Fiction

Remembering Izzy — a short story

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
IRONING BOARD AND IRON - CLKER
http://www.clker.com/

Sometimes when I’m feeling sad and this ol’ world starts to creepin’ in on me — heavy-like — I take myself away from other people and huddle down in my old creakin’ rockin’ chair in my bedroom. I sit by the window just rockin’ away and lookin out — not seein’ anything in front of my eyes, but seein’ all kinds of things in my memories.

And at times like these — when I’m hurtin’ powerful bad in my soul — I like to remember Izzy best of all. Her real name was Isadora Bradshaw, but none of us kids ever called her Isadora — not me or my sister or any of our friends who came to visit. In fact, nobody I knew back then called her Isadora. She was just Izzy to all of us who loved her.

She was the best of the best was Izzy. About 200 pounds of love and laughter. Her full, round, black face would get all shiny with sweat whenever she was scrubbin’ the floors or haulin’ big loads of clothes from the wringer washer and carryin’ them out to the clothesline — or when she was standin’ at the ironin’ board with her feet in the tub of ice water.

Yes sir, I have to chuckle every time I think about it now. The picture’s still just as clear in my mind as it was every ironin’ day in the summer. Izzy said ironin’ on a summer day was the hottest one job in the whole world. She said it always made her think about how hot hell must be gonna be, and it made her want to go read the Good Book before she went to bed. Izzy loved that Good Book. And she loved the Lord. Gosh-a-mighty, I can still sing every old hymn that sweet ol’ black lady taught me.

But back to the ironin’ days: Izzy said she sweated so much the sweat would drip on the clean shirts she was ironin, so she decided to start standin’ in a big tub of ice water, and that way it kept her cooled down. When I was a little squirt, I didn’t understand how dangerous that could be, but when I got a little older and had learned a few things about electricity, I told her, “Izzy, you’re gonna electrocute yourself standing in that tub of water while you’re plyin’ that electric iron.”

“Lordy, Honeybear,” she’d say — she always called me “Honeybear” — from the day I was born I guess — but she’d say, “Lordy, Honeybear, if I was a goin’ to lectrify myself doin’ this, it would have done happened years ago. Now, you stop you’re worrin’ bout your old Izzy. If the good Lord did see fit to take me home while I was a ironin’, I don’t suppose it would hurt a thing — ceptin’, of course, you and your pa’s shirts would still be all wrinkled.”

I finally got to the place that I just laughed with her about it. And later on — when she was too old to work as our maid any longer and pa had a little three room house built out in the back for her to live in for the rest of her life, she and I would sit and remember those days and laugh ’til there were tears in our eyes. That was several years after I had finished high school and moved about a hundred miles away to take a job. I’d never been one to hanker after college, and I landed a job doing work that suited me and just stayed with it. I always made time to come home a couple weekends a month to see the family. But I got to be honest. It was Izzy that I really came home to.

Why that dear old black woman was like a second mama to me. My real mama was a good woman, and I know she loved me, but she was awful busy durin’ my growin’ up years with all of her society doin’s, and it was Izzy who made my breakfast, who listened to me read the stories in my grade-school reader, who listened to my hopes and dreams and fears when I’d spill ’em out non-stop the way a growin’ boy does when he’s goin’ through those years of change and uncertainty about life.

And it was Izzy who prayed for me all the time. I heard her prayin’ many a night. After she finally got her work finished up, she’d sit out on the back porch and talk to the Lord, and I’d sit by my bedroom window listenin’ to those prayers. Back then, I didn’t know the Lord yet, and my heart yearned for the kind of easy, lovin’ relationship that Izzy had with the God of the universe. And, of course, it was Izzy who finally led me to give my life to the Lord.

That one act made all the difference in my life, of course, but one of the most important things it did was to make me even closer to Izzy. She said once I was a Christian, that made her and me real family. Of course, to me, Izzy was always my family, but I eventually came to understand what she meant.

I came to understand a lot more than that too. Eventually, I realized that Izzy was a woman caught in a transition time in our nation. She wasn’t a slave. Nobody was a slave anymore. But she had been brought up by a family who had known slavery. Her own great grandparents – in their teen years – had been among the slaves freed after the Civil War. And livin’ in the deep south as they did, they just couldn’t seem to get more than one step away from it in their thinkin’ – mostly because the rest of the south couldn’t get more than one step away from it either. Their world revolved around an unspoken cast system, and Izzy and her family were still on the bottom.

She should have had opportunities for education and a career. She shouldn’t have been relegated to doing all the cooking, cleaning, and every other kind of drudgery work for someone else in someone else’s home. She should have had a home of her own with a good man and a passel of kids and a place in society where she could be involved with the rest of the world — just the way mama was able to do. But Izzy wasn’t a revolutionary. She wasn’t out to change the world. She took what came to her and thanked the Lord for a family to work for that she could also love.

By the time I understood all of these truths, Izzy was 78 years old and finally livin’ peacefully in her little 3-room house behind our big house. Most people called our house a mansion, but to me, it had always just been our house. And with Izzy there, it was all I needed for those growin’ up years.

I finally married, but we didn’t have any kids, and eventually my wife and I went our separate ways. I never took the chance again. Sometimes I wish I had, but wishin’ about it now is wasted energy. After the divorce, I used to sit and talk with Izzy about what I thought had gone wrong. She listened, but she never passed judgment on me — or on my wife. She just loved me, and that was enough.

Well, Izzy’s gone now — to live with her dear Lord. And me — I’m old and tired — and lonely. My family’s gone, and I miss ’em: my sister Ella and Mama and Papa. I miss the visits to the old home place. I live here in this place they call a “senior facility,” but it ain’t what I call really livin’. The truth is I’m just bidin’ my time until I go on home to be with the Lord too. Some days I have pain in my body, but most every day I have pain in my soul. Somethin’ in me still yearns to do things and go places and try out a few more dreams. But the will isn’t enough when the strength isn’t there.

So while I’m waitin’, I sit here in my quiet room, rockin’ and lookin’ out my window and rememberin’.  And it ain’t so bad really — as long as I sit here and remember Izzy standin’ there at the old ironin’ board, her feet in that pan of ice water, and us laughin’ together to beat the band . . . and singin’ the old hymns, and . . . .

 

THE END

 

~

‘Beyond The Spider’s Web’ — in response to a photo by Tish Farrell

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

 Tish Farrell has offered this photo as a prompt for a story, so I took up her challenge.  My story is below the picture. Visit Tish’s site to find out how she came to take the picture.

TISH FERRELL'S SPIDER WEB

BEYOND THE SPIDER’S WEB

Nessa was starting to feel a little chilly. When she’d left the group of picnickers, after the argument, she had intended to walk just a little while, until her anger dissipated, and then turn back. But somewhere she had taken a wrong turn and ended up in this wooded area. Now she was good and lost. The afternoon had turned brisk, and she’d left her sweater at the picnic site. She was pretty sure she needed to be heading in the direction the sun’s rays were coming from in order to get back to the group. She wondered about why she didn’t hear anyone calling for her, but, of course, they didn’t know she was lost.

After one more turn to head directly toward the sun, she spotted an old barn in a small clearing. One side wall was leaning awkwardly, and part of the roof had obviously fallen in. But she decided she needed to sit down and catch her breath, and at least this offered a little shelter.

As she got to the window, she peered inside to make sure no ferocious animal was making his home there. A huge spider’s web covered most of the window opening, and she had to move her head from side to side to see through the silken threads. But she saw no living creatures inside — just a pile of old flower pot, a rusty pitchfork, and several pieces of rotting wood that had fallen from the roof.

Moving to the left, she finally spotted a door, and pushing against it with all her strength, she managed to get it open enough to walk inside the building. The musty smell was strong: rotting hay, dust, dead foliage, and lots of mouse droppings, if she wasn’t mistaken.

But the relief from the wind was welcome, and there was enough light to look for a dry board or two to make a seat to sit down on and stretch out her legs. She sat for several minutes, enjoying the change in position, but gradually, she realized that she was hearing something besides the silence she’d expected. It was like a tapping — rhythmic but with pauses now and then — followed by the same sounds repeated. It was a pattern that spoke to her musical soul, but it wasn’t music. It was . . . what exactly was it? It was almost like code of some kind, but she dismissed that idea as ridiculous.

But it kept repeating — light, but insistent — until she couldn’t ignore it any longer and had to get up and make her way toward the direction from which it came. Trying to tell herself that it was just a loose board being blown against the wall by the wind, she continued in that direction. But by now she knew the tapping was too light to be just a board — and too rhythmic to be the result of the erratic wind. Her first twinges of uneasiness at being lost were now growing into outright fear at what she might find when she reached the source of the sound.

She stopped. She argued with herself. “I don’t have to go on. I can get out of here and keep walking. Besides, I need to keep moving while I can still be guided by the sun.”

That line of thought sounded good, but then the tapping caught her attention again, and she couldn’t dismiss the idea that if there was someone else here who needed help, she’d never forgive herself for running away. So digging deeper for what courage she had left, she eased herself forward toward an inner door. As she pushed the squeaky door open, the tapping suddenly stopped. There was dead silence for long seconds, and then a tiny voice, choked with tears called out: “Is someone there?  Is someone there?”

Nessa’s heart almost stopped. She didn’t know whether to answer or not, but then thought how foolish to have come all this way to see if someone needed help and then refuse to offer it. Then the voice sounded again. “Please . . . is someone there? Please help me!”

Suddenly, Nessa’s heart took over from her terrified thoughts, and she answered, moving forward as she did. “Yes, I’m here. But where are you?”

“I’m up here!” the tearful voice called, and Nessa looked up for the first time. There, not ten feet from her, in the hay loft, a young boy was hanging out of a hole in the loft, with one leg still stuck up in the hole. He was holding onto a rope that hung from the loft as well, trying to keep himself balanced. With his other hand, he was tapping a piece of wood against the ladder leading to the loft. He couldn’t reach the ladder from where he hung, but he could hit it with the wooden stick.

“Oh, my goodness!” Nessa cried and ran toward him. “What happened?”

