword. Death is but a trip to Valhalla. Ready your bodies for passage. When you fall, the Valkyries are coming. Skol!
Lift up, lift up, lift up — Choosers of the Slain! Warrior-women wielding runes, marks of the chosen. Let not the weight of the world, the heaviness of battle, the blood your body sheds destroy you. Glory nears.
Lift up, lift up, lift up and carry those battle-born souls to Odin. Warriors of the warriors. Valkyries. Women who rise. The run is over.
🥕🥕🥕
War Zone by Mirium Hurdle
“Good morning, Lieutenant? You’ve slept for three days.”
“Where am I? My legs? I can’t feel anything.”
“They found you after the bombing. You’re alive.”
“Sheila, we need you. The Captain is hurt.”
“Right over, Ursula.”
“The blood is gushing out from his chest.”
“Roll up the sheet to put pressure on it. Give him porphin.”
“Sheila, more stretches are in. We have no beds.”
“Clear up all the tables.”
“Sheila, here. Private got shot through the elbow.”
“I’ll prepare to cut his forearm. Bring me the equipment.”
“Sheila, over there.”
“Captain needs a blood transfusion.”
“I’ll be there.”
🥕🥕🥕
Black ‘n’ White by Neel Anil Panicker
‘It’s plain nepotism. The winner’s the Jury Chairman’s nephew. You can contest the decision if you want to’.
For Abraham Lincoln, the Principal’s words were a sledgehammer.
He had outscored every single opponent and was lustily cheered after his passionate seven minute espousal of a woman’s undeniable right to abortion yet lost the prestigious annual Inter-Collegiate Debate Competition by a mere vote.
His mother’s words ringed her ears.
‘Remember, son, a Black man’s got to be a hundred times better than others if he wants to succeed in this land’.
“No Sir, I’ll try to do better next time”.
🥕🥕🥕
Urban Encounter by Bill Engleson
I generally don’t walk down Carlyle Avenue after dark. The town has quite a few streets I avoid at night. Truth is, there was still a hint of daylight slanting through, courtesy of a stretched moon shadow.
Before I see her, she screams from the alley, “Get the blazes outta here.”
That grabs my attention. Then she sashays into the light. Five-foot tops, wearing a black shawl, an ankle length red dress, and a gray military great coat.
“What’s ya lookin’ at, Creepo?”
Later, I’m thinking I should’ve said something clever.
Sadly, my tongue was tied.
I just skedaddled.
🥕🥕🥕
Mama Bear Unleashed by Eric Pone
Ono looked at the robber in the store. As he smacked the owner, she looked down at her daughter and took a deep breath. Piper shouldn’t see mama this way but shit happens. Reaching behind she slowly removed the Tanto Emerson knife and quietly rolled Piper into a quiet aisle. She walked purposely toward him her pace quickening as old habits opened their doors for their horrible duty. The man turned toward her and tried to point his Magnum 357. Too late. The knife quickly sliced his jugular. She smiled as he gurgled and fought for life. Mama did well.
🥕🥕🥕
Shadow People by Charli Mills
Undergrowth of legends cling to consciousness and shadows vape through the veil between who we must be and who we indeed are. Quaking, we repeat fairy tales to let fear conform our captured souls.
The veil slips, and we glimpse Mythica where strange and weird entities tap and twirl to original wingbeats of self-expression. Fear blinds our hearts and knots the rope around throats of mythical women who are different.
Mythica is the shadowlands populated by shadow people. Dare you cross the veil? Grandmother won’t save you, but she beckons you to enter and run hard with the wolves.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Women by Michael Grogan
She’s old now. Her life draws to an end, but the warrior lives within her. Once a victim of rape and incest, she dedicated her life as an advocate for others.
Hours as a parent rescuing a wayward daughter, suffering estrangement but death reunited mother and daughter. She never gave up, she was a rock her child could always lean on, never dreaming she might one day bury her.
True warriors are a source of inspiration to so many, her voice in a wilderness of indifference.
She sits and holds the image of a beautiful child she couldn’t save.
🥕🥕🥕
Warriors of the Dark by Reena Saxeena
dark fears of
being overpowered
light up corners of my psyche.
childhood memories of voices
saying I was no good
unacceptable in original form
they dressed me in clothes
of subservience
to comply with social norms.
I couldn’t see how
inner demons would be caged
floating out in the cold
the jury out there
delivered verdicts
to encase me in moulds
dark, interfering shadows
swooped to enslave,
control my life
it awakened armies inside me
with the power to wage war
and destroy to end strife.
isolation for protection
and … it has always been
a lone warrior’s life.
🥕🥕🥕
The Warrior Women of Ireland by Anne Goodwin
They fought in lipstick and five-inch heels; they fought in turf-stained jeans and wellies. They battled home via Stena Sealink and Ryanair for the desperate travelling in the opposite direction. They fought so no more Savitas would have to die because no surgeon would defy the law to save them. They fought with the ballot won a century before when women starved for basic freedoms. The warrior women of Ireland reclaimed the choice misogyny and church denied them. But the job’s not done until their sisters in the north can also decline to harbour an alien in their bodies.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Women by Robbie Cheadle!
“How are you enjoying being back at work, Lisa?”
“Not at all, Sarah. I feel guilty about leaving Tom with a caregiver. I feel I should be looking after him myself. When I collect him in the afternoon he won’t come to me. I am sure he isn’t happy.”
“Well, my view, for what it’s worth, is that we are helping to provide for our children. Our salaries facilitate better educational and other opportunities for them. It also ensures that our children have an independent, strong and self-sufficient woman as their role model. Working mothers are the modern warriors.”
🥕🥕🥕
Silent Warrior by Teresa Grabs
Protests erupted nationwide as women took to the streets. They protested for parental pay, self-ownership, and some just to protest. Newscasts were filled lawsuits over whether a man looked at a woman or complimented her outfit. Some men were too afraid to be in a room with a woman.
Lillian adjusted her gloves and checked her hat in the mirror one last time before going shopping. The streets were filled with protests again. Words hurling everywhere and no one listening.
“Thank you,” Lillian said, to the man opening the store’s door for her, smiling. Today’s silent warrior, she thought.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Revising by D. Avery
She reined hard to a dusty stop. “Whoaaa.”
“Nice bike”, her granpa remarked. She reproved him with a withering glare. “It’s a horse.”
“You’re a cowgirl?”
“No, I’m an Indian.”
“A lovely maiden out for a ride!”
“No, Granpa! I’m a warrior!”
“A warrior princess.”
He got an eye-roll. “Granpa, I’m not a princess! I am a war-ri-or.”
“Okay, okay. You are a warrior, doing battle, fighting.”
“Actually, I just try and save boys ‘cause they’re under a spell that makes them do dumb things all the time.”
She galloped off.
Maybe he should call next door, warn Tommy.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Women by Sarah Whiley
I gripped my hands tightly around the wooden blade, sucking in deep breaths, to fill my lungs with the oxygen I knew would be required for the battle ahead.
“We’ve trained hard for this! We have this,” I told myself.
Adrenalin began pumping as I waited for the signal. I glanced at the girl next to me who was also breathing heavily. She gave me a quick wink.
Suddenly, I heard the calls we’d been waiting for…
“Down and ready.”
“Are you ready?”
“Attention.”
Paddles entered the water as the siren blared.
We were warrior women, in our dragonboat.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Women by Nicole Grant
The grandfathers were whalers, and according to historians, they were yeoman farmers. I wonder, what were the grandmothers doing? And how were the grandfathers, out at sea harpooning whales, managing their farms? Rebecca Corson, one of the grandmothers, is said to have fired a cannon scaring off the British as they approached shore during the revolutionary war. My guess would be that the women were spending less time on widow walks wringing their hands watching for the whalers to return than they spent in the fields tilling, in the woods hunting, and behind the cannon doing what they must.
🥕🥕🥕
Not Time: by The Dark Netizen
I ride into the army of red coats, swarming my home like ants. They will not capture my home so easily.
My noble steed needs no directions from me. He rides straight through their ranks, letting me tear them down with my swords – flashes of silver lightning.
Even after hours of fighting, my conquest seems hopeless. Most of my men are dead or wounded. I feel my eyes closing.
NO!
For the sake of my little baby and my kingdom, I cannot give in. Death will have to wait to claim the queen.
My time has not come!
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Woman by Deborah Lee
Jane’s eyes open to the phone alarm. She pokes her nose out of the sleeping bag: Cold.
Just today off? Just one day? To lie around, to not strain her eyes at job listings, to not duck the judging eyes of the homed and employed. One day to pretend her life is good enough to relax into.
No.
One day of not trying leads to one missed opportunity leads to another damned lifetime of this life she’s lived too long already.
Growling, she flings back the top of the sleeping bag and jerks her legs out of the warmth.
🥕🥕🥕
Gertrude the Invincible by Norah Colvin
With flaming hair streaming and eyes blazing, Gertrude stood at the apex surveying the land, her land. With one hand on a hip and the other raised high, she hurled her words into the wind.
“I did it. I am the conqueror. You,” she pointed expansively with her spear, “are now my subjects. You do my bidding.”
The minions bowed before her.
“I am in-vinc-i-ble!”
“Gertie! Pick up your toys and come inside now. It’s dinner-time,” called Dad from the door.
Gertie complied. Even warriors need to eat. There’d be more conquests and enemies for Gertrude to vanquish tomorrow.
🥕🥕🥕
Taking a Stand by Wallie and Friend
True, Aunt Cecily was older, but that didn’t necessarily make her wise. Emmy knew she was dead wrong. The hard part was saying so.
“Auntie,” she said, “I’m going. I know what the risks are and it’s true I might not come back. But I have to do this. For us. For all of us. I can’t just stay behind while Eddie and the others go. I can’t.”
Aunt Cecily didn’t answer at once. She looked at her niece, seeing the young woman’s level chin, hearing her controlled voice.
“You’re right,” she said. “And I will go with you.”
🥕🥕🥕
Line by galaxygirl_89
She spent every summer vacation at her great aunt’s place in the countryside, a respite from the city and it’s loneliness, among the mango trees and the paddy fields, cousins and neighbours to play with. That was the first time ever they had done anything wayward. They stole away at night after the grown ups were asleep, and walked to the stream at the end of the property. The strips dividing the fields were so narrow that they had to walk in a single file, like ants treading a line, while the moonlight streamed over in a silvery cascade.
🥕🥕🥕
PART II (10-minute read)
The Present by Papershots
In bed that night, she suddenly extended her right arm and hand. She squinted her eyes and aimed at the wall opposite – wedding photo, big table lamp, wooden-framed mirror. A powerful beam of light, she imagined, would open the wall and let her see behind it. She laughed. Surely if she was Super Mom she could have greater powers than that! “Never be mad for any reason, always understanding, strict and lenient at every right dose.” Better make do with these. Or have to. Or really do, because she had them. The kids asleep, she dreamed of Wonder Woman.
🥕🥕🥕
Mom by Faith A. Colburn
She thought she could adapt to anything. After all, to save her family, she’d got a job when she was only fifteen—singing in a nightclub. She’d navigated groping, propositions, and men who said she did when she didn’t; she’d joined the Army and learned to build radios and install them into B-24s; she’d married the man she loved, a shell-shocked veteran, and moved with him to a farm in Nebraska, where the nights were silent and the stars near; she’d learned to be a farm wife. But in the end, she learned she couldn’t just be missus somebody.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior Women by Chelsea Owens
Youth, untried, stands blinking into the equatorial sun. It shuffles awkward spears; tilts dented shields.
Two thousand feet nervously stamp the earth.
Their leader looks upon his neophyte army. “What say ye, my sons; will ye go against them to battle?”
Two thousand of them have never fought. Two thousand just left home. Two thousand eager voices cry, “Our God is with us! Let us go!”
