She knew they shouldn’t be here, but Jim was insistent that they visit this club that had great rock and roll music, It was on the South side of Chicago in the U.S. It was a rough part of the city.
She gave in after he assured her it would be safe. It was a thrilling taxi ride from their place to the street where the club was located. The streets were teeming with people. All ethnicities, She didn’t see anything worrisome. Just a lot of very diverse people having a good time.
The taxi pulled up in front of the club. They found a table very near the stage. It seemed like the music included all of her favorite songs.
It was closing time and they started to leave. They got to the door and she felt a tug on her arm. She turned and the world went dark. She heard lots of fighting and screaming around her. She realized she had on a hood. She kept calling for Jim having no way to know he had been knocked out and put in a nearby van.
She was pushed into a taxi and yanked off the hood. Another passenger was sitting there.
After they started to move, he looked at her and said, “Sorry about your luck with your date. He was the one with the money.”
There was no answer when she called Jim’s cell. The police had no luck. Jim was gone in a flash.
Thanks to C.E. Aye and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
It had been a wonderful trip. She had finally arrived in her favorite city. The last stop. She was looking forward to seeing a special person. They were to meet in a bar there.
She left dinner early and started to walk toward the bar where they had always met. That was so long ago.
She stepped to the door. When she saw him, her nervousness drained away and she started to smile. It had been 20 years. So much had happened. He turned and saw her while raising his martini glass to his lips. He stopped halfway.
Thanks to Rochelle for continuing to host #FridayFictioneers.
How often in your life have you judged someone, perhaps not even realizing what you were doing? I think we all may be guilty of judging others without full information or even the right to do so. Judging is only part of what is tearing our country apart in the U.S. There are many other factors but judging our friends and neighbors for their political and personal beliefs ranks right up there at the top.
In the last eight years, U.S. society has become more polarized than at any time since the civil war from a political perspective. It’s very much an atmosphere of us versus them. During this time, many of us have lost friends and even family because one or the other of us were judged harshly for their political beliefs. The political beliefs that each side holds couldn’t be more different. One side wants to maintain the progress of the U.S. and try to improve it. The other side wants to take us back to the past and even worse, establish a fascist regime. We all have friends on both sides of this argument.
What do you do if you are on one side and a friend is on the other? Do you judge that friend for their political beliefs and in the process, you realize you may lose that friend? The number of people in the U.S. over the past eight years that have lost friends and family because of our political divisions has become innumerable.
What is the solution? Can you maintain a friendship with someone on the other side of an issue or many issues? Can you just not bring that into your conversations? Can you refrain from judging your friend even though you don’t agree with them? Believe me, it’s difficult since almost all the conversation currently is about the politics of the U.S.
I don’t have a solution, but what works for me is just talking to my friends as always but avoid the politics discussion if possible. I realize that will never solve anything, but I’m starting to wonder if judging people based on their political beliefs is becoming entrenched in our culture. There may be no turning back.
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Her evening constitutional had been challenging today. It was wet and foggy. She wasn’t sure how far she had come.
The old woman gazed up the hill that bordered her walking path. Two children, wrapped up warmly, were playing on the side of the hill. It reminded her of when she and her siblings had played on the same hill.
Her mind wandered and she was suddenly one of those children and her brothers and sisters were with her once again. They were all running down the hill and ending up in somersaults at the bottom. She laughed as she saw herself come in fourth out of fifth.
Clyde came in first as always and poor little Allis was last. They all ran back up the hill, falling and tumbling as they went. Next, she saw herself in a game of hide and seek. They hid behind the scrub or whatever they could find.
Finally, they tired and flopped down on the side of the hill to rest. She and Bonnie, her older sister, talked of how dusk was coming and their mother would be calling for them soon. She could clearly hear Bonnie’s voice.
The old lady felt a gentle touch to her elbow and looked around. It was her caregiver and she had come to find her. The relief was obvious on the caregiver’s face.
They smiled at each other and she said, “Mother, I’m hungry.”
Thanks to C.E. Ayer and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
She got out of bed and trudged through the living room. The place had been trashed. She supposed it happened last night. She was having a hard time remembering. She was so glad their daughter had been at a sleepover.
As she made her way through the house, it dawned on her that he was gone. His bed hadn’t been slept in. She opened the closet and his clothes were gone. A shelf in the bookcase was cleared out.
It was Monday, she remembered. The milk man delivered milk on Monday. She smiled and thought that they wouldn’t need half the milk they used in the past.
She felt embarrassed. It was 1975. The divorce rate in the U.S. was low. Divorce was still a social stigma. Most couples just stuck it out, supposedly for the sake of the children. Her own opinion was that couples married too young and didn’t wait to find the right person. That surely described her.
He’d asked her for a divorce last night. She agreed, but he raged and blamed her. She laughed when she thought of the milk on the porch and the old song, “Milk Cow Blues,” popped into her mind. She remembered part of the lyrics and it seemed she was living that song. She would not need as much milk delivered in the future. She walked to the door to bring in the milk and try to get back to her life.
NOTE: “Milk Cow Blues” was written back in the 1930s, but my favorite version is by Aerosmith
Thanks to C.E. Ayr and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
He heard the growl of the plane and saw the contrails it left visible in the sky. He was in the parking lot of this development and everyone around him was pointing skyward. What was so special about contrails left by a high-flying aircraft?