“I . . . I fell through a hole in the hay loft, but my leg got caught on something as I fell, and it won’t come loose . . . although I don’t want it to come loose if I can’t get a better hold on this rope because I would fall to the floor on my head. I called and called for help until my throat hurt too much to keep calling. Then I kept hitting this stick against the ladder, hoping someone would hear me.”

As she came closer, Nessa, realized the boy couldn’t be more than eight or nine years old. His tousledd blond hair hung down from his head as he hung almost upside down, and his face was dirty with smeared dirt and tears. “I’ll see what I can do to help you,” Nessa said, as she started to climb the ladder to the loft.

“Be careful,” the boy said. “That ladder has some rotten rungs.”

“Why on earth were you in here climbing it anyway?” she asked.

He sniffed. “I was running away from home.”

By that time Nessa was in the loft and had discovered that his leg was caught between two boards. She didn’t she any blood, but it was for sure he’d have a serious bruise on his leg when this was over.  She tested the rest of the floor around the hole, and finding it solid enough to support her weight, she went to work slowly reaching down for the boy’s shirt and gradually pulling him back in the direction of the loft.

When she had him close enough to have a secure grip on him, she worked at loosening the boards around his leg with her other hand. It was slow work, and he cried out in pain once, but she finally managed to get his leg loosened enough for him to use it to help lift his own weight back toward the opening in the loft.

After a great deal of tugging and huffing and puffing by both of them, the boy was able to reach back through the hole with his own left arm and help pull himself the rest of the way into the loft. They both just sat there, catching their breath for some minutes.

Finally, Nessa spoke. “My name’s Nessa, by the way. What’s  yours?”

“I’m Timmy Randall.”

“Do you live near here?”

“Yeah, just over that hill.” He hung his head and took a deep breath. “I didn’t get very far running away, I guess. I got tired, and I crawled up in the loft to take a nap. And that’s when I fell.”

“So why were you running away? Are your parents mean to you?”

“Well . . . they won’t let me have a horse.”

“What! Is that a good reason to run away from your family?”

“Well . . . they promised me a horse for my birthday, but when my birthday got here — yesterday — they said they didn’t have the money to get me a horse, and all they gave me was a new pair of shoes.” He started to cry again.

“But maybe something happened and your parents really don’t have the money to buy a horse,” Nessa argued.

“But you don’t understand. I bragged to all my friends that I was getting a horse for my birthday. They all  laughed at me and said I was lying — that my parents were too poor to buy me a horse — and that I was stupid to believe they would. Now I can’t go back to school with all those kids. They’ll just laugh at me even more.”

Nessa studied him, weighing her options. Deciding her best bet was to get him to feel more sorry for her than he did for himself, she said. “Well, I’ll tell you what, Timmy. I’d like to help you, but the truth is that I’m completely lost out here. I was on a picnic with my friends, and we had an argument, and I did something as dumb as you did. I just took off walking. But now it’s almost dark, and I don’t know how to get out of these woods, and I’m so scared I don’t think I can help you at all. I’ve got to try to find my way home all by myself.”

Timmy looked at her for several seconds, his eyes wide, and his mouth hanging open. Here was someone with a bigger problem than he had. At least he knew how to get home — to a warm meal and a soft bed and someone to be sure he was safe for the night. Suddenly his green eyes lit up, and a grin spread across his dirty face.”

“Hey, you know what? I can take you to my house, and my dad can drive you home!”

Nessa feigned surprise. “You’d do that for me?  But you’re running away.”

Tim thought about her words a couple more seconds. “Well, I figure it this way. You saved my life just now. If you hadn’t helped me, I would have hung there ’til all the blood ran to my head and I’d have had to let go of the rope I was hanging onto, and I would have fallen to the floor, hit my head, and died.

“But since you stopped to help me and now it’s too dark for you go get home, I’m going to take you home with me.”  The last words were punctuated by another big grin.  After all, there was no shame in changing his mind about running away in order to help a young lady in distress, now was there? He could go back home — where he’d really wanted to be all along — and save face at the same time.

“Well, Timmy,” Nessa said, as she stood up, “I’d be really, really grateful if you’d do that for me.”

Tim hopped up as well, wincing just a little as he put weight on his injured leg.  His grin widened. “It will be my pleasure, Miss Nessa,” he said, holding out his hand to grasp hers as they made their way carefully back to the ladder to start their journey home.

THE END

 

~~~

Give Someone ‘A Quiver Full Of Arrows’ for Christmas

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

BOW & ARROW -- QUIVER COVER FOR KINDLE - beige - NARROWEDChristmas is a time for families. And what better gift to give than the story of one unusual, but heart-warming family that fills the pages of A Quiver Full of Arrows — by me, of course.

Take newspaper publisher Lawson Wainright, who has a gut feeling that two sleeping bags and a can full of peanuts under his front porch just might be connected with four run-away children who have been in the news.  If he’s correct, his life as a quiet, orderly, 40-year-old bachelor just might be on the verge of being turned upside down.

Now add those four children, and a handful of other characters who will make the reader’s heart melt. Throw in a miracle or two from the hand of a loving God. And there you have a story that’s just made for Christmas giving.

It’s available in e-book on Amazon’s Kindle Store, and the price is right for giving: only $2.99.

And don’t forget, Amazon offers a free Kindle app for any device. Downloadable right on the page where you order A Quiver Full of Arrows.

Give a copy to someone you love this Christmas.

 

~~~

4 Books About 4 Men In Love Can Warm Someone’s Heart This Christmas

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

PIC FOR SM.MT. SERIES COVER - FB - smallerFour stories. Four strong men. Men who love the Lord and are determined to have the women they love beside them. Four men who face daunting obstacles – some of them life-threatening – as they pursue the hearts of those women. Struggles in their souls and in the physical world as well force them to dig deeply and draw on their faith in the Word of God in order to win the battles: fighting to stay alive after being shot by an assassin; seriously injured in a plane crash and left with little hope of complete recovery; attempting to rescue a loved one kidnapped in a foreign country; struggling to forgive a life-long enemy in order to find hope in the future.

Their stories come together in the midst of the beautiful, majestic Smoky Mountains. Nestled within that unique region where Tennessee and North Caroline meet and the ‘Smokies’ beckon to the soul of a man to come and lose himself and his troubles in the beauty and tapestry of these compelling mountains. In this delightful setting, these four men’s lives and loves come face to face with the power of God’s Word to overcome any and all obstacles when faith is applied to that Word. Read their stories in The Smoky Mountain Series – available now in digital format at the Amazon Kindle Store – where you’ll also find the FREE Kindle App available for download. Give the gift of love to someone you love this Christmas.

Book 1: Set Free To Love

Book 2: Cameron’s Rib

Book 3: Repaired By Love

Book 4: Jonah’s Song

(Books 1 and 4 of the series are currently on sale through Christmas for $1.99)

 