Thus they march, thus they go, thus they draw their spears. The enemy, surprised, falls beneath their untrained arms.
The leader, awed, counts two thousand. “How came ye by your courage?”
“Our mothers.”
🥕🥕🥕
Wounded Warrior by D. Avery
Not best friends, but reliable friends; neighbors, they had been playmates since forever, from sandbox to bikes, many shared adventures. Together they had explored the haunted house, both emerging as warriors, both with bragging rights.
Together they’d built a secret fort.
That’s where they started exploring each other. The fort was theirs, this exploring was theirs, fun and friendly, another rite of passage shared.
He bragged. Somehow he knew he could. Somehow she knew she couldn’t admit that she’d even done it, let alone liked it.
Somehow the game had changed.
She wondered if he also missed their friendship.
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Floridaborne
Work study in a musty university library back room, 1968.
Three students were tasked with binding tortured book spines. June, a slender woman well aware of her own beauty, liked to talk politics. Plain, “heavy set,” Linda was mortified.
Jack, once part of an inner-city gang, didn’t try staring his umbrage into someone with an opposing point of view. He took a blade used for binding and held it at June’s throat.
“I just bought this blouse,” June said. “Try not to get blood all over it.”
Jack lowered the weapon, and chuckled. “That takes guts.”
Linda, however, fainted.
🥕🥕🥕
Escaping Leap by Jo
The unexpected jolt to the chin was her warning. The blinding pain, the sign she sought after. She was more wounded by the fact he punched her than by the soreness setting in.
‘I’m sorry!’ He said walking toward her.
She made the decision to step back watching his eyes that went pitch black the moment she stepped away holding her face. No sword, no shield, just her wits and will, she leaped for her keys and dashed to her car. She couldn’t watch him in the rearview mirror. Later, filing a report, she learned she escaped a murderer.
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior, Warrior by Peregrine Arc
“You’re too fat.”
“You’re too skinny.”
“You should stay at home.”
“You should volunteer again.”
“That’s not organic?”
“Why are you breastfeeding in public?”
“That skirt is too short.”
“That blouse is too modest.”
“Boys will be boys.”
“Men will be men.”
“Be quiet.”
“Speak up.”
The conversations streamed past me as I sat in the mall, quietly observing.
Men may carry clubs, but women carry poison.
🥕🥕🥕
Worth the Frostbite by Kerry E.B. Black
Dyan wielded a pitchfork like a peasant soldier, lips pulled into a snarl. “Back off! You’re not hurting these kittens again.”
The farmer whistled through his teeth. “Girl, are you daft? We’ve too many felines. Don’t need no more. ‘Sides, you’ll be needing some attention. Thrusting your hands into a frozen trough for a few useless kits was just plain dumb. You’ll be nursing frostbite.”
She no longer felt her fingers, but she didn’t care. “You’re a cruel man.” She scooped the sack squirming with mewing kittens, sheltered them beneath her winter coat, and ran to the tack-room’s protection.
🥕🥕🥕
Avid Reader by kate @ aroused
Learning Italian at seventy-six years was a challenge Aunty gladly accepted. The least she could do when she expected her neighbours to learn English.
An avid reader with a vast vocabulary ensured easy completion of the cryptic crosswords daily. An astute historian, adept pianist, reared in the wilds a full sixteen mile hike from the train.
Abused by her educators she cared for her parents before a brief but happy marriage. Her genuine interest in absolutely everybody ensured that she had a constant stream of visitors.
Never uttered a bad word or complaint. She graced us for a century.
🥕🥕🥕
Fighting The Invisible Enemy by Geoff Le Pard
‘How are you, Morgan?’
‘At a loss, Logan.’
‘She’s fighting, though, knowing your ma.’
‘I’m not… you know, I don’t get that whole ‘fighting cancer’ thing’
‘She’s not giving up, is she?’
‘But she ain’t exactly waving her sword either. I mean you can’t will the effing thing away.’
‘What they saying?’
‘Not much. Just more tests. You know what’s hard? She’s always argued. She’d diss a lamppost if it got in her way, but she just lies there, doing nothing. No swearing, not even a hairy eyeball.’
‘Come here. You need to stop fighting yourself.’
‘It sucks, mate.’
🥕🥕🥕
Champion Challenge by JulesPaige
Was Mercy a warrior? The woman had given Regina birth. Perhaps Mercy’s own mother knew, maybe even the man who she called her husband? But when you die young and don’t get to tell your tale — you can only hope others will. Both Gran and Dad had broken hearts that they kept as silent as a moss covered stone.
Regina latched onto the few memories that had been shared and would spin them thousands of ways. After all Mercy’s blood ran in her veins. Perhaps the words that Regina spilled on paper would be enough. They’d have to be.
🥕🥕🥕
The Brotherhood of Iron by Telling Stories Together
“Again,” said the monk.
Constance drew back the bow, squeezing her shoulders together. She let string go and the arrow sang through the air, thudding into the rotten stump. The ground around the stump was littered with shafts from previous attempts.
“You’ve improved. You actually hit your target this time.”
Constance returned the old monk’s smile in spite of herself. Then, remembering her task, the parcel she’d dutifully delivered, the smile faded.
“You’ve been very kind, Atheus, but I must return to my own Order.”
Atheus placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
🥕🥕🥕
Easy Pickings by Di @ pensitivity101
Swordsmanship wasn’t restricted to just the menfolk in their quiet village.
Situated in the middle of nowhere, they would be open to invasion from all sides, and when food was scarce, the men would go off to hunt, leaving the women to care for the children, elderly and infirm.
Such was a time when Outsiders decided to plunder the village whilst the men were away.
It was a bloodbath, and they didn’t stand a chance.
Only one was allowed to live and serve as a warning to others that the women there could kill as well as any man.
🥕🥕🥕
United, They Win by Aweni
Melville looked fearfully at the Amazon he’d trained. She was meant to be his weapon against her kind. But, she knew his intentions now and her rage was sublime.
He won’t give up. He’ll throw discord in their midst. Her army will turn on her, he thought gleefully.
He knew he had lost when she shouted, “I come from a line of warriors! We create a furore, when we line in thick rows. Breaking the air with arrows, cleaving through the enemy with our swords. One sister for all, all sisters for one. Bend the knee to our king!”
🥕🥕🥕
Who’s Gettin’ Schooled? by Liz Husebye Hartmann
She swings again, the blunt-edged sword whistling past his ear by a hair’s breadth. He slices upward with his own wooden blade. She arches her back like a wildcat, leather armor squeaking protest at the quick move, and follows with a roundhouse twist that lands her at his open left side.
A quick jab; she stops just short of his heart line.
He freezes, chest heaving, and peers at her shrewdly. “You’re slow today. Are you trying to fail?”
She laughs, troll’s tail flicking gleefully. “Maybe you’re getting old, Father.”
“Time to teach you about Statecraft,” he threatens playfully.
🥕🥕🥕
[fight] by Deb Whittam
Times had changed and changed rapidly … no longer was there a sense of comradery or fulfilment in this game – now it was a fight … to the death.
She had held herself distant from it but now that her opportunity had come to enter the fray she felt a sense of unease and her hand shook as she finalised her preparations – applied her makeup, checked her hair and ensured that her sword’s blade was honed to a razor-sharp point.
One didn’t go to a disco unarmed – not if one was looking for a man anyway.
🥕🥕🥕
But Still Single? by Roger Shipp
She was wildly pursued on OkCupid as well as Happen, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Bumble. Hundreds of hits a day was the norm. This she enjoyed.
Tender and Down even offered incentives if she would allow her picture to appear on their advertising after her photo shoot in Maui. Financially, a plus!
LuLu, Match, and Zoosk had called her attorney wanting exclusive rights to her personality profile. Don’t throw at stick at that!
Being so sought after from all the dating app corporations could really swell a girl’s head…
Maybe actually being too-good-to-be-true was too good to be true.
🥕🥕🥕
Mystery Solved by Molly Stevens
At first, Chester treasured his time alone when Ruth disappeared into the spare bedroom. He sat in tightie whities slurping coffee, scratching a butt cheek, and passing gas, thankful for the absence of her heavy sighs.
Then it seemed creepy. What the hell was she doing in there?
“I know it’s that crazy neighbor, Myra, put her up to somethin’,” he said.
He turned the knob inching the door open. Ruth stood with hands on hips, feet shoulder-width apart, chest puffed out, and chin up.
“Sweet Jesus, it’s dad-blamed Wonder Woman,” said Chester.
Ruth flashed him a wide grin.
🥕🥕🥕
Wanda by Frank Hubeny
Silvia walked into Benny’s Diner. Sharon told Benny to deal with her or she’d quit. Benny shuffled to the bar.
“Morning, Silvia.”
“I want a real waitress serving me.”
Benny glanced at Sharon. “She’s busy.”
“She’s just standing there.”
“How about some pancakes?”
“Are they gluten-free?”
“You know they’re not.”
Silvia ordered pancakes as usual. While she dripped corn syrup over margarine the dreaded alien invasion began. Silvia looked at Benny and Sharon. She ripped off her street clothes revealing her secret identity as Warrior Wanda. It was time to show these wretched Earthlings how high maintenance kicks butt.
🥕🥕🥕
Start of a Wild Ride (from Rock Creek) by Charli Mills
Sarah startled at the hand pressing against her mouth in the dark. A woman’s voice shushed her struggles. She sat up in bed to see Nancy Jane’s face inches from hers. “What are you doing,” Sarah whispered.
“Ever run with wolves?”
“What?”
“Come, on, Sarah, Yellow Feather gathered some ponies. Let’s be braves under the moon!”
Sarah clung to her quilt drawn up to her chin. Camp was silent, emigration season nearly at an end. Cobb would be asleep next to Mary, and their baby. He was the same age –
She threw down the quilt and rose from bed.
🥕🥕🥕
Independence Day by Anne Goodwin
Whose is this voice that thunders in her head? Who will she become if she listens? Yet someone must lead, so why not Joan? What she lacks in years, she brings in passion.
Standing in the stirrups to adjust her seat in the saddle, she channels the spirit of her namesake. Her armour might be card, but her lance is real, and Joan knows how to use it. Not that she thinks she’ll need to today as she steers the procession through cheering crowds. Skirmish is rare on Independence Day, but a woman warrior is always primed for action.
🥕🥕🥕
A Wonder Of A Woman by D. K. Cantabile
She used to be a woman of pale feelings. Her days were painted with washed watercolors, without glitter, nor shades. Blurred figures blended composing the most senseless scenes.
She couldn’t detect where the skyline divided city and stars, never noticing where the sun was setting in the horizon. She hadn’t seen a deep dark blue mood, neither glanced at a sparkling red sensual desire. She didn’t spread the orange scent of joy, or witnessed the serenity of green peace.
One day, she was touched by the cozy light yellow sunshine and the rainbow became the pathway of her life.
🥕🥕🥕
It Takes a Warrior by Susan Sleggs
The nurse woke Maggie the morning after her right breast was removed. “Your husband wanted me to make sure you saw this.” She held up a framed picture of them holding compound bows. The inscription on the glass read, “To my warrior. Now you have an advantage. Your chief loves you.”
Even though it hurt, Maggie laughed. “We are professional archers. I have complained my boob gets in the way, now it won’t. That’s why we decided I shouldn’t have reconstruction. He tells me it will take a warrior to beat cancer and get strong enough to compete again.”
🥕🥕🥕
Warrior by The Memory Cellar
The grief that wrapped itself tightly around her life had fingers of depression that choked her into an inescapable feeling of slow, inevitable suffocation.
She can’t let go of the shame she carries but knows it may kill her if she doesn’t.
She stares at herself momentarily in the mirror, only seeing the painful sadness only an aging woman knows.
But somewhere inside the fire rises and from her eyes fall tears of surrender and with her finger she wipes them across her face like war paint. She was a warrior once and to her surprise, she still is.