The people started running toward the buildings, taking cover. He walked into one of the shops where others were gathered. There was a woman there and he asked her what the excitement was about.
“Why don’t you know about them chem-trails,” she asked.
“Chem-trails.” He pondered the term. “Ma’am, those are just vapor trails left by high-flying aircraft.”
“On no,” she said. “Don’t you know about that government program that uses those planes and those helicopters to drop harmful material into the air?”
Puzzled, he asked, “What material?”
“Heavy metals, plastics, and other stuff.”
The lady smiled and said, “They are trying to block out the sun. Trying to cause us to get sick. The current U.S. administration is trying to mess with the weather.”
“Ma’am, I think you’re mistaken,” the man replied.
“Oh no,” she said. “Ask anyone.”
After the man got home, he researched “chem-trails.” He found that it is a popular conspiracy theory and recently has been attributed to the current U.S. government by its opposition.
He shook his head, astounded. He thought to himself that the people who believe this will be a part of the voting population. What is going to happen to us?
Thanks to C.E. Ayr and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge.
She and her mother found it when they were cleaning out the attic. Several boxes of what some call uranium glass. Antique glass with a glow in the dark glaze on it from decades ago.
She looked in her books about antique glassware and discovered that it is a much sought-after collectible.
As they got it ready for sale, they noticed the glow in the dark coating was flaking off. Antique collectors bought it anyway.
Later, she found out that the flaking was radioactive. What about the people who bought their glass?
The first time she woke up, she was in his parent’s living room. Only partially conscious, she heard his parents tell him to take her home and face the consequences.
The next time she was conscious, she was in her dad’s arms and he was picking her up from the driveway, bloody and broken.
She didn’t remember much of the week that followed. Just the painful injuries and a constant heartache. She started to recover, but even after months passed, she was not the same. Not even after years.
A lifetime passed. The girl went on to be successful professionally and personally. Something was never right. She went to the family cemetery, drawn to it as if she were being pulled. She sat down by her grandparent’s graves to figure out what was plaguing her.
Suddenly, she heard her grandfather’s voice, as clearly as if he were standing there.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “He was an abuser and showed his true colors that night. You almost didn’t survive it.”
In her thoughts, the girl replied, “I must have done something terrible. I must have been an awful person or he wouldn’t have done it. I’ve worked so hard since but never felt good enough.”
She heard her grandfather say, “My precious granddaughter, you’ve been successful in all you’ve ever done. You’ve just not been able to let that one night and a crazy man go. Let it go now and remember how much you are loved.”
Thanks to C.E. Ayer and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
Hello everyone and welcome to my weekendcoffeeshare for the week beginning August 23, 2024! Please come right in and join me for a catchup and a cup of coffee or tea. Please help yourself to whatever you like.
If we were having coffee together today, I would tell you that I haven’t participated in the coffee share or in any of the challenges for about three weeks now. Why? Put simply, life got in the way! There have been lots of things, some good and some not so good, going on that has taken my focus (and time) away from writing. I’m getting back in the groove now.
My flower gardens are just about gone for this year. We have four distinct seasons here in my location in the U.S., Kentucky, Upper South. Summer is coming to an end. We’ve even had nights down in the 40s though the days are still mostly hot, even some in the 90s. We have had an awfully hot summer and some of the plants I have traditionally grown have not done so well this year. Others have fared very well. I think climate change will eventually change our growing zones and that is perhaps happening in my location even now.
Here are some of the plants that I’ve managed to grow this summer.
They have been nice and brightened up my yard, but the weather has been hard on them. These are not plants that do particularly well when the temperatures are in the 90s every day. Very unusual for my area.
My husband and I have both had some health issues pop up recently. He will have to have some eye surgery in the fall. As for me, it is going to take a specific and very restrictive diet. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to eat on this diet. I’m already thin and I really don’t want to get any thinner, but I suspect that will happen! Getting older is not for sissies!
I’ve been fortunate to be able to talk to and see some friends and family recently. That always helps everything seem better. I had a small nuclear family, but I have a big extended family on both my mom’s and dad’s sides of the family. I also have good lifetime – and new – friends. We have had a lot of support over the past few weeks.
Sophie, the German ShepherdSophie at a nearby state parkHazel, my little rescued Pembroke Welsh CorgiHazel again (enlarge)
These two (very spoiled) four-legged babies have been my salvation over the past few weeks. Sophie is big and protective, but a baby inside. Hazel is just now really coming around after being rescued last year. It’s been hard for her, but she has turned into a sweet, loyal puppy. They lift my spirits when times are tough.
I am redecorating the inside of my house and in the fall, we will paint the entire inside. Redecorating is really an overstatement. I am redoing some things, but not everything. Just decluttering and, in the process, figuring out how to modernize as I go along. So far, it has been a very big job. I worked such long hours for so many years and didn’t really pay much attention to my home. I’m paying for that now by having to put some long hours into my house!
All of this adds up to no writing for the past few weeks. I don’t want to get into that pattern, so I’m back to work on my blog and will be participating more. Not only do I enjoy writing, but it is therapeutic for me. I’m starting to freelance a little, mostly in the field in which I worked for so many years which is finance.
I’ve missed talking to all of you. Thank you for coming to my weekendcoffeeshare!
The Write Scribe 