 

~~~

Arnold’s Antlers: A Christmas Story for Children of ALL AGES

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
I originally posted this story last year, but I thought it might add to the holiday enjoyment of some of my new readers this year, so I’m posting it again.  Arnold may be a youngster, but what he learns about life is important enough to pay attention to even after we’re way up in years.
Happy Holiday Reading! 

ARNOLD’S ANTLERS

GLOBE - NORTH POLE DARK BLUE CLEAR NAMESome people say that way up at the very top of the planet Earth — at the spot that scientists call the North Pole — where it’s very cold — there is a special city — a big, bright, happy, busy city.

And they say that everyone who lives there spends their time making toys and games and yummy treats to give away to all the boys and girls who live on planet Earth.

The reason is that the city is the home of a jolly, round, kind man named St. Nicholas – and he’s known as the giver of gifts. Some children in different countries call him by other names: Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, and Santa Claus, to name a few.

As the story goes, St. Nicholas plans his whole year around one particular night – Christmas Eve – when he loads up a huge sleigh with all the wonderful gifts his helpers have made and flies through the night to deliver them to homes all over the planet Earth.

He has twelve reindeer who pull his sleigh for him, and when they are on the ground, they look just like any other reindeer. But as soon as he’s ready to take flight, St. Nicholas calls out to his team, “Let’s fly!” and they all leap into the air. The leader of the team is a reindeer named Rudolph, and he has a bright red nose that helps light the way when it’s foggy.

SLEIGH FLYING NEW - smallerRudolph has become very famous. There’s even a song about him, and people all over the world sing it. But a lot of people don’t know that he has a younger brother named Arnold. That’s right. And the story in this book is about Arnold and his antlers.

When Arnold was born, his parents were so excited, and so was his older brother. Rudolph had been an only child for many, many years, and even though he had a lot of friends among the other reindeer who lived at the North Pole, he didn’t have anyone that he felt was his very own.

ARNOLD & RUDOLPH AT AT BEGINNINGSo as soon as Arnold was old enough, Rudolph took him along everywhere he went and taught him all about the city where the toys were made. He also taught him about the North Pole, the great forest that hid the city from sight, and the icy cold river that ran through the forest and all the way down to the places where the weather was warm all year.

Rudolph and Arnold ran and played with the other young reindeer in St. Nick’s herd, and they were very happy. One of Arnold’s favorite things to do was to sit and listen to Rudolph tell how he had became the leader of St. Nicholas’ team. Arnold was proud of his big brother, and he got so excited when Rudolph told him stories about flying through the air delivering all the toys.

And St. Nicholas was always looking over the herd, checking to see who might be a good addition to the team. He liked to have young deer in training at all times. If some of his team caught a cold and couldn’t fly on Christmas Eve – or if his older deer became tired and needed to switch to doing easier jobs – he could get a substitute instantly and never be without enough reindeer who were in perfect shape to pull his very heavy sleigh. Every year, he chose two young deer to go into the training program.

When Arnold was about a year old, St. Nicholas came to look him over thoroughly and talk to the family about his following in his brother’s footsteps. The whole family was excited. They just knew that since Rudolph was St. Nicholas’ most important deer, his younger brother would surely be the first one chosen that year to go into training.

“What a fine specimen you are, Little Arnold,” St. Nick said, as he lifted Arnold’s head and smiled at him. Continuing his examination, St. Nick checked out Arnold’s back and hips and legs. He lifted each leg to examine Arnold’s hooves. And when he was done with that, he came back to Arnold’s head and began to look over his antlers.

Now, regular deer grow antlers and then shed them and grow new ones the following year. But the reindeer at the North Pole do not shed their antlers. They keep the same antlers all their lives. St. Nicholas looked carefully at Arnold and ARNOLD WITH CROOKED SMILE - YELLOWsaid, “Hmmm, these are quite large already, aren’t they?”

“Yes sir,” said Arnold proudly. He felt that growing large antlers must be a good thing.

“Hmmmm …” was all that St. Nick said before he patted Arnold’s head kindly and turned toward his parents. Mom and Dad had noticed that St. Nick did not seem all that happy about Arnold’s antlers. They looked at him hopefully.

St. Nick sighed gently. “Well,” he said, “we’ll let Arnold start training and see what happens. He may grow into those antlers yet.” And with that, he took his leave of the family, but he asked Rudolph to walk with him.

As they walked, St. Nick looked at Rudolph and said, “Well, Rudy, you know what the problem might be.”

Rudolph’s heart beat fast. He was feeling afraid. He knew that his little brother wanted to fly with St. Nick on Christmas Eve more than anything in the world. And Rudolph had looked forward all year to helping train his brother so that they could work together. He finally managed to get words out. “You … you think his antlers are going to be too big to fly, don’t you sir?”

St. Nick looked kindly at his favorite deer. “Yes, Rudolph, I fear that Arnold is one of those special deer who grows such a huge set of antlers that they make him too top-heavy to fly.”

“But, sir … but you said yourself that he might grow into them!” Ruldoph’s voice shook just a little as he talked, and St. Nick reached out his hand to stroke his back and comfort him.

“Yes, I said that he might grow into them, but, you know as well as I do by now that it rarely ever happens that way. I just could not disappoint him today. So … we will put him into the training program and see how things go.”

And so it was that Arnold began his training. There were so many things to learn. Pulling the sleigh wasn’t just about leaping into the air and taking off.

Each deer had to learn how to balance his body once he was airborne. And he had to learn how to turn left and right even when the wind was blowing the opposite direction. And, most of all, he had to learn to pull with all the other deer, so that they all worked together as one. It wouldn’t do for some of them to be pulling one way and the rest pulling a different way – or for some to be pulling all the time, and the rest not to be pulling much at all.

Arnold loved his training, and when the day came for him to actually lift off the ground, he was so excited he could not sleep the night before. On that day, at Rudolph’s command, Arnold threw himself into the air, all four of his legs moving at the same speed, just the way he’d been taught. He felt the wind brush past him, and his lungs sucked in the delicious air.

ARNOLD'S PRACTICE FLIGHTS W. HOLLYHe was bursting with pride and excitement as he began his turn to the left, but suddenly, he felt thrown off-balance. He could not complete his turn, and he began to roll through the air, headed for the ground. He landed with a thud, but, thankfully, since he hadn’t been flying very high yet, he wasn’t hurt badly.

Rudolph hurried to his side. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just sort of lost my balance and started rolling to the left.” He had scrambled to his feet by then, so he shook himself to get the twigs and dust off his coat and said. “But I’ll give it another try.”

“Okay, if you want to, but be careful, you hear?” his brother said.

“Oh, I will. And besides, what’s a little fall. I’m sure other reindeer have fallen plenty of times when they were learning.”

ARNOLD'S PRACTICE FLIGHTS - holly flippedSo Arnold tried once more – this time turning toward the right. But, again, he lost his balance and began to roll and ended up on the ground.

By this time, he was a year and a half old, and his antlers had kept growing and growing and growing. They hadn’t bothered him because he just figured he would do as St. Nick had said and grow big enough to fit them. But now he found himself worrying that it was his antlers that were his problem.

Two days later, when St. Nicholas sent for him and his parents to come to his office, Arnold felt very afraid of what was going to take place. St. Nicholas was very kind when he talked with them, but that didn’t make what he had to say any easier to hear.

“I’m always sorry when one of my deer has to be disqualified from flying with my sleigh,” he said. “It’s happened only half a dozen times in all these hundreds of years, but it’s always sad for me. This time,” he added as he looked over at Rudolph, “I’m especially sorry because I know that Arnold’s flying with the sleigh means so much to his brother as well as to Arnold himself.”

St. Nick got up from his chair and walked over to Arnold. He put his arm around the deer and rubbed his nose gently. “I’m sorry, Arnold, but I have something for you.” St. Nick picked up a holly wreath from a stack of them on his desk. “As you know, only my sleigh reindeer wear these wreaths around their necks, but I’m giving you one and making you an honorary member of the team because you’ve worked so hard”.

St. Nick placed the small wreath around Arnold’s neck and said, “And I promise you that you can have any other job you want here at the Pole. You just think about it and let me know what you’d like to do.”

The family returned to their apartment in the stables, and for days, Arnold just lay on the hay and would not even eat. “But, dear,” his mother said, “you must eat to keep up your strength.”

“Strength for what?” he cried. “If I can’t fly, then I don’t need strength to pull the sleigh, and there’s no other job that I want to do.” His mother didn’t argue because she knew that when a young deer decides to feel sorry for himself instead of making the best of things in his life, there is no taking him out of his self-pity. She would just have to let him figure it out for himself.

ARNOLD & RUDOLPH TALKING WITH TEXTUREFinally, one day Arnold decided to leave. “But where do you plan to go?” Rudolph asked. “Don’t do something so foolish,” he added.

“I wish I’d never grown antlers!” Arnold shouted. “Why couldn’t I have been born a girl! Girls don’t have antlers. That would be better than this.”

Rudolph just shook his head. What nonsense, he thought. Who would want to be a girl reindeer? They didn’t have nearly the fun the boys had. Oh, he had heard St. Nick talking about how he thought it was time to start including girl reindeer on his team for the sleigh, but Rudolph doubted it would ever happen. (Now, that’s where he was wrong, because, although he hadn’t told Rudolph yet, St. Nick planned to put two girls into the training program the following year.)

But Rudolph tried once more to talk his brother out of leaving. “You know Mom and Dad will worry about you,” he pleaded.

“No, they won’t. They’ve taught me well, and they know I can take care of myself.”

“But what will you do?”

“I don’t know, but there’s nothing I want to do here,” Arnold answered and turned to walk away.

“Well, will you at least stay in touch with us?” his brother asked.

Arnold turned to look at him. “Maybe,” was all he said, and headed into the forest.

ARNOLD WALKING THROUGH WOODS - flipped. WHITE SPLOTLIGHTJPGArnold walked through the quiet forest for hours, once in a while stopping to nibble on a few berries or sniff at an unusual scent that came his way. For several hours, the only sounds were the normal sounds from the other forest animals, and he was so used to them that he didn’t even pay any attention. But all of a sudden, he heard a terrible squawking coming from an area of forest up ahead of him, and he hurried his steps to see what it was all about.

He followed the sounds to a huge Spruce tree where one of his favorite Redbird friends had her home. But something strange was happening today. Several men in hard hats were surrounding the tree, examining it. Off to the side sat a huge truck with a long flat trailer on the back. Suddenly, one of the men pulled a handle on the machine he held in his hands, and the machine started groaning loudly enough to hear it on the other side of the forest. Arnold learned later that the machine was called a chainsaw, but knowing what it was didn’t make it sound any less scary.

ARNOLD HEARING BIRDS - WHITE SPOTLIGHTAt that moment, Arnold’s Redbird friend swooped down toward the man, screeching and acting as though she would attack him. A couple of her friends did the same. One of the other men picked up a large stick and started swinging at the birds.

Arnold couldn’t believe his eyes. He hurried over to the scene and called out to his friend. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “Can I help?”

“Oh, Arnold,” the Redbird cried, flying over to him, “I don’t know what to do! These men are going to cut down my tree. But my nest is there, and my little babies are just about to hatch. I can’t let them cut down my home and kill my babies. But I can’t get them moved to a safe place without building another nest, and that will take too long. What can I do? What can I do?”

The chainsaw had stopped for a minute, while the men talked together, but now it started up again. Arnold thought quickly. “I know!” he said. “I will come and lift your nest onto my antlers and carry it away safely.”

“But my nest is very high in the tree. Can you reach that high?”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Arnold said. “My antlers are much bigger than an ordinary deer, so I will have no trouble reaching your nest and lifting it to safety.”

“That’s very kind of you, and it would get my babies out of the tree, but where can I put them? It will take me at least three days to build a new nest anywhere – and that’s if I can find the materials. Wild animals will find my babies and eat them before I can get it done.”

“No they won’t. I will keep the nest in my antlers until you build another nest. You can sit on your eggs in your nest, and when your babies are hatched, you can feed them and take care of them just the way you always do. I have nothing else to do these days, and I will enjoy being useful.

“Oh my, what a great friend you are. How can I ever thank you?”

“There’s no need. In fact, I am the one who’s grateful. I’ve been feeling rather useless lately. You see, we discovered that my antlers are way too big for me to be able to fly with St. Nick’s sleigh. They put me out of balance, and I keep heading toward the ground.” He hung his head low, and one little tear ran down his nose and dropped to the ground. “I’ve been awfully sad about it.”

“I’m very sorry, my friend,” said Redbird. “But I’m so grateful for your extra big antlers today.”

Arnold lifted his head and looked toward the big Spruce tree. “Let’s get your babies to safety,” he said and started toward the back side of the tree where he knew the nest rested. He pushed his way gently between the lower branches, stretched his neck up, and lifted the nest onto his antlers very carefully. “Now, you make sure it’s settled,” he told Redbird, and when she was satisfied her nest was lodged snugly into the antlers, she flew ahead of Arnold into a quieter, safer part of the forest.