🥕🥕🥕
May 31: Flash Fiction Challenge
Softly my feet pad across the hard-packed trail through the forest. Pine-scent bobs in the air like the dandelion seeds that haven’t yet formed, spring is so new. But the lawns and fields are covered with the promise from sunny yellow heads.
Again, I’ve become the hunter. Some take yoga to go into warrior pose — I take my feet outside; my body and mind follow, feeling the call of the hunt. Alert, my senses feel the dappled sunlight keenly and separate the sounds of chattering birds and lapping waves.
Where has my fierce Lady Lake gone? She’s acting so passive, I wonder if she’s at rest. Over winter she fought ferocious battles between water and sand, upturning the shoreline like a bulldozer. She called in blizzards like flocking white ravens. Now, she sleeps, her seas lightly sloshing. It’s the perfect time to hunt — her guard is down, her waves at rest and a new crop of churned rocks wait on the beach.
But first, I slink through the forest.
To see Lake Superior through the pines is one of my favorite views. From this vantage on the ridge overlooking the dog beach at McLain State Park, I can scout stretches of beach-worn basalt, granite, and gabbro. I’m refining my hunting skills, having studied over winter. I now can identify more of the minerals that fill the mafic bedrock like the clays chlorite and celadonite.
But the hunt isn’t always for the next rock or potential agate. I am also a woman who runs with the wolves. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. writes:
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
My doors to my Wild self are indeed precious — through scars, caught stories, rocks, and water, birds, and sky. I can love the hunt so deeply, I take this path in the forest to savor the time it takes to burst forth onto the rocky beach to step into cold Great Lake waters. I yearn for deeper art to the point that I can feel my writing before I even begin. Art enriches my life, leaves me breathless and yet grounded.
Music, movement, color, words, texture — art fills all senses.
And this is why I love dance. I don’t dance. I don’t run with the wolves across the stage, but I watch from the audience the same way I watch Lake Superior from my footpath in the pines. I love the costumes, the drumbeats, the sharp movements and the flowing visual story. Dance is my daughter’s art. Often we share artistic moments, and that’s better than bagging an agate.
When her dance troupe accepted my idea to incorporate flash fiction into their next performance, I felt giddy at the chance to meld artistic expressions. I met with the choreographers and took note to capture the tone and emotion of each piece. We discussed the music, costumes, and movements.
When I wrote, I had that same feeling as when I step into Lake Superior. Wild self takes over. Intuition spills my words. Afterward, I felt unsure. Would this story partner with the dance? Or would it be a clunky addition to the show? I wrote like a dancer — interpreting each piece with new and different structures.
In the end, I had eleven Mythica Flash Fiction worthy of the warrior women taking the stage. I felt I could run with these wolves and that’s where my writing began and ended. Each flash in between told a story, hailed queens, invented new myths, introduced unknown characters or celebrated the power of the Wild self.
On Friday, 47 North performs Mythica at the Continental in Houghton. The belly dance troupe specializes in tribal fusion and modern. Their literary artist specializes in rocks, history and flash fiction. The first flash opens the show, the second closes it, as I speak directly to the dancers taking the stage in leather, chain mail, and fur, dancing to music from Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur.
Shadow People
Undergrowth of legends cling to consciousness and shadows vape through the veil between who we must be and who we indeed are. Quaking, we repeat fairy tales to let fear conform our captured souls.The veil slips, and we glimpse Mythica where strange and weird entities tap and twirl to original wingbeats of self-expression. Fear blinds our hearts and knots the rope around throats of mythical women who are different.
Mythica is the shadowlands populated by shadow people. Dare you cross the veil? Grandmother won’t save you, but she beckons you to enter and run hard with the wolves.
***
Valkyries
Step forth onto the battlefield, Daughters. Brace your feet, remember your training. Adjust your shield and sword. Death is but a trip to Valhalla. Ready your bodies for passage. When you fall, the Valkyries are coming. Skol!Lift up, lift up, lift up — Choosers of the Slain! Warrior-women wielding runes, marks of the chosen. Let not the weight of the world, the heaviness of battle, the blood your body sheds destroy you. Glory nears.
Lift up, lift up, lift up and carry those battle-born souls to Odin. Warriors of the warriors. Valkyries. Women who rise. The run is over.
It’s not easy to be an artist, to be a hunter, to run wild and return home again. Illness, disappointment, injustice, grief — these often erode the shores of who we think we are. But we evolve. Every run, every storm, every story is another chance to turn our own page. Estes writes,
“Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don’t waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.”
Opportunity energy is high right now. I’m hunting down each one. Not everything will stick, but at the end of the day, I won’t go home empty. A significant transition looms for me. As life with my spouse evolves, as my daughter leaves the dance stage to undergo tests and possibly surgery at the Mayo Clinic next week, and the organization that was my anchor client leaves, I turn to my Wild self to adjust not with fear but with a welcoming of the challenges.
Roundup, a small weekly e-zine, returns from the ashes to spotlight three flash fictions a week and highlight one of our many writers. It’s intended for an audience of readers, to get people excited for what forms literary art can take 99-words at a time. Writers can benefit from a subscription to learn craft tips. It will connect to each weekly collection so you can share Roundup.
Books by authors in our literary community will be featured on Rough Writers’ pages and individually in Roundup. You’ll notice rotating books alongside the blog posts with house ads. I emphasize “house” because Carrot Ranch does not use AdWords. I’ll be promoting local events, workshops, author books (from our community and at my discretion), my services, literary art patronage, and an upcoming subscription to Marketing Mavericks. You can catch my #NaNoWriMo post at BadRedhead Media for a taste of what Marketing Mavericks will be like.
Literary art continues to be my focus. I want you to have unencumbered access to play with the art form among a group of people who see writing as one of their doors to the world. Please submit your badges for any goals you set and earned (see Rancher Badges). This is a self-motivated personal development opportunity. Now is the time to set new goals for the next three months.
Any Rough Writer who wants to offer Wrangling Words to their own community library, please contact me and I’ll get you set up with some basic training, materials and an outline for how to get established. It’s a great way to spread literary art where you live. I find it a rewarding program, and you can adjust it to fit what you want to offer.
All Patrons of Carrot Ranch (monthly supporters) have been gifted the full Mythica Flash Fiction collection. You can catch 47 North Belly Dance live streaming Friday night starting at 9 pm (EST) on their Facebook page.
I’ve set my vision for how I see art in my life as my northern star, and I write and run. Listen, you can hear the wolves howling. The warrior women gather.
May 31, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about warrior women. It can be myth or everyday mothers and wives. Go where the prompt leads.
Respond by June 5, 2018. Use the comment section below to share, read and be social. You may leave a link, pingback or story in the comments.
If you want your story published in the weekly collection, please use this form. If you want to interact with other writers, do so in the comments (yes, that means sharing your story TWICE — once for interaction and once for publication). Rules are here.
Start of a Wild Ride (from Rock Creek) by Charli Mills
Sarah startled at the hand pressing against her mouth in the dark. A woman’s voice shushed her struggles. She sat up in bed to see Nancy Jane’s face inches from hers. “What are you doing,” Sarah whispered.
“Ever run with wolves?”
“What?”
“Come, on, Sarah, Yellow Feather gathered some ponies. Let’s be braves under the moon!”
Sarah clung to her quilt drawn up to her chin. Camp was silent, emigration season nearly at an end. Cobb would be asleep next to Mary, and their baby. He was the same age –
She threw down the quilt and rose from bed.
June 27: Story Challenge in 99-words
“We’ve received your complaint.”
Filing a complaint is a standard response to the human need to right a wrong. Somewhere in the midst of a transaction or interaction, an expectation went unmet, or as my husband would say, “a swing and a miss.”
Customer complaints used to be part of my wheelhouse as a marketing communications manager. A complaint meant our organization was not making the brand impression we intended. But our customer service staff argued that complaints were often frivolous or unfounded.
We tested the idea of complaints when we defined “great customer service” as a differentiating point for our brand. We promised customer service workers that we would track every complaint and we authorized them to issue refunds, replacements, or gift certificates to our stores. We wanted our staff to listen and ask, “How can we make this right?”
And you know what we discovered? 90 percent of the customers who complained wanted us to “know.” They wanted to be heard as consumers of natural foods. They wanted us, as cooperative grocers, to be trustworthy and transparent. Less than 10 percent took advantage of our complaint policy, returning items for frivolous reasons. No one scammed us.
It’s difficult to lodge a complaint these days. Some companies deeply bury their phone numbers if they provide any at all. A number doesn’t guarantee a person on the end of the line. With many hospitality and service organizations struggling to meet consumer demands, some are posting preemptive signs to make consumers feel guilty for complaining. I read one recently that proclaimed, “The world is short-staffed; be kind to those who showed up.”
To that, I’d like to say, “Consumers are getting short-shrifted; be kind to those spending their money in your establishment.”
Ever since the Vet Center closed in Houghton, I’ve been holding social groups in person and online weekly. I’ve been preparing to launch veteran community groups when I get my writing school online. For a year, I’ve been holding a writing group for veteran caregivers through the VA once a month. I do this because I understand that isolation kills our veteran families. I do this because of what my Warrior Sisters taught me about thriving in this tough population sector. The greatest women I have known have taken care of Vietnam veterans. These women or the long-haulers. They are my heroes. My mentors.
We meet every other Friday at a local restaurant along the Portage Canal beneath the Houghton Lift Bridge. It’s a beautiful view any time of year, and the food is good. But we’ve been having an issue with our reservation. Several months ago, the floor manager told us if we were going to meet regularly, we should reserve our round table in the back room. So, we did. But every time we go, if anyone other than the floor manager greets us, they have no idea what reservation we are referring to.
Once, a hostess sat us in a big booth across from her station after knowing nothing about our reservation and explaining we couldn’t have our regular table. It was taken. Then, ten minutes after seating us, she called me on my cell and asked if our group was coming in because they were holding our table in the back. I looked right at her and started waving, telling her we ARE the group and that was the reservation we said we had.
She’s no longer there. And all the new staff are unaware of the reservation. Last Friday, no one believed that we had one. A waiter came over and got sassy with me. I suggested he check reservations and he said no one can get into the “system.” He was rude and treated us like an inconvenience. When he turned away, I air-slapped him. Later he asked about our group like we were cute kitten crafters or church ladies.
We’re veteran spouses. Married to gnarly old sheepdogs who protect their nation’s flocks. They’ve faced down wolves and we help the dogs who get bit; find the ones who get lost; bury the ones who lose the fight. We aren’t sheepdogs. We aren’t wolves. We aren’t the sheep. But we are the bad-ass bitches married to men who went to war so smartmouthed waiters didn’t have to. Call us BABs and learn your damned reservation system.
I did not say what I thought. I did not leave a complaint. I even tipped generously because we do take up time and space, longer than most tables. Yet, before we all left, we decided to try different places to meet. Sometimes, customers don’t complain. They simply go away.
Ironically, someone has lodged a complaint against me. It began last Monday when I received calls and voice messages from unknown callers. No matter the number (six different ones were used), the same woman said she was trying to get in contact with me because someone filed a complaint against me. I deleted the calls as spam. But on Friday afternoon, I answered a local call, expecting someone else. The complaint was a legal matter, a court filing.
These scare tactics infuriate me. One, because it’s triggering — I feel unsafe like I did something wrong, and a bad consequence is going to slap me upside the head. Even though I recognize the old pattern of response, I still panic, almost to the point of passing out. I practice breathing meant to calm the vagus nerve. And I try to listen carefully to discern. This is no complaint. It’s a scam.
The trouble is, the scam is sophisticated enough to include pieces of my personal data. They have my legal name, my phone number, and even the last four of my social security number. They tell me it’s a credit card. I tell them I have no outstanding debt, which is true. He instructs me to send evidence to an email account taylor.s@kensingtonassociates.net. I don’t.
Instead, I start my own investigation. Apparently, Kensington Associates are indeed debt collectors but they have Better Business Bureau complaints filed against them and they show up on scam alert sites. The creepy thing is that they have enough information to falsify a real legal complaint to sue consumers for old debt or, as in my case, for debt paid in full.
On Monday, they called back and I requested a written validation note. They evaded my request and insisted that they were ready to serve me papers. Again, I asked for details in writing so I could compare it to my credit report which I had already checked (no such debt was listed). They refused (which is illegal). I informed them of my right to refute the debt to which they said they will fine me $2,500 to $3,500 for refuting it, and then they told me, “Good luck in court.”
This con group is messing with the wrong BAB. I got all the information from them that I needed to file a Federal complaint. I pulled out the big guns. I even lawyered up and found the equivalent of an ankle-biting ambulance chaser who goes after debt collectors who break the law. Because guess what? If you have a complaint against a debt collector, you have a lawsuit and they will have to pay fines and your lawyer fees. I’m not messaging around. I even found the account number they gave me and have a validation letter in the mail stating that I paid off the account in question in full over ten years ago.
If you have had any trouble with consumer scams or shifty debt collectors in the US, visit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If you are concerned about identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission has a dedicated website. To find out what recourse you have in your state, go to your State Attorney General’s website. If you are in a different country, share how your nation protects consumers in the comments if you think it could help others.
We are not powerless. Yet, we don’t have to complain about every missed expectation or consumer disappointment. I agree with the idea of being kind to those working in customer-facing jobs in our era, but I also believe that kindness must be extended to customers, too. And if a scammer comes along, don’t be afraid to file Big Complaints. They count on people not knowing their rights, or being too scared or embarrassed to file. Go bold! Bite the bad guys back. Cut the sassy hospitality workers some slack. And at the end of the day, know you are worth every dignity afforded to all beings.
This is a juicy topic for literary artists! I’ve got several stories bubbling already.
June 27, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story as a response to “we’ve received your complaint.” Who has received the complaint and why? How was the complaint delivered — with grace, humor, vitriol? Go where the prompt leads!
- Submit by July 3, 2023. Please use the form below if you want to be published in the weekly collection. The Collection publishes on the Thursday following the next Challenge. Stories must be 99 words. Rules & Guidelines.
- Writers retain all copyrights to any stories published at Carrot Ranch.
- A website or social media presence is not required to submit. A blog or social media link will be included in the title of any story submitted with one.
- Please include your byline with your title on one line. Example: Little Calves by Charli Mills. Your byline can be different from your name.
- Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.
July 1: Flash Fiction Challenge
I was not the local celebrity riding the circuit on a tour bus. The twenty Vietnam vets and four of their wives were. Of course, we all thought the big star of the day’s road trip was the 90-year-old Korean veteran with his son along for escort. Our trip leader and bus driver represented the post 9/11 era and I was odd duck in between the Gulf War and Vietnam. A wife, not a soldier.
If ever I think I can’t do this, I look at the women before me. I call the Vietnam-era wives the long-haulers. They’ve been through stuff that would make Rambo quake in his combat boots. Every last one of them deserves a medal of honor. Even the ones who tap out.
But I’m not writing woes today.
Our trip to White Pine was about healing and respect with dignity. We all boarded the Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center tour bus in Houghton and drove to White Pine 90 minutes away. The Vet Center in Houghton is across the lift bridge from where I live in Hancock. A ten minute drive from my home on Roberts Street.
White Pine, like most towns on the map in “copper country,” is a former company town built around a mine, one of the last to operate in our area. The place looks like something out of a dystopian novel after post-industrial decline, and yet, it is where we went. In a former mine administrative building or warehouse or large equipment depot, is an unlikely operation. Three men create and maintain replicas of the Vietnam Memorial known as The Wall. In an obscure corner of Upper Michigan, a region often left off of contemporary maps or mislabeled as Canada, a small organization houses The Moving Wall and its collected memorabilia.
Considering that the half-sized replica has toured all fifty states since before I graduated high school, I was surprised to find out how close such a solemn piece of history and healing is to my home. When our Vet Center arranged the tour, I signed on to go. When I lost Vet Center services, I asked to be included nonetheless. Then my services were reinstated. Point is, bears couldn’t keep me away.
And we did see a huge black bear but that was at lunch after our tour.
Most of my favorite Vietnam vets came for the ride. They came to seek what only each of them sought privately. They came out of curiosity. They came to support one another. The wives came to understand. They have carried a massive burden for forty-something years or more and they wanted to glimpse who they were in all of this. Dignity. Yes, we could agree that no matter the pain and folly, we all wanted to feel a sense of human dignity faced with participation in a great indignity that still reverberates throughout the world.
Vietnam vets rebelled. Vilified, gaslighted, and discarded, these soldiers started motorcycle gangs, turned to addictions, and demanded recognition for PTSD and moral injury. It’s hard to reconcile the men with canes, limps, and walkers disembarking our bus to the bad boys of their younger years. Yet, inside the warehouse of The Moving Wall, posters, photos, and bumper stickers on the wall capture the essence of their experiences. I watched as our group sucked breath at the enlarged photos that took them back to the place they try to forget.
The industry of the place didn’t keep them in dark thoughts, though. They expressed curiosity for the home-grown process to recreate plates of names through screen-printing and endless rubbing with a wet chemical compound. I hung out with one of my Ojibwe writers, and our most recent widower. I listened. We swapped jokes. I chose to ignore the sexist pin-ups. They pointed to familiar objects, told me childhood stories, but none spoke of Vietnam. All watched as the process enfolded.
That’s when I spotted an old photo that looked familiar.
A group of soldiers in uniform posed for a photo. When you know combat soldiers, you understand the body language. This is not a before ‘Nam photo. It oozes attitude and hides pain. You can tell it’s post-service. Behind the men, peeking over a shoulder and resting her hand as if to comfort and protect, is a woman who could have been my best friend. Kate wore her hair like that in the mid-seventies. Not only was she support for her Vietnam veteran, but she supported his friends, too. It wasn’t her, but it could have been any of my Vietnam-era Warrior Sisters.
It’s a rare photo that catches an invisible role. I’m captivated. It could be me. It is every veteran spouse.
I move on and catch one of my Warrior Sisters drawn to the photo. She stands before it a long time. I watch the screen-printing and glance back to my friend. Finally, she raises her phone. She snaps a shot of the same photo I saved, too. I catch up with her in the “saloon” to sign the guest book. It’s set up like an in-country bar with posters, jukebox, and memorabilia. She startles and says, “This is back in time. I wonder if the jukebox works.”
Next, my writer friend walks in and startles. “They got the lights right,” he says. I look up and notice the lights are covered with a fabric I don’t recognize.
Another Warrior Sister walks in and says, “Oh, my.”
I sit with them. Then I startle. I spot a poster for a rodeo where four generations of my family rode, including me. Although I didn’t ride bulls like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather did in Salinas. I also see a burlap sack with a bull head and the message, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” No kidding, that is the first piece of writing advice anyone ever gave me when I was but a teen, writing for the local newspaper. We left the time capsule, comforted to find the sun shining, the year 2021.
We lingered only because it’s slow, boarding a bus with bad knees, back surgeries, and bullet holes. Our rucksacks shared. We share the pain. We share the jokes. We share touches and hugs from behind. We head to lunch and break bread while the biggest black bear we’ve ever seen munches outside (they feed bears at the Konteka). We ask the waitress if the bowling alley is open. She explains the difficulties of COVID rules, like having to wipe down the balls afterward. <Insert Warrior Sister dirty joke here.> We howl with laughter, making the men blush (that’s how we get back at ’em for the pin-ups).
The bus ride home feels too short. Our spirits are high, our bellies full, and we are all connected, everyone of us in this small group on a VA bus. I share my search for a Finnish Tree Wizard. I get ideas where to find one. The 90-year-old roles his eyes. He’s a Finn. We hug and laugh at the Vet Center parking lot. One of the vets shares eggs with us “gals.” They’re from his pet chickens. He won’t accept money for them. I make a mental note to send him some books I think he’d like to read.
We slip into obscurity, no longer on the celeb VA bus. Until we share the next bear sighting.
July 1, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about “the old photograph.” What is captivating about it? Where did it come from? How does it incite a story? Go where the prompt leads!
Respond by July 6, 2021. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.
Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
The Old Photograph by Charli Mills
She found him in the 1979 yearbook. The bottom row. The old photo wasn’t vintage. Some would argue it was modern. He played football. Four years. He sat shirtless, his blonde hair long, wavy. The football team had fathers who’d served in Korea, grandfathers in WWII. A few had older brothers, younger uncles, or cousins who’d served in ‘Nam. The ones no one spoke of, or to. The dispersed ones. She thought the photograph ancient because he looked so young. So guiltless. So pre-Grenada. Head hits, concussive blasts, and one knee-shattering jump. He never wore his hair long again.
🥕🥕🥕
June 24: Flash Fiction Challenge
I’m talking to my peonies, and cooing to my budding delphinium, bent over, tugging sorrel from the potager garden. A man in a Jeep pulls up and starts talking to me about flowers. Not unusual for Roberts Street. It’s a friendly neighborhood half-way up Quincy Hill. I beam, happy when others notice the plants — antidepressants. Who can succumb to dark thoughts when a peony opens to you? Then he asks if I heard about the tanker.
No, I haven’t. I’m a late morning riser. I heard neighbors gathered in the street when I woke, but they do that when someone’s sanding a dresser outside or two-dog owners cross paths on a walk. He tells me he saw it happen and I sense he’s troubled, needing to share his story. I stop fussing over stray blades of tall grass poking out of my lavender bush.
He tells me the tanker uncoupled from the truck. He watched it unfold in slow motion the way traumatic events imprint our memories. The cab didn’t flip, only the tanker it hauled. It flipped and split open. He ran. “The trail’s closed,” he tells me. I wonder if he drove up the trail a block away. I look. It doesn’t appear closed. I ask if he’s okay, now concerned he might be in shock. I don’t know about the accident. I must have been sleeping. He starts talking about the flowers again.
“Where can you go,” I ask. “You know, to unwind?”
“South Range.” He nods as if he’s made up his mind, pops the clutch, and turns his Jeep around.
My next door neighbor, the Master Gardener who clucks at my flowers as if I have unruly kindergartners running about my place, stops at my garden. He never mentions the magenta peonies or coral poppies. He’s a tomato and bush beans man. He asks if I’ve heard about the tanker. The man in the Jeep stalls, restarts the engine, and slowly pulls away. I say, “He said he saw it.”
My neighbor nods. “He works at the tire shop.”
The tire shop is located at Santori’s Corner, the grand sweeping grade that curves ninety degrees to continue up Quincy Hill. It’s a treacherous corner, especially in winter where I have to turn on Ethel to reach Roberts Street. Two years ago, a scrap metal truck took out the power pole at the tire shop, and back in the ’90s a logging truck slammed into the original Santori house. Historically, the grade was a railroad, or so I understand. The option to the curve is straight up streets to rival those in San Francisco.
I listen to a second-hand story about the shop owner. He watched the truck come up the hill, take the corner, tip the tanker, split open, and release a deluge of gasoline. He shouted to his employees, “Run!” Explains why the man I talked flowers with told me he ran. We are all lucky nothing sparked. We are all unlucky that gas spilled into our sewer drainage, dumping into the Portage Canal. It’s in the news and the accident scene photos are half a block from my home and near our Hancock Fire Station. We are the edge of the evacuation zone. Lucky to live uphill from Santori’s Corner.
Fast-forward to noon.