REINDEER W. BIRDS NEST - BETTER EYE - NEUTRAL PICKERShe was able to find enough building material to build a brand new nest in a nearby tree, and by that time her babies had hatched.

Arnold was having fun with the babies hopping around in their nest and chirping loudly, wanting to be fed. He enjoyed their company, and he almost forgot about his problem with his antlers. Finally the day came when the mama Redbird was able to move her babies to the new nest.

“Arnold, my friend,” she said. “You have saved my babies lives. If there is anything I can ever do for you in return, please, please let me know.”

“It was my pleasure, Redbird. I’m so glad they are safe.” He sighed deeply. “I guess I need to be on my way,” he said, the sadness back in his voice.

“I know you’re very unhappy because you can’t pull St. Nicholas’ sleigh, but I wonder if the Creator who made all of us didn’t work it out for you to have extra large antlers because you can use them to help other animals and even people sometimes. You need to think about that, Arnold.”

“I guess,” he answered, but he didn’t really believe it. He just didn’t want to hurt Redbird’s feelings by arguing with her. “I’ll see you again sometime I hope,” he said now and started through the forest again.

“Are you going home?” Redbird asked.

“No, not right now,” Arnold said. “I just can’t go back and watch my friends training to pull the sleigh and know that I never can. Goodbye, Redbird.”

So he went on his way, and Redbird watched him, hoping he would soon learn that he had been created for things more important than just pulling a sleigh.

Two days later, Arnold heard the sound of a chainsaw again. It frightened him, because he thought maybe another bird friend was in trouble. But as he came close to the sound, it suddenly stopped, and he heard the thud of a big tree hitting the ground.

But he also heard another sound. It was not the cry of another animal. He thought it sounded like the voice of a person, so he moved toward it slowly and carefully. He had heard the voices of the men who cut down Redbird’s tree, and was used to hearing the voices of St. Nicholas and his family, so he knew what people’s voices sounded like, but this voice was smaller and lighter than men’s voices.

As he came closer to where the tree had fallen, he also heard weeping. The terrible sadness in the sound touched his heart, because he knew what it was to be so unhappy that he cried. He moved even closer and saw a little girl kneeling on the ground close to the fallen tree, crying and saying, “Daddy, please wake up. Please wake up.” Then the girl moved just enough for Arnold to see that there was a man on the ground beside her, but he was under the top part of the tree that had fallen.

MAN UNDER TREE
Of course, Arnold couldn’t understand the girl’s words. St. Nick was the only person whose words he could understand, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened here. The man had been cutting down the tree, and it had fallen in the wrong direction. People often came through this section of the forest to cut Christmas trees for their homes, but sometimes, they didn’t really know how to do it safely.

Arnold slowly made his way toward the girl. She looked up when she sensed he was beside her, and she must have been able to tell that he was not going to hurt her, because she reached out to him and touched his nose. He gently licked her hand to let her know that he was friendly, and she sniffed and said, “I wish you could help my daddy. I can’t get him to wake up.”

But just then, the man on the ground made a sound. Then he said, “Kelly, honey, are you all right?”

The little girl moved closer and touched her daddy’s face. “Daddy, I’m right here, and I’m okay, but what about you?”

“I don’t feel like I’m hurt badly, honey. I think I was just knocked out for a minute. I can feel my legs and hands and all my fingers, but I can’t move out from under this heave tree, and I can’t get to my cell phone in my pocket. I need to think of what to do.”

“I’ll go find someone to help daddy.”

“No, darling. You could easily get lost in this forest, and it’s going to start getting very cold in a couple of hours.” Kelly sniffed again and wiped more tears away, and her daddy spoke again. “You know, Kelly, we’re not really alone here. We have the Lord with us, and He promised to protect us and take care of us, so let’s pray for His help.”

“Okay, Daddy. You pray, and I’ll close my eyes and believe with you.”

“Dear Lord,” Daddy said, “in the name of Jesus, Kelly and I are praying that you will do something to get me out from under this tree and get us home to safety. We just don’t know what to do, but we know that You promise You will take care of us, so we are going to thank You right now for working everything out.”

Kelly sniffed again and finally pulled a handkerchief out of her pant’s pocket to blow her nose. Arnold felt so bad for her and for her daddy. He looked around, trying to think of a way to get them some help. Then Kelly stood up. “I’m going to try to pull on the tree, Daddy,” she said.

“No, dear. Please don’t,” he said. “To begin with, it is too heavy for you, and another problem is that if you just pull it to the side, it could cut into my legs. We need someone who can lift if up so that I can roll out from under it.”

All at once, Arnold shouted, “Hey, I just thought: my antlers are big enough and strong enough to lift the top of that tree off that man!” Of course, Kelly and her father did not understand Arnold’s words, but they heard him making excited sounds and saw him begin to circle around the fallen tree, looking things over.

Finally, he stood still, braced his four legs, and lowered his head. Then, very, very gently, he worked his huge antlers between the smaller branches of the tree until they could get hold of the main trunk at the place where it lay on the man’s legs. Next, Arnold took a deep breath and began to lift his head slowly and steadily. As he did so, the whole top of the tree came away from Kelly’s father, and he rolled out from under it and crawled completely out of the way.

“Oh, Daddy!” Kelly shouted, running to him and throwing her arms around his neck. “The deer saved you!”

Arnold gently laid the top of the tree back on the ground and turned to look at Kelly and her father. Kelly ran to Arnold then and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, you darling deer!” she said. “Thank you! Thank you! I love you for saving my ARNOLD WITH CROOKED SMILE - YELLOW - flippeddaddy.”

Arnold’s heart was about to burst. He was so happy that he had helped to save Kelly’s father, and he felt proud. Then Kelly’s father spoke again. “You know, Kelly, the Lord sent that beautiful deer to help us, and do you realize, he was here even before we prayed. How wonderful God is.”

“You’re right, Daddy. He was here before we prayed, and then after your prayer, he just walked right over there and lifted the tree.” She petted Arnold’s back and his nose and rubbed his ears. “What a wonderful friend you are,”she said, and then turning to her father, she asked, “Could we take him home with us, Daddy?”

“Oh, honey, that would not be kind. He lives in the forest and knows how to take care of himself out in nature. He was never meant to live in someone’s little bitty yard in town. He wouldn’t be happy there. The kindest thing we can do for him is let him stay here where he belongs and pray that the Lord will take very good care of him and bless him for helping us.”

He stood to his feet then and checked out both his legs to make sure they moved correctly. Then he walked over to Arnold and petted him. “Dear Lord,” he prayed, “Kelly and I thank you for sending this deer to help save us, and we ask you to bless him with a very long, happy, healthy life. Give him plenty to eat, wonderful deer friends to play with, and the best kind of life that a deer can have. Amen.”

“Amen,” said Kelly, as she hugged Arnold one more time. “Goodbye, deer. Jesus will take good care of you.” Her father patted Arnold’s head one more time, and then he took Kelly’s hand.

“I think I tried to cut down a tree that was too big for us, Kelly. We’ll go home and buy us a smaller tree for this year, and next year, maybe we can come back with more help and try cutting down a smaller tree for our house. So he and Kelly started back through the forest to head home, and Arnold watched them until they were out of sight.

“My goodness,” he said to himself, “that’s the second time I’ve been able to help save someone because of my big antlers. I’m almost glad that I have them.” But, suddenly, he remembered that he could never pull St. Nick’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, and he hung his head down again and felt sad. He also noticed that his holly wreath from Santa was missing. He must have torn it off when he squirmed in under the branch to lift it. He breathed a big sigh and started off through the forest again.

ARNOLD WALKING THROUGH WOODS 2ND TIME - CORRECTEDBut as he walked, he remembered the look on Kelly’s face when she saw her father was free from the tree. And he kept thinking about how she and her father kept petting him as if they couldn’t thank him enough. And, slowly, as he walked and thought about those things, he began to feel happier.

He began to think about how, if he had not grown such huge antlers, Redbird’s babies would have died, and Kelly and her father might have been trapped there for days before anyone found them – and then it might have been too late. And the longer he thought about it, the more he began to feel that he didn’t want to be just an ordinary reindeer with ordinary antlers.

That night, Arnold slept close to the river, and the next morning, as he was walking along the bank and stopping now and then to take a welcome drink of the clear, sweet water, he suddenly heard someone scream. By now, he was getting used to the sound of human voices, but this time, he wasn’t sure it was a human because it was so loud and sharp.

He looked downstream, but didn’t see anything. Then he moved a little so that he could look upstream a long way, and, immediately, he saw where the sound was coming from. A man and woman were in a boat coming down the river, and the man was jumping out of the boat into the ice cold water.

Arnold walked closer to the edge to see better, and that’s when he understood the problem. There was a little baby in the water. It had on a life-jacket, so it was still floating, but the water was much too cold for a little child. The baby was in great danger in water that cold, and it had been caught by the current and was being carried downstream too fast for the man to catch up to it.

ARN JUMPING RIVER # 2,EYESSuddenly, Arnold leaped into the river and started swimming toward the baby. All those months of training for pulling the sleigh had caused his leg muscles to grow very, very strong, and he had no trouble swimming against the current.

He heard the man yell something, but of course, he couldn’t understand the words He also heard the woman screaming even louder. He guessed that she was afraid he meant to harm the baby, but the thought never entered Arnold’s mind to do anything except grab the little bundle and carry it back to its mother.

It took longer than he thought to reach the child, but he finally did. Then he ducked his head beneath the water just enough to get his antlers underneath the baby, and as gently as he could, he lifted the little bundle onto his big antlers and out of the water completely. He then turned and swam as fast as he could toward the boat.

By that time the man understood that Arnold was bringing the baby back to them, so he started swimming back toward the boat himself. He and Arnold reached the boat at the same time, and as Arnold paddled along the side, the mother reached over and lifted her baby from Arnold’s antlers. “Oh, my darling little boy!” she said, as she held him close and then began to wrap him in warm dry blankets. The man got back into the boat and hugged his wife and child.

“The Lord answered our prayers, honey,” he said. “He sent this precious deer to save our David.” Then he reached over the side of the boat to pet Arnold’s head. “What a gift of God you are, little deer,” he said. And even though Arnold did not understand the words, he knew that the man was telling him how grateful he was.

By that time, Arnold was very cold himself, so he wasted no time in swimming back to land. And as soon as he could, he found a place in the sunshine where he could lie on the dry ground and let the sun get him warm. It felt very comforting on his body, and he was surprised at how fast he got dry. In fact, he was warm and comfortable in no time at all, and he fell asleep.

About an hour later, the sound of someone calling his name woke him. He looked up and turned his head in several directions, trying to figure out where the sound had come from.

“Arnold. Arnold.” There it was again. Arnold shook his head and listened carefully. That sounded like Rudolph’s voice. But surely not —

“There you are!” Rudolph shouted, coming through a thicket of bushes and heading straight for his brother.

ARNOLD & RUDOLPH BACK TOGETHERArnold jumped to his feet and ran to greet Rudolph. “Oh, Rudolph, I’m so glad to see you!”

“I couldn’t stand it another day without you, Arnold,” his brother said. “I’m so unhappy, and Mom hasn’t stopped crying since you left. Please, please come home.”

“I’m ready to come home,” said Arnold. “I have had so many adventures since I’ve been gone, and they have taught me a very important lesson.”

“Really? What have you learned?”

“I’ll explain it to everyone when we get home,” said Arnold. “Right now, let’s just hurry back home.” When they arrived safely, their mother greeted them with tears and laughter, and Dad said he was proud of Arnold for being wise enough to come back home.

SANTA LAUGHING - EDITEDEven St. Nicholas laughed and cried with joy at Arnold’s return. Then they all sat down and Arnold told them of his adventures. At the end of his tale, he said, “So I have learned that I have extra big antlers for a reason, and I am glad now that I am who I am.”

“Arnold, my young buck,” St. Nick said, “you have learned a very valuable lesson indeed. The Creator gives each one of us special gifts and special abilities to do the work that He wants us to do on this earth. No two of us are alike. And if we will just learn what our special gifts and abilities are, and be grateful for them and use them to do good for the rest of God’s creation, we will live very happy lives.”

Then St. Nick hugged Arnold’s neck tightly, and putting his other arm around Rudolph’s neck, he laughed: “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, everyone! I think this will be the Merriest Christmas we have ever had!”

And it was.

ARNOLD'S ANTLERS FOR END WITH CURVIER SMILE

THE END

 

 

~

Well, If You’re Shopping Online Anyway . . .

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

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Doing Your Christmas Shopping Online This Year?

Well, I have a great idea for all those friends and family who love to read.

Give them one of my digital books – or better yet – give them one of all of my digital books.

They don’t even have to own a Kindle device. Amazon offers a free Kindle app with a simple download that works on any PC, laptop, iPad, tablet or iPhone. What could be simpler than purchasing a library of inspirational novels and having them delivered postage free right to the recipients devices?

You’ll find all of my books HERE: listed with a link right to their individual ordering pages.

Happy Shopping!

 

 