I’m driving up the Keweenaw Peninsula. Roads around my home are closed and it’s tricky getting out of my neighborhood. I make it to Calumet where I pick up two pizzas from Jim’s and head to a birthday party for a friend in heaven. I’m not going to heaven. I’m going to the cemetery outside the near-ghost-town of Ahmeek. All the old copper-mining towns on the peninsula are diminished versions of their original size. I pull into the cemetery and find the quiet corner by the old pine tree and see my good friend B. sitting on the her wooden bench. Other Warrior Sisters surround the grave with lawn chairs. Another pulls in behind me with cake from Roy’s.
If you’ve never picnicked in a graveyard, I highly recommend it. Victorian cemeteries were designed to be places to stroll and refresh the living among the dead. This is no Victorian park, but the edge of forest and expanse of gravestones, gardens, and American flags (placed for fallen soldiers) offers a peaceful setting. The expected thunderstorms fizzled, and a spilled gasoline tanker didn’t block our travels.
B. and R. lent me their stories. They are characters in my novel, representations of what it’s like to face Agent Orange as a couple. B. is wearing her red, white, blue and orange shirt with the rhinestone pin R. gave her before he left for Vietnam. R. suffered before realizing he needed to help the suffering of other Vietnam Vets. Yet, he still has no gravestone nearly a year later. Seems the VA is backlogged or something.
We don’t focus on the pain. We pour shots of blackberry brandy (his favorite) and toast his birthday. We eat pizza and sing over candles on his cake. We thumb through the bag of photos B. has and remember R. with stories. We share our recent stories, our frustrations, our encouragements to each other. Four hours pass and we pour coffee on his grave and say goodbye. Again.
Rewind to last Sunday.
Mause sprints off-leash at the Ottawa Sportsman Club. It’s the happy place for my WW (wounded warrior). He set up targets to shoot at 600 yards. No one is here. It’s the middle of nowhere and after four years, I still can’t follow all the twists and turns that lead to this gun range. He calms like we’re in some zen yoga class.
***shout-out to Ruchira Khanna, Author and Reiki Master: he’s been calm ever since she did distance Reiki for him last Monday. Thank you for thinking about him in our situation.***
Then Mause stops. I watch her point a bird and I laugh. Oh, I think, Mause is about to get her life-long wish to chase a robin. It flies and she chases. Instead of flying off, I realize the bird is a killdeer and it circles the big swath of gravel for a pistol range under construction. I point out the chase and my WW panics. He thinks she’ll get run over. We are in the middle-of-nowhere and it’s not Christmas so reindeer are unlikely. Besides, it’s a killdeer and that mama bird will not leave the vicinity of her nest. Mause flies over gravel and keeps pace with a bird.
It’s magnificent! It’s magical. This moment.
Pointer and killdeer, race, uniting earth and sky in a single track. My joy bubbles. My WW cries out my name. “Charli, help me!” The stab of sadness hits my heart. I want nothing more than to help him but I no longer know how to keep us both above water. Despite the drowning sensation of the last year, nothing can prick my joy. I’m fixated on the impossible union unfolding before me. If a dog could fly, Mause is near take-off.
Then the bird shifts course and darts high above my head. I see her ploy. Mause runs into my waiting arms. Captured, she stops. I appear the hero for the day though it was just the magic of the moment. Mause and her flutterby. We retreat to the truck where she listens for the cry of the bird, ignoring the gunfire. I recognize she will be the bird dog he hopes for. Not even squirrels can deter her fixation with things that fly.
Rewind to last Saturday.
By 9:30 pm, the band playing Finnish dancing songs wraps up. They tell us the solstice bonfire is lit. I do not dance with men, women or ghosts. I’m here to track a Tree Wizard. My ears are open to ghost stories, of course but people are celebrating and silly. I catch a tale about young women stripping naked before a well of water to gaze in the reflection to see the faces of their future husbands. I eavesdrop on my elderly Italian friend and watch out for her steps. She’s a hoot, and asks me if I’m always so smiley. I think she, our other friend who is also a Warrior Sister, and I are the only non-blondes present. We are witnessing deep Finnish culture. Their pagan roots run as deep in their devout Apostolic faith.
I’m convinced the snare drummer is the Tree Wizard.
Maybe I am chasing ghosts. Somehow, I can’t forget the haunting dress that hangs in the ghost-house-cum-goat-barn on my daughter’s property. Story goes, the woman who lived there ended her days in a mental hospital. My daughter and her husband estimate the era of her kitchen and abandoned belongings to be between the 1920-30s. Maybe the dress is 1940s. No one living remembers. My SIL had found the last name Hiltunen on an old document. Was that her last name? Married or maiden? Women are hard to track, their past possessed by men.
By sheer chance, I learned about a Tree Wizard who works the local rock shop between Calumet and Ahmeek. His last name is Hiltunen. My imagination ignites. An abandoned house, an insane women, a local Finn who dares to be pagan among a conservative Christian community. In the article — okay, they call him a Forest Wizard — this exchange with the writer fits what is unfolding in my story center:
Hiltunen is a backwoods healer, a Finnish shaman, a forest wizard.
He said he can heal people’s ailments. He said he sees the dead. He said the woods up here are alive with ghosts.
“When I was just a little boy, my grandmother said, ‘Richard, don’t tell nobody. They’ll put you in a cuckoo’s nest. But you have that power to sense things.’ “
John Carlisle, Detroit Free Press Columnist
When they introduce the snare drummer, I hear the full name of the Tree Wizard. I’m watching him now as if I spotted a man I’d dance with. I leave my friends. The drummer stands alone. I smile (you know, I’m smiley), and tell this possible mystic and relative of a woman put in the cuckoo’s nest, that I like his music. He’s talented and plays multiple instruments and with other bands I’ve listened too, or solo. Then, I ask. “Are you a tree wizard?”
He quickly says no, then yes. Turns out, he’s not the same Hiltunen who talks to ghosts and heals from the forest. But he tells me he had an aneurysm last year and ever since, he can see auras around trees. He tells me how he has to get outside every day. To witness. He thanks me for recognizing who he was. “Now I have a name for it,” he says. We both smile.
What can I say but that I’m still tracking ghosts? Why do these stories matter? They are spilling into a novel I’m currently exploring. My protagonist complains about her crazy father who thinks he’s a tree wizard. She knows he’s crazy because he’s like his grandmother who the family hauled off. She worries she might have the predisposition and studies science and serves in the Marines. I like this one who has me chasing spirits.
Writers absorb the stories in the moment. Go soak up! In this moment, you might be surprised that I’ve brought back Rainbow the Cat but somehow he wanted to more adventures.
Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
June 24, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a cat named Rainbow on an outdoor adventure. Rainbow is any cat of any identification. What would draw a cat outside? Go where the prompt leads!
Respond by June 29, 2021. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.
Rainbow Emerges by Charli Mills
The ribbon of road opened to a clearing where several cabins squatted. Max could separate house, privy, sauna, from woodshed. The house was nominal. No matter. Max had no intention to stay with Jurmo. She wasn’t boarding with a self-proclaimed “tree wizard” or a church zealot. Max rented a distant campsite. She honked, a backwoods courtesy. A door opened and a massive Norwegian Forest Cat emerged with a crown of dried flowers. Her dad followed. “Rainbow, our princess has returned.”
Max fingered the boot blouse she wore on her wrist. Remember, you are a grown researcher and a Marine.
🥕🥕🥕
June 18: Flash Fiction Challenge
My peonies and poppies are in perfect balance this year in the potager garden — softball-sized blooms of fuchsia framed by papery petals of burgundy and coral. I’m not as balanced but blooming nonetheless. My timing is off, driven by unscheduled chaos and income opportunities. Mostly, it’s all unfolding but less elegant than my flowers.
Mause is banned from the summer office, having romped through my hummingbird boxes. To her credit, she didn’t step on any flowers but I can’t allow her to chase bumbles and birds in a space I created for such winged critters. Anyhow, she prefers to stretch out across lawn, dandelions, and fleabane (and, yes, this native perennial lives up to its name).
She’s smart about her leash and outdoor cable. She knows the limit of each lead’s length. It’s the exact premise by which we, as writers, accept a constraint (99 words) and create within that framework. Mause can chase a witch’s hat I fly like a kite at the end of a gardening bamboo stick and never hit the end of her leash. It amazes me how she can stay laser focused and yet within her parameters.
Yes, I’m taking notes, Mause.
Sometimes, we have to reconfigure our framework. Maybe we get used to writing 99-words but we want to submit a 1,000-word story, write a novel, or practice haiku. Our first step is to develop a sense for how much space we have to shrink or expand a story. At its most basic, a story begins, meanders, and ends. Someone does something and there is a final consequence. A story take place somewhere — in Italy, on Venus, or in the mind of an ant. If we bemoan our parameters, our limitations, we miss the fantastical creativity that can happen within.
It comes down to balance. Being off-balance doesn’t mean we need immediate remedy. When situations, stories, or surprises leave us feeling lopsided we can explore the experience. So, you might say, I’m learning yoga post-MFA as a veteran spouse in a downward spiral. If ever there was a time I needed my pack, my Warrior Sisters, it is now. No one else has the insight on veteran spouse yoga.
However, the Pandemic has treated us harshly. We lost one of our strongest warriors to cancer. Another lost her husband. Three of us have had struggles with our spouses and no VA support because the system assumes our soldiers are right in the head when clearly they are not. “What the veteran wants,” is a refrain we hear when they refuse meds, treatments, or diagnoses. Three others are hanging on by their fingernails. We have not all met up together in over a year.
Today, my Warrior Sisters gathered and listened to me wail over my loss of Vet Center Services because of my husband’s ill-timed actions, lack of comprehension, and worsening aggression. The system is messed up. The system is not for the veteran families. Even though divorce is considered one of the symptoms of what soldiers experience in service (they are 60 percent more likely to separate or divorce), it’s difficult to find support as a spouse. I can’t get Mary Gauthier’s song, War After the War, out of my head.
Who’s gonna care for the ones who care for the ones who went to war?
There’s landmines in the living room and eggshells on the floor
I lost myself in the shadow of your honor and your pain
You stare out of the window as our dreams go down the drainInvisible, the war after the war
Mary Gauthier
After all my struggles to complete a novel about a soldier’s wife, in the end, I wrote one about a soldier’s wife who found her pack. “I’m a soldier too, just like you, serving something bigger than myself.” (M. Gauthier) Having other women to share experiences with is akin to soldiers sharing with other soldiers. We might be invisible, but we witness each other. More important, we compare notes. The impact of PTSD and TBI on an aging brain is common yet commonly ignored. Getting to meet outside official doors calmed my despair. I’m still a BAB. And a writer. I told my pack today, I already had the opening line to Danni’s sequel, and we all howled with laughter.
I got this yoga move.
As for stretching myself in other directions, I’ve been updating resumes, CVs, submitting applications, following up on references, following leads on projects and clients, and tackling business tasks. I’m completely revamping my social media strategy, but don’t ask me yet what that is. I had lively debates with peers in school, which has led me to consider different platforms. We have many choices and in the long run, what will work best, how and why. I’m testing my flexibility.
Communities are excellent for networking because we know (and appreciate) one another. I’ve had offers to hand deliver my resume, explore their connections for work, and guide my attempts to branch out. Someone referred me to a family seeking an editor for their 93-year-old father and I mentored their process and quoted my rate for the project. I got the gig. Someone else told a local tribe that I’d be a good person to contact for a three-month project. They offered me the contract. My local SBA rep who has been working with me (patiently) helped me file LLC papers today so that I can clearly delineate between mission-based literary outreach at Carrot Ranch Literary Community and income-based work through Carrot Ranch, LLC.
I’m discovering new tools, too. When I arrived to the Keweenaw, I joined a business for creatives group called Rising Tide. I’m now using their HoneyBook tool to set up my contracts and projects. I’m exploring platforms like Trello to find one I can use for group coaching. And, I’m going through all the resources I gained from school to pull out what’s useful. I’m even practicing with sound recording to develop podcasts to interview Carrot Ranchers and experts to offer advice to the community.
I’m grateful for the supportive environment here. Be patient with me as I stretch, breathe, and seek a new life balance. If anyone were to ask me what I thought my purpose in life was, I’d say that I’m here to lift up others to find their purpose. I know I’m a storycatcher, a writer, a word/bird/rock/garden nerd, and I aspire to publish and teach. But really, it’s all about encouraging others to discover, grow and heal through literary art. That’s my purpose. I’m not timely right now, but bringing you this space at Carrot Ranch is a priority.
What better time, though, to seek balance than at the solstice. In the northern hemisphere, Summer Solstice is June 20; in the southern hemisphere, Winter Solstice is June 21. Around the world, day and night balance perfectly. May that mean something to you, magical or practical.
June 18, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that features a solstice. What is the era and setting? Use the solstice as a celebration, metaphor, or talking point. Go where the prompt leads!
Respond by June 22, 2021. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.
Submissions now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
To Dance by Charli Mills
Maia met the girls at the Biting Fly for vodka shots. They toasted her ancestors, the ones who came from Finland with nothing but their knowledge of the old ways and hope for a new Finlandia in this place called America. They worked as mules in the copper mines and stayed after the boom busted. Maia, at 80-something, remembered her grandmother sharing childhood memories of the kokko, the massive community bonfire at Juhannus. Her girlfriends weren’t Finnish but they relished the hippie vibe of a solstice celebration on the beach. They swayed with men, and Maia danced with ghosts.
Author’s Note: The Toivola midsummer bonfires have been held at Agate Beach since the 1890s. This author is going on solstice to catch ghost stories.
🥕🥕🥕
October 30: Flash Fiction Challenge
In the US, the Coast Guard are the ones who go out on tumultuous seas when all other watercraft head for shelter. They are the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service of the US Armed Forces. They are veterans, too.
Where I live, along the southern curve of Lake Superior on a jut of land known as the Keweenaw Peninsula, maritime life saving once fell to the lifesavers. Before we had diesel-powered Coast Guard ships, we had rowboats.
Okay, maybe not rowboats like you’d take a date on a placid pond. They were wooden, though, and powered by humans. Can you imagine a furious storm on Lake Superior with gales forceful enough to sink an iron ore steamer? Then imagine the rescuers seeking to pull sailors from the waves in wooden boats powered manually with oars.
You can see some of their equipment in this video of our local Life Saving Museum in Eagle Harbor, thirty miles north of headquarters of Carrot Ranch.
Even today, it must take great courage to face a storm. The Coast Guard still has several life saving stations, both on our Portage Canal that accommodated freighters to haul copper. Their 47-foot dual engine boats are designed for dangerous water rescues.
Life savers were often forgotten to history. My friend Barb, married a Vietnam veteran, back in 1980. His family lived and worked on the Keweenaw for many generations. One was a surfman, or an early Coast Guard life saver. When Barb did some genealogy and found out about this man and his deeds, saving lives, she realized that no one had ever collected all the names of the life savers that served our peninsula.
What started out as a family project led to the recognition of over 300 life savers. Barb even found descendants, which led to interest in forming the local museum where her research resides.
Barb was one of the first people I met when I arrived to the Keweenaw three and a half years ago. She had just battled cancer and returned to the Warrior Sisters group where I had found my welcome. Of course, we hit it off quickly, both sharing a love of history and recovering forgotten voices.
Two years ago during the 2018 Flash Fiction Rodeo, I highlighted Barb’s work. She had recently been honored for her research and given a week’s stay at the light-keeper’s house in Eagle Harbor.
Waves surged relentlessly against the craggy rocks of Eagle Harbor where I went to write for a few days as a guest of Keweenaw historian, Barb Koski. It was mid-October, and the gales of November had come even earlier than when the Edmond’s Fitzgerald went down. Barb’s expertise in maritime history focuses on the heroics of the surfmen — those who went out into the wind-driven swells in small boats to rescue the crews of large ships.
Like Barb, many who live, work or attend secondary education on the Keweenaw Peninsula fall in love with the area’s natural beauty and endless outdoor activities. Barb showed me many natural wonders and historic structures during our getaway. If you spend any time outdoors on the Keweenaw, you can’t escape the area’s bold history of industrial copper mining.
On October 18, 2020, my friend, fellow historian, and Warrior Sister, Barb Koski died peacefully at home. Earlier that week, led by our fearless widow, the Warrior Sisters sat with her, laid on hands, prayed, and said goodbyes. Sitting at her feet was the teddy bear we bought her, the one Barb named Precious. She took Precious everywhere.
At her visitation on Monday, Precious sat near her once again. Barb’s daughter said they thought about cremating Precious with Barb, but her husband wanted to keep the bear. Now Precious goes with him. The next day we all gathered once again, the Warrior Sisters and my Hub in a single pew.
Barb was a life saver. She cared deeply for others and could sit with them in their pain. She rescued those who risked their lives from obscurity. In thinking what kind of stories Barb would like, I’m pointing us all toward the fury of the sea, inland or elsewhere, to write about life savers who dare face the waves and the storms.
October 30, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about life savers on any body of water. It can be a formal Coast Guard, historical or contemporary. It could be an individual who unexpectedly takes on the role. Go where the prompt leads!
Respond by November 3, 2020. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.
Submissions now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
In Remembrance by Charli Mills
Beatrice Hayes served Coast Guard Station Portage for three years, respecting the deadly furies of Lake Superior. Cruising the canal on a clear day, she could spot old shipwrecks below the water’s surface. To the west, she assisted in setting up the buoy system. When she heard kayakers were gathering to honor a local historian who researched her historical predecessors, Beatrice mustered the fleet from cruisers to icebreaker to Kodiaks and posted an honor guard. Women in kayaks tossed daisies, reciting the names of life savers who had served these waters, ending with the woman who wrote their biographies.
🥕🥕🥕
May 6: Flash Fiction Challenge
Back at the Boston Homestead where my daughter and her husband are expanding their farm across what was once a neighborhood of company copper miners, their hens escaped the coop. The girls didn’t go far. Chanticleer, the rooster who crows when I sing to him about eating cracked corn, didn’t stray from them. They gathered among the budding blueberry plants and partied.
I’ll accept that as my cue to follow suit. Somebody blow party horn.
School’s out, but may the learning never cease. How quickly coursework gave way to gardening. Black soil slips under the tips of my fingernails, erasing twenty-one straight months of studies and writing for an MFA. Technically, I get my degree by mail after June 1. May is limbo month. A month of fresh ideas, starts and new paths. A month to find joy among emerging flowers, seedlings, and dreamers.
I’m with the chickens, pecking after the best blossoms. Except my escape from the student coop calls for cake not flower petals. I’ll confess to having had two lemon cakes already. One in late March after I completed my thesis. The special women in my veteran spouses group lent their stories and struggles. My protagonist met her own group of warrior sisters, ones she would called BABs. Danni Gordon gets cake in THE MIRACLE OF DUCKS. Lemon cake. When I completed my thesis and turned over my manuscript (MS) to my BABs, one of them made her famous lemon cake. After she read the MS, she baked me a second!
A fun aside to the second cake: Coming home from our last group meeting, I had lemon cake in my car. I stopped in Ripply where I haven’t been in ages because of the pandemic. In front of a friend’s house, we distantly gathered, delighting in the sunshine and recent second vaccinations. It seemed surreal to “people” and then I remembered. I had cake. A small village street consumed a lemon cake. Forgotten birthdays and private celebrations surfaced. Through shared cake, we felt human again.
I’m distancing my grad celebrations which is really an excuse to camp for three nights. But first, to Bayfield and the Old Rittenhouse Inn on Monday. My novel began in Bayfield. It flared in many directions, and in the end it became ashes. The thesis I wrote rose up from the ashes of my first novel to become a Phoenix among my drafts. I kept the title and protagonist but changed the premise, crafted a plot, and created a compelling character arc with a memorable group of women who carry the burdens their husband’s bring home from the battlefield. For me, to visit Bayfield is to reconcile the full journey I’ve been on to write my novel.
After a night in Wisconsin, I’ll pick up my incredible celebration cake from three Chippewa sisters in Minnesota. Then I return four hours to the Keweenaw to camp for three nights at McLain State Park. Cake, bonfires, cacao, and the sound of surf and spring peepers. Friday, I’ll go home to wish my Svalbard daughter a happy birthday. Then it’s off to the Unicorn Room for a Musical Zen Sound Bath with my sound therapist. She’s offering to do the meditation that bathes participants in sounds from drums to crystal bowls. It will be live on her FaceBook page at 5 pm EST on Friday, May 14. If you are interested in sharing this experience with me, shoot me an email at wordsforpeople(at)gmail(dot)com for links and instructions.
On Saturday, May 15, I’ve set up three Zoom Rancher Gatherings to cover a diversity of time zones and availability. Hop on to meet and talk with fellow writers at Carrot Ranch. Maybe meet the chickens of Boston or the wild Mause of the House. Celebrate. Socialize. I’ll read a snippet from my thesis and ask any questions about MFAs or writing. Bring your own bubbly! Times: 9 am/2 pm/7 pm (Eastern Time US).
If you are interested in the sound bath, socializing on Saturday, or setting up a time to chat, shoot me an email at wordsforpeople(at)gmail(dot)com for links and instructions. If you want to send graduation cards, you can mail to headquarters at 1112 Roberts Street, Hancock, MI 49930.
It’s my birthday on May 21. My son and daughter-in-law are driving up from Wisconsin for the weekend. I will complete my celebrations that weekend and start the new journey in earnest. For now, I’m going to party like hens let loose in the berry patch.
Note extended deadline on account of Party Business.
May 6, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about party hens. Who are these chickens and why do they party? Go where the prompt leads!
Respond by May 18, 2021. Use the comment section below to share, read, and be social. You may leave a link, pingback, or story in the comments. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. Rules & Guidelines.
Submissions now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
The Hen Party by Charli Mills
Chanty shook his coxcomb. “Party ‘til the cows come home. Farmer Brown doesn’t know his party hens.”
The hens lunged for the blueberry patch. In the morning Farmer Brown would blame a blight or a bloke. Either way, he wouldn’t believe his best layer had a spare key to the coop. Seventeen hens clucked and clogged beneath the moon.
“It’s time,” said Henny Penny. They slowed their shimmies and wrote their plans in chicken-scratch.
“Party hard, Ladies. We have to write the next campaign to get a Madame President in Office.” Henny Penny held the party line – Chicks Only.
🥕🥕🥕
January 24: Story Challenge in 99-words
What I have always wanted is the Writer’s Life.
Growing up, books transported me and expanded my understanding. The old Conestoga wagon at the ranch near my home, where I climbed to the seat and worked the handbrake, featured in many books I read. Laura Ingalls Wilder and other pioneer stories explained the remnants of the Immigrant Trail that spanned Alpine County, my childhood home. Ian Flemming, Louis L’Amore, Kathleen E. Woodwise, and Julie Garwood introduced me to espionage, western literature, and highland romance.
Yet, I recognized that not all stories were in books. The story of Dot So La Lee and the Washo elders I knew as grandparents to school friends, made me want to read their stories, too. The women I met as “old-timers” or ranch hands in my hometown also had stories and worked jobs that didn’t fit into the trope of the western woman. The omission of stories not found in the mainstream made me want to write. And I did — in wide-rule notebooks.
Really, I wanted to be Indiana Jones. He was an archaeologist who found adventure in the field, taught college, and knew stories. My dream for the writer’s life mixes a vibe of outdoor adventure, learning about new places and people, and telling the forgotten stories from the fringes. It expands more than writing and publishing. For me, it’s a way of life. When I met Indiana Jones on the big screen, I saw a hero who also was a storyteller and a teacher.