~~~

My Christmas Anthology Came Out in the Kindle Store Today: $1.99

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Exif JPEG

Hooray! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Season’s Greetings!

My Christmas Anthology — STOCKING FULL OF STORIES — went digital today, and it’s priced right for the holiday shoppers at $1.99

Christmas is about love – and laughter – and hope – and second chances. This collection of 11 original Christmas stories covers all those subjects and then some. From poignant to funny to heart-warming and faith-inspiring – you’ll find a little bit of everything in this Stocking Full of Stories. Read the book straight through for an evening of well-rounded Christmas pleasure. Or pick and choose, one story at a time, depending on your mood.  (It’s 82 pages in regular print, but with digital, only your own personal device will determine how many “pages” you actually have once the book is downloaded.)STOCKING W. STORIES FRONT COVER FOR KINDLE - ED 2.

Some of you will have read a few of these stories, since I’ve posted many of them right here on the blog, but several have been re-written and enlarged since their original posting.

So if you’re looking for a little more holiday atmosphere, check out STOCKING FULL OF STORIES at the Kindle Store. Give yourself a gift this Christmas: fill your stocking with these stories of the season. And while your ordering, go ahead and send one to someone you love.

(If you don’t own a Kindle device, you can download a free Kindle app for any device you use.)

~~~

Friday Fictioneers – 11/27/15 — Beloved Sentinel

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

This week’s Friday Fictioneers challenge. The photo is courtesy of Sandra Crook. My story is below the picture.

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

BELOVED SENTINEL

“Does she stand on that cliff every day?” Tobias asked.

“Every day,” Raulf replied, looking at the young girl wrapped in her woolen shawl, black hair windswept like a flag.

“But five years! Surely she doesn’t still hope.”

Raulf nodded his head. “Serena insists Jamie will not fail her. He promised, and she must keep trusting.”

Tobias frowned. “She’s so beautiful. I’d gladly have her for my wife. There must be some way to make her see that she needs to move on with her life.”

“She’ll move on … when she sees his sails on the horizon … and not before.”

~~~

 

`

A Little Love Can Go a Long Way: Excerpts from ‘Jonah’s Song’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

JONAH COVER - DARKER BLUE - SMALLER USE FOR KINDLEExcerpt from the Prologue

Valentina’s aquamarine eyes popped wide open. She sat bolt upright, her heart beating erratically, as she looked around her at her bedroom, realization dawning on her. She let out a gusty sigh. “Oh! … I knew it was too good to be true!” She sighed once more. She’d been dreaming … again … about Professor Jonah McDaniels … again!

She fell back against her pillows once more, running her hands through her long, loosely curled hair. As she felt it flow between her fingers, she recalled the scene from her dream where Jonah had buried his hand in her hair. She closed her eyes, wanting to relive the whole dream and hold onto it as long as possible.

Jonah had been standing a couple feet away from her, his conductor’s baton in his hand, his eyes burning with his feelings. Finally, he laid down the baton, closed the gap between them and took her, somewhat roughly, into his arms.

Valentina swallowed, trying to get back the breath his sudden embrace had stolen. Her heart beat wildly as his eyes moved to her lips. Without conscious thought, she glanced down to his mouth, his full, sculptured lips – one of the first two things she had noticed about him the day she’d met him – the other being his deep violet eyes, so unusual in a man, especially one with his Hispanic coloring.

The exhilarating scent of his cologne sent her senses whirling, and the warmth of his breath as he brought his face close to hers was so sweet she couldn’t resist closing her eyes. Her lips were parted slightly, her breath almost suspended, and as his mouth reached hers, his lips were bold and strong as they molded hers to his own. Everything in her melted as she gave herself up to this kiss she’d wanted for so long, but had never dared hope for.

He deepened the kiss, and she clung to him. When he finally pulled back for a moment, she uttered his name, once, breathlessly. “Jonah.”

“Hey, Vallie!” That shout came from Katey, one of the two girls she shared the apartment with, and it was coupled with a pounding on Valentina’s bedroom door. So much for wallowing in her dream. “You’d better get a move on if you don’t want to be late for rehearsal. You know what Dr. McDaniels will say if you walk in late.”

“Oh, no!” Vallie had forgotten about the string ensemble’s rehearsal this morning. Just the thing she didn’t need: facing Dr. McDaniels right after that dream. “Listen, Lord,” she prayed, although the whine in her voice made the words sound more like a complaint. “You know I can’t seem to get over these feelings for Dr. McDaniels. And you also know he’s way out of my league. It’s hopeless! But I keep having these dreams. Can’t You just take these feelings away?” Another pounding on her door brought her prayer to an end.

She groaned as she threw back the covers and slid her feet to the floor. Well, at least having the dusky skin that was part of her African-American heritage would help hide her blushes when she saw the professor. … Now, if she could just avoid getting so nervous that she tripped over something or dropped her violin.

She stood in front of her mirror in her pajamas. It was time for the lecture again. She looked at her reflection sternly, and pointed her finger at the mirror. “This is just your junior year, Valentina Rosswell. You still have three months left of this year and your whole senior year to go. And next year is going to be full of performances … a good many of them with Dr. Jonah McDaniels conducting. Do you want to end up making a total fool of yourself? … Now, you go out there and act like the musician that you are! You treat this Dr. McDaniels like any other stuffy, old college professor.”

Suddenly she was picturing him dressed in a baggy sweater, the lower part of his face covered with a beard, his hair gray and in total disarray. She shook her head and sighed loudly. Even like that he looked good enough to melt her bones.

~

Excerpt from Chapter Three

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Vallie, Kana, Grandma Nora, and Kana’s mom, who had arrived from Atlanta, all trooped down to the church to begin decorating for the wedding.  An hour later, Kana, her hands full, realized she’d forgotten a box in the trunk of her car and asked Vallie to run out to the car for it. Vallie snatched up her short coat and walked out of the sanctuary into the hall.

Just as she got about halfway to the church door, Jonah McDaniels pushed it open from the outside and walked in, advancing in long strides.  Vallie froze.  It was incredible!  He was even more handsome than he had been seven years ago.  The finely sculptured features could easily have been those of a professional model.  As he closed the distance between them, she saw that his once black hair was now liberally streaked with gray, but that only made his looks more dramatic.  His figure was still that of a superb athlete, and his eyes, still intense and beautifully violet as ever, now widened perceptibly and lit up in surprise.  Then they almost immediately narrowed in concentration, as if he were trying to figure out where he had seen her before … or perhaps why he was seeing her here and now.

In actual fact, he had recognized her immediately … or thought he had, but then wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.  After all these years, the last place he would have imagined seeing Valentina Rosswell again was in the hallway of his brother’s church in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  After the immediate sense of surprise, his first reaction was that of having had the breath knocked out of him momentarily.  She had been a lovely girl in college, but now she was quite beautiful, and her eyes were still capable of captivating anyone looking into them.

She seemed as stunned as he, and finally he shook is head a little and smiled at her, stepping even closer.  “It is Valentina Rosswell, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Vallie replied, feeling as if she had virtually no breath with which to speak.

He extended his hand to her now, and she did likewise, without thinking about her action.  When he took her hand in his, Valentina felt the shock of his touch all through her body.  Heat suffused her, and she knew if she hadn’t been so dark skinned, her face would undoubtedly have been red.  She still couldn’t speak.

“How delightful to see you again, but a little surprising that it should be here of all places.  I gather you know my brother, Cameron?”

“Well, yes.”  Vallie was relieved to find that she had enough breath to actually say words.  “We’ve only recently become acquainted.  He’s the pastor of my dearest friend, who moved down here this past year, and we’re planning her wedding here at the church.”

“Ahhh … Cameron said something about a wedding this week.  The couple changed their date to accommodate our special celebration with Cameron, I think he said.  That was certainly very kind of them.”

Vallie nodded her head.  “They’re very thoughtful people.  And … I think it’s wonderful that your family are all going to so much trouble to celebrate with your brother.  I understand from Kana, my friend, that you’re spread out in several different cities.”

“True, but a little planning and a lot of determination can pull off most anything that one deems important enough, don’t you think?”

“You’re probably right,” Valentina said, smiling at him again, unaware of the radiance that glowed on her face.

“Well, well …” Jonah said pensively, letting his eyes drift unashamedly over Valentina.  The look wasn’t brazen or embarrassing, but it was all encompassing and held such an element of interest that Vallie almost felt as if she were being inspected.  “You’ve matured into quite a beautiful woman, as I’m sure you’ve been told often.”  Vallie’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected compliment, but she didn’t say anything, and Jonah added, “I’ve always been amazed at your eyes when I see you, Valentina.  They are without a doubt the most intriguing and beautiful eyes I think I’ve ever seen.”

“Th … thank you,” she managed to stammer.

Jonah heard himself say the words, but couldn’t believe that he had done so.  Had he taken leave of his senses?  He hadn’t seen this woman in years, and when he had seen her last, she had been a young student of his.  Normally, he kept much tighter control of his tongue than this.  He tried to redirect the conversation.

“Well … we never know what surprises await us just around a corner, do we?”

Valentina felt that she needed to at least tell him that she had been forewarned about his coming.  Cameron would surely tell his brother about the conversation from two days ago, so she didn’t want to act like she was hiding the fact.  But even though she had been warned, she hadn’t been at all prepared for this experience.

Finally, she was able to say something else.  “Well, actually, I had a little more warning than you,” she said, still smiling at him.  “I was intrigued by the name when I met your brother, and I asked if there were any chance he might be related to you in some way, but I was totally surprised when he told me the relationship.   During that conversation, he mentioned that you and the rest of his family were coming to celebrate his birthday.”

“I see; so you weren’t really surprised.”

“Well … to be honest … I … I was anyway … I mean … I didn’t know I would feel … I mean …”  Vallie almost panicked.   She had almost told him exactly how she had felt when she saw him walk through that door.  Be careful, girl, she told herself.  Think before you speak.  “Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t realize that I’d run right into you so unexpectedly, even though I knew you were supposed to be in the area.”

He smiled at her again, a knowing smile, as if he had surmised exactly what she had left unsaid.

~

Excerpt From Chapter Eleven

Jonah shook his head, sighing again in what was obviously exasperation.  He looked straight at his brother.  “Cam … I’m forty-two years old.  … And I’ve lived most of those forty-two years in a structure of self-imposed, rigid discipline.  I don’t have a gregarious bone in my body.”  He chuckled slightly, but there was a grimness in the sound of it. “I’m a stuffy music instructor who’s been described by his students more than once … and rightfully so … as being uncompromising and dictatorial.  And, I might add, I was also described by my former fiancée as being far too set in my ways and serious to be any fun.”

He turned and looked back out the window, not saying anything for a few moments.  When he finally spoke again, his voice was husky.   “I’m full of passion, but the only way I know to let it out is through my music.”  He shook his head again.  “I’m not what she needs.”

Cameron’s heart went out to his brother.  He knew Jonah believed every word he was saying, but he also knew that he was wrong.  Jonah was a reserved and controlled person, but he did have powerful beliefs and feelings, and they were what made him the special person that he was.  He didn’t express himself as openly as a less disciplined person would, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t express everything inside of him when the time and the need were right.

“I think you’re wrong to decide that all by yourself,” he said now.

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked, turning to look at him again.

“I mean I believe Vallie ought to have a chance to tell you how she feels about it all instead of you making all the decisions for both of you.”

“I don’t want to put her on the spot by forcing her to make those decisions … and the choices that might follow.”

Cameron chuckled.  “Boy, I didn’t give Suzanne a choice!  … Well, I guess I did give her a little time to decide what she thought she wanted, but when she started taking too long about it, and then hinted that she might be deciding something I couldn’t live with, I just bulldozed my way in and presented my case boldly.”

“But you knew you were what she needed.”

“Only because I knew she loved me, and that she needed the love I could give her.”

“But those are things I don’t know about Valentina.”

“Are you sure?”  Cameron paused, looking at his brother, who walked back to his chair, but only leaned on the back of it.  “I think Vallie loves you, and personally, I think your love is exactly what she needs … and wants.”

“Then why don’t I feel that way about it too?”

“Because you’re letting your head rule instead of your heart.  You know, God uses our hearts to lead us into His will much more often that He does our heads, Jonah.”

Jonah stood there with his elbows resting on the back of the chair, looking at his hands clasped in front of him.  “It’s interesting you should say that.  A few nights ago, when I was really wrestling with all this, I picked up my Bible and just opened to wherever, and the first passage I read was from Proverbs three.  The fifth verse says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

“That’s it, Jonah.  You’ve been leaning heavily on your own reasoning about this thing and not on your heart at all from what I can see.  You’ve served God faithfully all of your life.  Surely you can trust that He has a strong enough hold on you by now to lead you where He wants you. And to keep you from taking wrong turns. If something – the same something – keeps showing up strongly and consistently in your heart, and it’s something that doesn’t go against God’s Word, then it’s most likely the Lord Who planted it in your heart in the first place.” …

Jonah sat down, and Cameron continued. “Those two characteristics you see as negative may, in fact, be the most positive things you have to offer, because they may be the very things that Valentina needs most in a husband.  You need to at least give the Lord … and Valentina … the opportunity to put in their two cents worth, rather than just deciding everything in your own finite mind.”

Jonah grinned at his brother’s bluntness, but then he sighed and leaned his head back against the chair, closing his eyes.  After several minutes, he spoke softly.  “I composed a song to her, did I tell you?”

“No.  When was this?”

“A couple of weeks ago.  I was so close to drowning in all that I was feeling for her … and wanting from her…  that I just picked up the violin and began to play it out.  After I’d played it several times, I decided I needed to get it written down so I wouldn’t lose it.”  He laughed lightly.  “As if I could lose it. … It‘s as much a part of me as my breath.”

Cameron looked at his brother, whose eyes were still closed.  His heart swelled with pride in this older brother who was able to create such beauty with his gifts.  How like Jonah to release the love he felt in the creation of a beautiful piece of music that millions of people could one day share and enjoy.

“Have you played it for her?” he asked now.

Jonah opened his eyes and looked at Cameron.  “No, I haven’t.  … And I don’t think I ever intended to.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

Jonah’s eyes widened.  His brother had never spoken to him that way before, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.  “You sound pretty convinced.”

“I am.”

~

Excerpt From Chapter Thirteen

As she walked through the airport entrance, Valentina spotted Roger Parks, one of the flying instructors who had known Jonah for several years, and whom she had also come to know and like. She had started to wave to him, but realized that he was hurrying toward her, a serious look on his face, and her smile began to fade. Something was wrong.  “Miss Rosswell,” Roger said now as he reached her side. “I was watching for you.”

“Watching for me?  How did you know I’d be here?  Did Jonah tell you he was flying in today?”

“No, not me personally, but, of course, the airport had a record of his expected arrival. But … I’m afraid I have some unhappy news about that.”

Valentina grabbed his arm, her eyes wide, as she struggled not to give in to fear. “Has something happened to Jonah?”

“I’m afraid it may have … at least to his plane. It apparently went down somewhere in the area between Nashville and Knoxville. At least that’s the area he was in when he broadcast the emergency report. We don’t know yet about Jonah himself. I’m so sorry.”

Valentina closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness swept over her.

“Here,” Roger spoke as he took her arm and began guiding her across the main entrance to one of the offices.  “Let me take you into the office, and we’ll explain everything we know.  As I started to tell you, we tried to notify you earlier, since you’re down on the papers Jonah has on file as the person to contact in case of an emergency. But since we couldn’t reach you, we contacted his brother, who was also listed.  He’s the one who told us you should be here at almost any time, and he said to tell you that he and his wife are on their way here now.”

Vallie sat down in the chair he indicated, still in a daze.  He spoke quietly to a young lady who left and returned almost immediately with a hot cup of coffee.  “Try to drink a little of this if you can, Miss Rosswell, and I’ll tell you everything we know.  If you want to talk to some of the higher ranking people here, they’re ready to talk to you, but they thought that since Jonah and I are friends, you might rather hear about all of it from me.”

“Yes,” Vallie said, sipping the coffee and feeling that at least some degree of life was flowing back into her.  “Yes, please, Roger.  I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me.”  At that moment, the office door opened and a tall, middle-aged man in a business suit stood to the side and allowed Cameron and Suzanne to enter ahead of him. Vallie jumped up and threw herself into Cameron’s arms. She didn’t cry. She wanted to. It would have given her some release, but she couldn’t. She just trembled throughout her whole body, and held onto Cameron as tightly as she could.  Suzanne reached out and put her hand on her back, rubbing it lightly in an attempt to provide at least a little comfort.  Her other arm was around her own husband’s waist, holding him, trying to provide the support she knew he needed, even as he tried to comfort Vallie.

He pulled back from Vallie enough to look at her.  He gently brushed the hair from her face and looked right into her eyes.  “We are going to trust the Lord, Vallie.  He has always been faithful to take care of us, and we’re going to believe that He’s still doing that.”  Vallie nodded and smiled weakly at him to let him know that she was in agreement.  Then she reached out and took Suzanne’s hand, squeezing it, and finally pulling away from Cameron, she hugged Suzanne too.

“There’s room for all of you to sit down if you’d like,” Roger said now.  “Miss Rosswell, this gentleman is Mr. Randall, the airport director,” he added introducing the man who had escorted the McDaniels into the office.  The director reached out to take Vallie’s hand.

“I’m very sorry to meet you under these circumstances, Miss Rosswell, but I assure you that we are doing everything we can to find out every detail about the accident and Dr. McDaniels’ condition.”