As I’ve matured, the dream ebbed and waned. Parenthood was a pause but also a later catalyst that propelled me onto the college path. Employment used my writing skills and taught me the value of storytelling in marketing. I never stopped dreaming or going to historical sites or writing. Every new year for 16 years, I wrote “Live a Writer’s Life” in a journal or on a calendar. When I had to defer writing to parenting or employment, I still looked for adventure outside, let my curiosity roam, and collected stories from life, history, and imagination.
Then, I took those steps to pursue that Writer’s Life and began working on the craft of creative writing, not just filling the well from where I write. I began to crave connection, the deeper I wrote. The ability to connect through stories, caught and told, is in my DNA. It’s in yours, too. Our brains are hardwired for stories — just ask Brene Brown.
“the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”
~ Brené Brown
Now, I have come to know the deep connections that writers can make as a community. This is the icing on the Writer’s Life cake. Further, I recently fulfilled that Indiana Jones dream to teach college. Last semester was my first; this semester I’m also tutoring 13 learning labs in addition to my English writing class. Two weeks into the semester and I still have the jitters. I love this part of my Writing Life — the people.
In December, I took a break from Carrot Ranch. As a (recently acknowledged) caregiver to a wounded warrior, my life has not gone as planned. In fact, I never would have imagined such a twist. I needed the time to settle into my new support program which gives the stability I’ve not had in years because of my husband’s condition. When I slowed down, I wanted to also reflect on what I’m doing at Carrot Ranch. Undeniably, it is an important feature of my Writer’s Life.
But I also felt lost. This is why I believe in vision work for goal-setting, and knowing what my North Star is. Mine is “Living my best life, writing, teaching, and publishing books.” The first part of the sentence captures the Indiana Jones dream but accepts reality, too. I don’t need exotic locations, I have my backyard. Seeing the first spring crocus is a bit like finding treasure. The second part of the North Star is specific. I feel like I have arrived at a place where the possibilities have dwindled to a focus.
Carrot Ranch has a North Star, too. It’s been: “making literary art accessible 99 words at a time.” During my break, I also found a tighter focus for the Ranch. The mission of Carrot Ranch is “to make the craft of creative writing accessible to those who dare.” It’s wordier but also more specific.
“The craft of creative writing.” Early on, I wanted to make literary art something that all people could participate in through readership, discussions, and writing. However, the emphasis is on the writing. I wanted an inclusive term for poets, genre-writers, and storytellers. Creative writing fits the description better than literary art.
Accessibility. I wanted better accessibility to the greater writing community. I wanted accessibility for writing stories than anyone could do. I wanted accessibility to improve my craft. I wanted accessibility for readers who feel too busy to read. 99-word stories provide that accessibility for me, you, and anyone seeking their own Writer’s Life.
“To those who dare.” Yes, this is totally a nod to Brene Brown. Over the break, I had an epiphany that I could not teach every student or writer who comes to me, nor could I make anyone feel safe in their own being. What I mean, is that as hard as I try to create safe spaces in my classrooms and community, I will still have students fail and writers who won’t try to overcome their fears. I’m not responsible for those hard circumstances or choices. Thus, it’s important to me to highlight and encourage “those who dare” to write creatively, flawed, ever-improving craft.
“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.’”
~ Brené Brown
It feels good to be back among the badass writers who dare to stand in their truth and write their stories. No matter what your path, the hardships you face, your hopes and dreams, you are here. You are willing to join in with other writers to access creative writing. Weekly. 99 words at a time, no more, no less.
Now that I’m back, let me unfurl the changes. It might feel awkward, it might be frustrating, or it might feel like a relief, but I’m only accepting 99-word stories in the form. If you blog, include your link to your story, and please link to the Collection, not to the Challenge.
My reasoning is that I was trying to be too many things to all writers. Multiple posting of stories, which I encouraged so people had different ways to share, became redundant. I want to encourage people to read your stories, of course! But let’s focus on the Collection. Please do not post stories in the comments, or share links on the Challenge Post. Share your links to the collection, this is more favorable to you as a writer.
Then, when I publish the collection, I will encourage readers to follow blogs of authors they discover and like. I will encourage bloggers to visit the sites of other bloggers. I will visit all the blogs where you posted your story. If you want to say why you like a particular story(ies), comment on the Collection.
The form message indicates “if your story is accepted.” It’s to protect Carrot Ranch from the scammers of the world. The occasional Nanjo gets through. Also, I may have students submitting. It’s also a nod to the future. If we grow, there will be a limit to what I can curate within a week. At that point, I might consider a blog hop through a linkup program. But we are not at that point.
I don’t expect us to adjust smoothly. I will give gentle nudges to anyone who misunderstands or doesn’t read the post and changes. It’s okay. It’s a needed shift and I welcome your feedback throughout the transition. In all the years we have been writing 99-word stories, no one has ever published only in the comments. That was supposed to be an option for those without blogs, but I have discovered that if a writer is not a blogger, they are more likely to feel uncomfortable posting anything in the comments.
However, if you write (or respond) to one another in story, poetry, or in character (like Kid and Pal), that’s great! I’m trying to reduce the redundancy of our shared stories and emphasize the Collection.
Another change is the dates. With my schedule at Finlandia University, I realized I needed to develop a better workflow for me at the Ranch. I can work on posts over the weekend. Challenge posts will publish every Monday and the Collection on the following Wednesday. I need the extra days to put together the collaborative works of those who submit their stories.
Also, I’m not posting a story either until the collection!
Other programming at Carrot Ranch will remain on hiatus until we have further plans to share with you. The website will be getting an overhaul and plans are building up from the soil. Our soil is the community and the writing. I will share more in March. For now, let’s write!
January 24, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about “the wish I made.” Whose wish is it and how does it fit into the story? What kind of wish? Go where the prompt leads!
- Submit by January 29, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
- Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
- Your blog link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
- Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
- Please include the hashtag #99Word Stories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts in social media.
Submissions are now closed. Find our latest challenge to enter.
Deep Wishes
It’s dark at the bottom of the well where deep wishes reside.
Writers responded to the prompt, and what follows is a collection of perspectives in 99-word stories arranged like literary anthropology.
Those published at Carrot Ranch are The Congress of Rough Writers.
Deep Wishes by Goldie
A few years ago, I tried a deep-dish pizza for the first time. Going into that experience, I kept an open mind. Yes, I like my pizza crust thin, but I also love tons of cheese and other toppings. The pie, which we picked up on our way back from visiting our mother at the hospital, was comforting and filled us up pretty quickly.
“What does that have to do with deep wishes?” Charli asked, pointing to the prompt.
“What? I thought it said ‘deep dishes.'” Goldie replied.
“I deeply wish for your eyesight to get better,” Charli chuckled.
🥕🥕🥕
Colors of Fortune by D. Avery
lazurite pulse from deep within
night sky, star spilt light seeping through
deep wishes are this shade of blue
in sleek watery hues they swim;
yellow sunlight stirs blue, spins
absorbed by earth, emerges green
deep wishes are what color spring;
shoots poke through snow-melt packed-leaf ground
deep wishes star this soft hewed brown
deep wishes are seeds sown unseen;
who’s the sower? we cannot know
but through the wisdom of a child
who knows deep wishes just grow wild
roots in earth, airy seeds that blow;
free to harvest with good reason
deep wishes bloom in all seasons.
🥕🥕🥕
Deep Wishes by Jaye Marie
Sitting in the middle of the field, mysterious in the moonlight,
was a wishing well. It wasn’t there yesterday; of that I am sure.
I mean, why would anyone build a well so far from a house?
Far from looking quaint and old worldly, it looked much too menacing for my liking.
I found myself drawn to it, but was my life really so bad, I needed to make a wish?
There were a few things I could wish for,
a proper home, a better husband, a baby…
If I only had to choose one, which would it be?
🥕🥕🥕
Before the Call by Padmini Krishnin
Maria savored the hazelnut chocolate, eyes closed, as each bite melted in her mouth and warmed her heart. She wore her favorite pink lace dress, which now hung loosely around her thin body. However, she no longer cared about her weight.
She touched the pink pearls her husband had given her long ago. They were as fake as he was. But, she had kept both.
Maria walked around her beloved garden, feeling the twilight breeze on her face.
She leaned back and took a deep breath. Then she dialed the clinic to ask for the result of her diagnosis.
🥕🥕🥕
Buried Dreams by Anne Goodwin
One was easy: Please water! Please food! It slumbered in his larynx, ready to erupt on reaching dry land. He’d crushed the second in his chest when he learned the consequences of questioning the crew. Desire for coat or canopy to combat gale and hail migrated from his stomach to his bowels. His dreams of home, school, a football pitch dropped deeper with every battering of the boat until they reached his toes. But he’d abandoned hope of seeing his father again so long ago, he’d almost forgotten. That wish, like a surplus body, sinking to the ocean floor.
🥕🥕🥕
Deep Wishes by Simon
The night was getting cold, he wished the night could hear his plea. The night was getting darker and colder, his skin shivered as he laid there on the street shirtless. He tried to warm himself, he wished he will get help, he tried to stop the cars that had passed. To his bad luck, no one had turned up or stopped the car. He wished someone will throw an old sweater, he wished someone will give him a shelter, he wished and laid there stared at the sky, and wished he could die, and his wish came true.
🥕🥕🥕
The Bargain by Joanne Fisher
“And do you have a wish?”
“I deeply wish the killer comes to know what he took away from me. The love I shared with her. I want him to know the wonderful person she was and the light she brought into other people’s lives. I want him to know that; to finally understand what he took away from us all as he rots away in the darkness of a cell. That’s what I want.”
“I understand. Consider it done, though you have paid a great price.” the voice said. I stared at the pale reflection in the mirror.
🥕🥕🥕
Deep Wishes by Nicole Grant
A viral rampage chokes the breath from countless lives that matter to us. We who survive violent firestorms of inadequately masked rage know raw fear. For a full year out of time we yearn for justice and a cure as we shelter in place. We plant ‘victory’ gardens wishing deep in our battered hearts that hope might sprout with healing herbs and flowers in the coming spring. With stubborn shovels we pierce the sodden clay, defying the flood of terror raining from above. Life matters. Breath matters. Seven generations of new lives matter now. Love will surely win again.
🥕🥕🥕
Yearning… by JulesPaige
Deep wish?
to know a loved one
who left too early; no one
told any stories…
Visionary wish.
to relive perhaps
that one, only memory;
their calm loving touch
Improbable wish.
to hear their soft voice
of reassurance; that they
thought was limitless…
One cannot rewrite history without changing the direction of several other futures.
Reality outweighs wishes. That is just the way of it.
So for the things that cannot be changed presently…Imagination will have to suffice.
Whatever that great beyond may hold, one must just have patience.
Faith? Divergent thinking? One night where there are no nightmares.
🥕🥕🥕
Lost But Now Found by Annette Rochelle Aben
She felt her knees giving away as she walked up the crumbling concrete stairs. What on earth was she thinking anyway? Rejection might be only a few moments away which was not why she was there.
It took a minute for her to figure out that the door was a push and not a pull. Once inside the building, there were more stairs. She could run. Now would be the time.
The older woman in the wheelchair watched the younger woman come down the hall. As their eyes met for the first time, she whispered, “Candace, I’m your mother.”
🥕🥕🥕
Tessa’s Lament by Sue Spitulnik
My ex didn’t need me
He made that perfectly clear
Home I came to help the folks
But in reality, they help me
My children are grown
The oldest chose to move here
Closeness she desires
And a grandmother for Emma
But they would be fine without me
I thought Michael needed a helpmate
But he’s so damn self-sufficient
He helps others in need
The Homefront Warriors welcomed me
But I’m just another voice
And set of understanding ears
PTSD? for a military wife
Nah. Someone please help me
Rejoice in being wanted
Compared to being needed
🥕🥕🥕
Hidden Guilt by Sue Spitulnik
The battered senior prom picture Michael sequesters in his wallet comes to light when he suffers alone. Staring at it, he remembers; standing tall on legs, twirling Tessa in her sparkly white dress, donning the crown of the elected high school king in love with the queen. He burrows it back into its cave and looks to the sky; his faith is his strength. He prays to be free from the guilt for the wheelchair he uses, the job he can no longer do, and not being thankful enough. He is driven to hide the pain while helping others.