Vallie looked at Cameron.  “Do you know what’s happened?”

“Yes, Mr. Randall filled us in as he was bringing us to meet with you, dear.”

Just then the door opened and a clerk handed Mr. Randall a note. He read it quickly and then turned back to the group seated before him. “Well, some good news, at least. The rescue team has made it to the crash site, and they report that Dr. McDaniels is unconscious, but that he is definitely alive.”

At those words, Vallie dropped her head into her hands and wept openly. Cameron sucked in a sob and wiped at his eyes, and Suzanne, who also had tears streaming down her cheeks just leaned over and took Vallie into her arms.

“I’m sorry that’s all we know right now,” Mr. Randall continued, “but at least it’s something to hold onto.”

“Yes,” Cameron said, his voice husky.  “It certainly is.  And we intend to do just that.”

Mr. Randall told them he was having more hot coffee sent in, and although he had to return to his office to take care of another problem, he would contact them the very moment he had any more information.  Roger said he would sit with them while they waited, so they began their vigil, binding together first in a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for Jonah’s life and then in a petition for God’s further intervention.

In a little less than an hour, Mr. Randall was back with a new report.  “Well, the emergency team is on their way with Dr. McDaniels to the hospital at Knoxville.  The most information I could get about his condition is sketchy.  They are considering him critically injured, since there is apparently a head would involved, and they are pretty sure of some broken ribs as well … I’m sure you want to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Is there any way that we can assist you at all?”

Cameron stood up and shook Mr. Randall’s hand. “No, thank you. You’ve all been very kind, and I think we’ll be fine to drive ourselves to the hospital.”

“I wish we could have done more, Pastor McDaniels. But I’m a Christian myself, and I’ll be praying for your brother.”

“Thank you.  We’ll take all the prayers we can get right now.”  He then turned to shake Roger’s hand, and Valentina offered her hand to Mr. Randall, thanking him in her turn. She hugged Roger briefly. “Thank you so much for taking the time to make this as easy on us as possible I know Jonah will be grateful to you.”

He patted her hand.  “I’ll be praying too, Miss Rosswell.  You keep me up to date on his condition, you hear?”

Vallie nodded her head, still wiping an occasional tear from her cheek. “I will,” she said as she turned to follow Cameron and Suzanne out of the room.

~

Well, love is where you find it, and you’ll find the whole story at the Amazon Kindle Store — on sale through Christmas for $1.99.

~~~

100-Word Challenge For Grownups – Week 175 – False Security

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

BARBED WIRE BORDER CROSSING - dark gray“But shall we close the borders?” one congressman asked another.

“Why bother? It’s a joke to close them without securing them.”

Even as they spoke on the capitol steps, at the southernmost border of the country a knife blade flashed in the moonlight, but the guard was facing the other direction. He hadn’t heard the whisper of five men crawling through the tall grasses – nor the few snaps of wire cutters. So he wasn’t prepared for the strong arm that pulled his head back, exposing his throat.

In seconds, his life was soaking into the ground from the perfectly executed wound.

And five more Mexicans congratulated themselves on having taken up residence in the United States.

~~~

Visit this week’s challenge from Julia to participate with your own 100-word story.

 

 

~

The Sidewalk

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

BRENDA'S COBBLESTONE STREET BROWN“Well, what’a ya know,” Ben whispered to himself, grinning, seeing his breath form vapors on the Christmas air. “Who would have thought it would be the brick sidewalk?”

He sighed. In one unexpected instant – as his feet had tread the bricks of this dear old sidewalk that had run the length of Main Street all his life – it had happened. He knew for sure the place he’d returned to was still ‘home.’

Just yesterday he’d been dreading coming back – as he had been for a week – from the time the doctors had told him he was almost well enough to make the trip. He knew for sure how much he had changed, and he couldn’t shake the deep, gut wrenching fear that the whole world had changed as well – including the little town nestled at the foot of the mountains in Montana. He’d grown up here, played high school basketball, and dated the girl from three houses down the street until she’d decided to elope with the captain of the basketball team.

He had to chuckle to himself when he remembered how devastated he’d felt back then. It had been his first serious relationship with a girl, but in hindsight, he realized that he hadn’t really been in love – just fascinated with the boy-girl relationship.

Sometimes when he’d been hunkered down in the trenches, waiting the next command to move out into the threat of enemy fire, he’d started thinking about Allyson, and even though she belonged to someone else now, the memories comforted him. He’d known even during those hours that it had nothing to do with Ally or their time together, but it was all about ‘home.’ When he thought of Ally, it took him away from the cold, wet, ugly war he was fighting.

Sometimes he’d remember his mother and could smell again the warm vanilla scent that so often clung to her from her constant baking. He’d conjure up the image of Granddad, sitting with his feet propped in front of the living room fireplace, sweet-scented smoke curling from his pipe. He’d hear again his father’s voice as he read the latest news stories from the paper as the family sat soaking up the security of their home and their quiet life together.

Then, sometimes, when he and his unit were on the move and trekking through secure territory, on their way to the next battlefront, he had remembered walking down that old brick sidewalk – past Old Man Chesterfield’s hardware store, Woolworth’s Five & Dime, the candy and tobacco shop, where he’d bought Ally that huge box of chocolates for the Valentine’s Day they’d celebrated together. There was Mrs. Gallagher’s Boutique next, and then Pansy’s Pancake House. Some days, when his senses were crystal clear, he could nearly taste those light, fluffy concoctions smothered in her special Cherry Cordial Syrup.

When he let his memory take him wherever it willed, he usually ended up thinking about Christmas, and he’d see again the decorations strung the entire length of Main Street, with lights in the windows of every storefront, snowmen standing sentry at almost every corner, and wreaths and holly hanging everywhere. He could almost feel the frost in the air and the festive atmosphere that surrounded shoppers and merchants alike from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And oh those chestnuts! The scent of roasted chestnuts hung over the main business district for two whole weeks before Christmas Day. And often he thought that sweet aroma was his favorite memory of all. Sometimes he swore he could smell those roasted chestnuts even though he was thousands of miles away on foreign soil with no hope of even a warm dinner for that night.

He’d been wishing he could have some of those chestnuts just minutes before the ambush occurred, but then bullets and grenades had killed all thoughts and images of anything but the hell breaking loose in every direction. Those same bullets and grenades had killed twenty of the men in his unit as well. When he’d taken the first hit in his leg and fallen, his best buddy had turned back to help him up. But the bullet that caught his rescuer in the head snuffed out his life in seconds, and as Ben had tried to hoist himself with his friend’s help, he’d taken a second bullet in the chest, blacking out at that point.

Five days later, when he regained consciousness in the hospital, he was hooked to all kinds of tubes and machines. The doctor had been compassionate and kind, assuring him that he was going to make it, but that it would be a month or so before he’d be fit to leave the hospital. When he’d asked about his unit, the news had been brutal, and he’d found himself so frozen by the grief that he hadn’t even been able to cry.

The day he’d been released and given his extended leave for home, his doctor had been wreathed in smiles. “We’re going to get you back to your family in time for Christmas, Son,” he’d said. And as much as the news brought a spurt of joy to Ben’s heart, it also brought a stab of fear.

He’d made a short journey first to the home of the man who’d been his best friend in combat, the man who’d lost his life trying to save Ben. He’d learned that Rick’s body had been shipped home for burial in the family plot. Ben knew he had to visit that grave and spend some time with Rick’s family before he could get started on the longer journey to his own family. And it was with that family, sitting in Rick’s home, remembering his buddy, that he’d finally been able to let the tears come. With his head on Rick’s mother’s shoulder, and her arms holding him tightly – the way she would never be able to hold her own son – Ben had finally cried out the pain and bitterness and loss.

Eighteen hours later, on the day before Christmas Eve, he boarded the bus that would take him to Montana. He had purposely refrained from letting his family know what bus he was taking. He had to walk out this journey one step at a time – in his own way and in his own timing. He had to find out what kind of world awaited him at the end of this journey, and he had to have the security of facing it on his own terms.

His physical wounds were almost healed, but the wound’s in his soul would be with him forever. And that’s what made him afraid. As long as he didn’t go home, he could always try to tell himself that it was still a place of peace and safety and love and laughter – and that life was still good there. But all the time he sat on the bus, heading to that little town in Montana, he battled with the fear. The questions kept circling through his mind: when he walked down the streets of his old hometown – when he stepped into his mother’s kitchen – when he visited the high school campus – when he sat in the park watching the breeze blow across the lake – when he met with friends in a restaurant –would he find what he’d left behind – or would it all be gone – forced out of existence by the same powers that had changed him forever?

Finally, at the end of the seven hour trip, he stepped off the bus, retrieved his suitcase and stood for a few moments just looking across Main Street at the row of well-remembered businesses – those stores and shops that had filled his dreams and imaginations hours at a time in the rare instances between battles.

Everything glowed with Christmas. It looked the way he would have expected it to look back before he’d had to wade through hatred, filth, and slaughter in another land. But could he relate to this place any longer? Could he ever belong here again? Would it welcome him – would he welcome what he found here now? He slowly walked across Maine and stepped onto the sidewalk that would take him from the north end of town to the south, where his parents lived.

He walked – slowly – hesitantly at first. His eyes caressed the old, worn bricks that stretched out ahead of him the whole two-mile distance of the business district, and he began to realize that each step he took was a familiar experience – the same experience he’d enjoyed for years, day in and day out – treading those warm brown bricks woven together by expert hands generations ago – just slightly uneven but plenty smooth enough for easy walking.

And every step reassured him. He began to breathe easier now, and as he took a good, deep breath, his nostrils twitched a little. Chestnuts, roasting, in a cart just up the street about two more blocks. He walked with more purpose then, his eyes still caressing the worn, welcoming bricks beneath his feet, stretching out before him invitingly.

Finally, he chuckled out loud. Yep … it was okay. … It was really okay. … He was okay. And he really was home. … Yep … this good old brick friend told him everything was going to be all right.

THE END

 

 

~

Don’t Read This Book If …

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

JONAH COVER - DARKER BLUE - SMALLER USE FOR KINDLEDON’T READ THIS BOOK if you don’t want your heartbeat to pick up speed at the sight of someone walking through a door – or if you don’t want to find yourself holding your breath waiting for a kiss – or if you don’t want to find tears rolling down your cheeks when disappointment is unbearable – or if you don’t want to find yourself grinning widely and looking a little foolish if you happen to be reading in public – or if you don’t want to finish the last chapter with a deep sigh of satisfaction and longing all rolled into one. If those experiences are not what you’re looking for, then do not read this book.

Most of my novels include a romance, but often it is only a part of the story, and not always the main focus. But I have to tell you up front that Jonah’s Song is totally and completely an honest-to-goodness, no-questions-asked, out-and-out old-fashioned love story – from beginning to end. Now don’t misunderstand: no parts of it are rated “R”; it’s a perfectly clean read. But it is a story that digs deeply into the hearts of a man and a woman – and into the heart of what God intended true romance to be.

All right then, who should read this fourth book in The Smoky Mountain Series? Well, if you’re not one of those people who fits the description in the first paragraph of this article, here’s the book for you. IF you “love” a good love story, then make a bee-line to Amazon’s Kindle Store and order Jonah’s Song while it’s on sale. In digital format, it will be selling for the special price of $1.99 from now through Christmas and then revert to the same price as the other books in the series..

Want to know a little more about the story? Here’s a peek at the blurb from the back cover:
Professor Jonah McDaniels, handsome violinist/conductor, is used to girls in his college classes having a crush on him. But he has never felt anything in return until he meets Valentina Rosswell. Even then, he pushes his feelings aside, knowing there are too many barriers to a personal relationship between them. But when he meets her again seven years later and realizes that what he felt for a college girl has matured – just as the girl has matured into a beautiful, desirable woman – he still does his best to resist falling in love.
Valentina has always believed Jonah was out of her league, and even when they renew their acquaintance as adults on equal footing, she does her best to refrain from loving this man who has filled her dreams for years.
But true love doesn’t follow the rules, nor does it dissolve just because two people put up a fight against it. And when the Lord sets His heart on a romance, He can employ some pretty interesting ways and means to bring it to pass. However, when dealing with Jonah and Valentina, even the Lord seems to have His work cut out for Him.
Jonah’s Song: A love story you won’t easily forget.

So buy one for yourself – and another one for someone you love – this Christmas

(Also, if you do read it and you do finish the last chapter with a sigh of satisfaction and longing, please stop and say a few words about the book in the “Customer Review” section of its Amazon page. Thanks.)

~~~

‘Everything’s Jake’ Now Available on Amazon: $0.99 Through November

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

EVERYTHING COVER - half coverIt’s just a little love story. But, then again, it’s a whole lot more than a love story. It’s about finding out who you really are and learning to like that person – and discovering that liking who you are opens the door for the best relationships with other people. It’s about family – and friends who are just like family. It’s about letting God’s way of loving take control of your heart.

Meet Mariah Jacoby. She’s happiest working under the hood of a car, but she’s convinced that grimy hands and greasy smudges on her face aren’t exactly what guys are looking for in a girlfriend. Unfortunately, though, she’s having trouble holding down a job in any other field, despite college degrees and an upbeat personality. Desperate to change her unemployed status, she finally admits it’s time to face the fact that she’s really a “grease monkey” at heart, but dare she hope there’s a guy in her future who’s dreaming of a girl who smells like engine oil?

Some of you will recognize this story because you were following my blog a couple years ago when I wrote it — posting one chapter at a time here on this site. But it’s time for it to get out into the real world now and show us what it’s made of.

If you weren’t along for the ride when it was under construction, you can buy it here  — and purchase an extra as a gift for someone you love:

~~~

Wordle Writing Challenge 220 – ‘The Letters’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

This post is my second foray into the Wordle Writing Challenge, where we are encouraged to write a short story or poem that includes all of the words in a specific box. Each Sunday we receive a new box — the work of Brenda Warren over at “The Sunday Whirl.” So if you’re interested in taking part, hop over there and get started. My story’s below the box.

WORDLE 220

 

THE LETTERS

He stuffed the letters back into the manila envelope he kept them in. Since they’d arrived last week, he’d read  every one of them at least a dozen times. He wasn’t sure why, except that he hoped reading them would help give him the courage he needed to make the trip.

He laid the envelope on top of his desk and sat down with a weary sigh. Thrumming his fingers on the desktop, he let his mind drift back to those days nine years ago. The minutes turned into hours as he sat there, but it didn’t matter. He was caught once again in that heavy flow of traffic, the chill of the icy winter weather soaking into him as he waited for his 20-year old Buick’s heater to kick in.

He’d put off making that trip to the store that night, but he was completely out of milk and bread both, and since he hated cooking, the lack of those two essentials left him hungry. Even the ham and peanut butter that he often existed on couldn’t do him much good without the bread, and he certainly couldn’t face his cereal in the morning with no milk. So bundling up as well as possible against the 10° weather, he’d risked the icy side roads and made it to the main highway.

He’d spotted her blue car pulled off on the shoulder while he was still almost a mile away. Ordinarily, he never stopped for strangers, but that day he felt such a unique urge to pull over and offer help. He pulled in behind her car as carefully as possible, and by the time he had walked to her door, she had powered down her window. The first thing that struck him was how cold she looked, but that thought was immediately replaced by the warmth in her beautiful green eyes when she smiled at him.

•  •  •

He stirred himself in his desk chair, sighing deeply, and pulling himself out of his reverie. Another heavy sigh escaped him, and he looked around the room, trying to make the final transition from nine years ago back to the present moment. They’d been together — happily, he thought — for seventeen months, and, then suddenly, she had packed her bags and walked out the door.   Her only explanation was that she just couldn’t handle being tied down in one place. That’s why she’d never agreed to a legal marriage between them. She’d insisted she had to feel free.

He picked up the envelope of letters again. Everyone of them had been dated on the same day of the year, beginning the year after they had separated, but they’d arrived at his door packed together in a small box — each letter in an envelope — each envelope stamped — but not one of them postmarked.

He pulled out the cover letter that had come with the others: “I know you’ll be surprised at this package,” she had written. “But by the time you read this note, I’ll be gone from this earth, and I felt it was right to let you know the truth. I wrote each one of these letters, fully intending to mail them the day they were written, but then I lost my courage to do so. Now, however, I have no choice, and I think it’s important that you know you have a son. You’ll find all the details in these unmailed letters. The only thing I can add is that I’m sorry I couldn’t become what you wanted me to be.”

He picked up the last of the individual letters from the stack. She had included her parents’ home address and their phone number. She and the boy had been living with them during the past year. She had written that letter on his birthday — as she had all the others — and on the date of the last letter, the child had turned eight years old.

A kind of rage surged through him, and he crushed the letter in his hand. How could she!  How could she do such a thing to him — and to the child? But the rage soon gave place to tears. He’d run through that gamut of emotions several times since first opening that package of letters. Part of him wanted to burn them and forget it all so that he didn’t have any more hurt and pain. But the other part of him handled them with trembling fingers, treasuring them because they were his only link to his son.

Suddenly, he rose from his chair, stuffing the letters back into the manila envelope once again. He walked to his bedroom, took his suitcase out of the closet, and started to pack. He made a quick job of it, then tossed the envelope of letters on top of his clothes and  snapped the case shut.  Taking a deep breath, he carried the case to the front door, where he picked up his coat, stepped outside, and locked the door behind him. Once outside, with his suitcase in hand, he felt his courage getting stronger. He had made the first step now, and the momentum would carry him through.

He was a father. And it was worth risking everything to be able to know and love his son. ~

 

~~~

History Through the Eyes of Ogden Owl

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Lee Dusing, over at Lee’s Birdwatching Adventures Plus, has posted the picture on her site of this owl with his eyes bulging as he takes in some scene before him. Lee has asked us to write a caption or a story based on the picture — taken by Peter K. Burian.  So, naturally, I had to take up the challenge — even though I’m not much of an owl person in general. My story is below the picture.

LEE'S OWL PIC -- PETER K. BURIAN

HISTORY THROUGH THE EYES OF OGDEN OWL

Ogden Owl couldn’t believe his eyes. He was sure they must be bulging because he was straining so hard to see what was really going on. He’d lived in these sparse clumps of trees close to the sandy beaches of Kitty Hawk, NC, for almost three years now, and ever since he’d moved here, there had been some strange things going on.

Two human beings had spent months at a time out on the sandy stretches of land between the hills, half rolling – half carrying – some contraption that looked a little like a huge, ugly bird, but that seemed to be bound to move on the ground. Ogden was usually up doing his hunting during the night, and by morning, he was ready to get some rest, so he hadn’t bothered with the humans much, except to shake his head at their ability to waste time and energy out here on this almost barren stretch of land.

But early this morning, when he really should have been considering getting some rest again, he had noticed that the two human beings had an even bigger monster of a machine – even more ugly – and this time it made a horrible noise as they moved it across the ground.  They pushed it onto some kind of inclined track, and the next thing Ogden knew, one of the men seemed to climb right into the middle of the machine.

Ogden could hardly hold his eyes open, but he was determined to find out what was going on practically right under his nose. Suddenly the huge machine began moving along the inclined track, picking up speed, and then, to Ogden’s astonishment – and horror – it lifted up from the ground, all the time making a roaring noise. It seemed to catch the wind with its enormous wings and sailed through the air just like he did when he took off from his tree limb and weaved through the sky looking for food.

It couldn’t be! Surely not! Human beings flying??? His eyes stayed glued to the scene. For long seconds, the huge, ugly contraption floated and soared – and scared the heck out of Ogden.

When the machine came back down to the ground and sat down without breaking apart, Ogden took a deep breath. He hadn’t realized that he had been holding his breath the whole time he watched that ugly, noisy machine fly. He shook his head now and stirred restlessly on the branch where he sat. He sighed and stretched his wings a little, wanting to feel their strength once more before he moved back onto one of the hidden branches of his tree to get some rest. He felt sad – and fearful. He had a feeling that life was never going to be the same again after today.  ~

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