🥕🥕🥕
Bottomless Biddings by Bill Engleson
The country had put much stock in the ability of Bottomless Biddings to right the course, to write the Nations next chapter.
“But he is so ancient,” some said. “On occasion, he seems lost in the past. How can we expect him to anticipate the future?”
But others, those who appreciated the wisdom that age imparted, could impart if the stars had aligned, if life and its many trials had allowed the correct mix of struggle and solemnity, of joy and jest, said, “he will take us to where we need to be. Give it time.”
And they did.
🥕🥕🥕
Deep Wishes by Ritu Bhathal
I’m tired.
Tired of pleasing everyone else, all the time, and never doing anything for myself.
She noticed my mood.
She notices everything.
Approaching me with a cup of my favourite tea, she settled me on a chair, told me to calm down, before handing me the cup.
“Breathe, Nina. Let it out. You know you’re doing a fantastic job, but you can’t forget your dreams. I remember what you were like when you started here, filled with ambition and amazing ideas. Come on, dig deep. What were your wishes, then? It’s time for you to think about yourself.”
🥕🥕🥕
Cream Puffs by Faith A. Colburn
Frigid wind blowing off Lake Erie.
Door blows open; tinkles shut.
Warm smells of baking—golden loaves, croissants
Sweet scent of cookies, cakes, cream puffs.
Crisp crust flakes; filling fills senses
Warm vanilla pudding envelopes the tongue
Eyes widen; an ecstatic surprise.
Me, only three, shy in my Shirley
Temple curls, little fur hat and muff.
We left daddy in the winter, ran to Chicago.
I remember almost nothing, except
This bakery with a tinkling bell and cream puffs.
Later, we returned to Dad and stayed together,
But I long to buy Mom one more cream puff
🥕🥕🥕
Where the Deep Wishes Go by Colleen M. Chesebro
Sally gazed into the watery darkness of the well. As if reciting a prayer, she whispered with reverence, “This is where the deep wishes go.”
Her smaller sister Elizabeth asked, “Do we say it now?”
“Not yet. When we see the moon slip inside the well, then we say it.”
At dusk, the white sphere ascended into the sky. A hazy shape reflected in the inky depths of the well. Beyond the shadows from the trees, musket fire sparkled against the sky.
Sally and Elizabeth joined hands. “Please grant our wish and bring our father home safe to us.”
🥕🥕🥕
Deep Wishes by Rebecca Glaessner
I feel invisible blows as fear and pain chemicals flood my place within my host’s brain. Her carer is destroying her, setting fire to her mind with every heartache, every forgotten promise, every silence, every lie.
I wish to protect her, to save her.
To survive.
Her carer’s mind was lost in the depths of its own flood long ago.
My host is an Earthen youngling, at her carer’s mercy, but I am neither.
As she sleeps, I break a vital rule and guide her body through the dwelling, to her carer’s room.
Here, I end my host’s nightmare.
🥕🥕🥕
The Get Together by Prapti Gupta
Today my mom and me are very excited. Today we are going to meet with our father after a long time. I am very excited for it. But the meeting period is very short, just 10 minutes.
Mr. Morgan was waiting for us. He was the medium through which we are going to talk with him. We are going to do planchette.
My mom and I haven’t talked with him since the day we two died in a road accident a year ago but my father survived!!!!
It’s really a special day for both of us.
🥕🥕🥕
That Damn Phone by Donna Matthews
“Hey, I thought we could go to dinner with the Smith’s tonight. We haven’t seen them in weeks.”
“Uh-huh,” my husband murmurs without looking up.
Irritated, I study him a moment and propose, “And then, let’s go to the plant store and buy some fresh plants for the new bed I’ll be making this weekend.”
“Uh-huh”
“Aaaannnnndddd then later, I thought we could lay in the backyard and howl at the moon.”
“Hmmm.”
“Are you kidding me right now – are you even listening?”
He looks up, but his eyes not entirely focused.
That damn phone is killing us.
🥕🥕🥕
Wishing to Be Heard by FloridaBorne
The rains came and three rivers flowed, water rising ever so slowly.
Without speech, or expression through letters, Hope tried to warn others by drawing her tormented dreams. The future apocalypse filled reams, depicting millions floating face down.
Tranquilized worlds seek easy answers, never to venture outside the comforting prison of their disbelief.
Colors screamed louder their message: Danger!
Those she loved sought treatment for her pain.
Medicated eyes stared, devoid of emotion, thirty stories above a city jutting from brown waters.
Biblical flooding heralded an earthquake.
As Hope floated among the dead, her drawings sank beneath the water.
🥕🥕🥕
Calming Whisper by Ann Edall-Robson
For a moment the corral silhouettes the full moon trailing over the black morning sky. There’s yet to be daylight’s fire on the Eastern horizon to waken the day. It will come in time, but for now, it’s anticipation. A cool breeze shuffles through the trees, in one truck window, out the other, lifting the notes of the wolf’s song. Eerie calls echoing against the canyon walls and penetrating the predawn mist. A shiver slides down my back, into my soul, speaking to me. There‘s a stillness, a calming whisper trying to answer the deep wish simmering within.
🥕🥕🥕
Waiting to Rise by Charli Mills
Lake Superior doesn’t freeze flat like a pond. She’s a non-conformist to the ways of domesticated bodies of water. Into the night, she goes screaming, waves punching with each yell. She thrashes, her hips undulating with deep wishes unfulfilled. When they force her into cold compliance, she fights back. The shock of winter marriage doesn’t smooth her wild edges. Ice grabs hold, insistent, freezing her shoreline, paralyzing her economy. She plunges deep and draws her strength, cracking the façade they give her. Ice fractures over and over. Wishes caught and released, shared among women waiting their turn to rise.
🥕🥕🥕
Knee-deep by Doug Jacquier
‘Knee-deep, Mr. Easybean Green.’
‘And knee-deep to you, Mr. Phileas Frog.’
‘Why do we keep saying ‘knee-deep’? What’s wrong with ‘fathoms-deep’ or ‘space deep’ or ‘meaning deep’?’
‘Phileas, have you been at the crème de menthe again?’
‘No, Easybean. I’ve been studying etymology.’
‘Well, Phileas, studying entomology is very important for us amphibians. That’s what I call real brain food. Geddit. Brain food.’
‘Yes, I get it, Easybean, unfortunately. I’m talking about the origins of words.’
‘Well, I guess we’ve got knees and we’re deep thinkers. Seems logical to me.’
‘About as logical as anything else, Mr. Easybean Green.’
🥕🥕🥕
Something Else by Norah Colvin
His eyes were as round as the cookie. He shuffled on his seat. His fingers twitched. They slow-walked to the plate and he quickly drew them back. His head bent low over the cookie. He inhaled. Deep. Long. No rule against that. He checked for dislodged crumbs. None. He sighed. The door handle rattled. He sat upright, shoved his hands beneath his buttocks and looked at the ceiling.
“You resisted,” said the examiner.
He nodded.
“Not even a crumb?’
He shook his head.
“Then you may have two cookies.”
“Can I have something else, please? I don’t like chocolate.”
🥕🥕🥕
A Simple Wish by Ruchira Khanna
“Mommy, I love you to the moon and back.”
“Aww! baby! my words are coming back to me.” Sheila chuckled as she adjusted her head and wiped the sweat off her forehead.
“Mommy, when can you play with me?”
“As soon as I feel better, doll.”
Hearing that, Liz closed her eyes and waved her magic-wand in her direction.
“What did you wish?” Mom inquired when Liz opened her eyes.
Liz placed her tiny hands over her bald head, “My deepest wish is that you get well so we can play together and go out for pizza and burgers.”
🥕🥕🥕
The Wishing Well by Nicole Horlings
Clara ran through the garden gate
Rushing around the grand estate
Looking for a good game to play,
Something new to do that day,
When down and down she fell
Deep down into the wishing well.
She thought she’d fall into the water
And become a stranded daughter,
But she floated in a cloud of wishes
Where a variety of delightful riches
Swirled everywhere around her
That promised fun and pleasure.
With a quick flick of her hand
They nicely followed her command.
She sent them all back up the well
Not realizing the limits of the magic spell.
🥕🥕🥕
Tales from “Dragon” by Saifun Hassam
The ancient Dragon Cavern well was covered with golden trumpet vines. People with deeply troubled hearts climbed the hills, threw coins into the well. It had infinite patience as it listened to wishes, never revealing its deeply held secrets.
A sorceress went into the well, to seek out its magic. Perhaps she really wanted those silver coins. She disappeared.
Centuries passed. Earth tremors and rains transformed the caverns into a deep long lake. Fragrant lotus and water lilies grew along the shore. People never forgot the mythic ancient well. Whispers of dreams and wishes floated on the lake breeze.
🥕🥕🥕
Wishing Well by Liz Husebye Hartmann
The woods were deep, the path mostly overgrown since the last time she’d padded, barefoot and shining, to find the well. Lost and despairing, Myrna lifted her eyes to the liquid warble and slash of fiery red high above.
It looked down at her with piercing black eyes, raising its crest impatiently, having crossed several lifetimes to lead her home. They had been close partners, once upon a time. Did she even remember? The cardinal shrilled, dove, and shot ahead.
Myrna hesitated, eyes following the cardinal, and took off in hot pursuit. Perhaps wishes could come true, after all.
🥕🥕🥕
Diggin’ Deep (Part I) by D. Avery
“What’s up, Kid?”
“Wishin’ I had a story, Shorty. Comin’ up dry fer this prompt.”
“Here’s a story. D’ya know why that old mine is boarded up?”
“Reckon ta keep folks away from yer gold.”
“Ha! Kid, by now ya must know the real gold is right here fer all the ranchers an’ readers ta share. It shines in the comments an’ glitters in the roundup.”
“Yep.”
“But was a time a shallow feller’s most fervent wish was fer mineral wealth. Was him that dug that mine. Deeper an’ deeper he dug, fer what he found wasn’t never enough.”
🥕🥕🥕
Diggin’ Deep (Part II) by D. Avery
“Ever wish ya had more’n 99 words, Shorty?”
“Ya wanna hear the story, you’ll shush Kid…
That feller kept burrowin’ further inta the mountainside, till one day he stumbled an’ fell inta a deep chasm. Lights out.”
“He died?!”
“No, jist his lantern. He come ta rest at rock bottom, engulfed in complete and utter dark.”
“Bet he sure wished ta git outa there.”
“Yep. Gittin’ out become his deepest wish, ta see the light a day, never mind ‘bout gold. Was then they appeared.”
“Who?!”
“Chapfaeries. Led him through a side tunnel, come out at our carrot patch.”
🥕🥕🥕
In It Deep by D. Avery
“Kid, why’s it me tellin’ stories?”
“Jeez, Shorty. Says up there, ‘member? I got nuthin’.”
“No, I mean, where’s Pal at?”
“Dunno. Went off somewheres mutterin’ ‘bout deep wishes. But look, here comes my puglet. What’s that Curly? Pal’s fell inta the well? No? Squeal agin? Pal’s fell inta the ol’ mine shaft? We’re comin’ Curly, take us ta Pal!”
“Look! The Poet Lariat!”
Hey Pal, grab this rope
ya slipped down a real steep slope
out here huntin’ fer a deep wish
gotta haul ya up like a slimy ol’ fish.
“Wish y’all’d jist pull me up already.”
🥕🥕🥕
