Day: October 6, 2025

Nan’s Sewing Room

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Title: Study of a Woman Sewing
Creator: Robert Polhill Bevan, 1865–1925

My  Nan  used to tell me that when you got old, your bones creaked and groaned like the floors in an old house.

She said that you always felt cold when you got really old,and you could tell it was going to rain because your toes and fingers would tingle, ” remember that time you plugged in the tv and got that shock? ” she reminded me. “That’s what it feels like. ”

And then she said firmly through gritted teeth that when you got really, really old you died.

We had these conversations when she was sewing or crocheting in her sewing room.

My  Nan  used to crochete me a vest and a blanket  for my birthday every year.

Halloween was my favorite holiday, so in the little squares she created were spooky faces or sometimes pumpkins and trees or ghosts with little pearl button eyes.

One day, as she was busy making me another blanket for my bed, I asked her ” Nan, does anyone ever die when they’re not really, really old? ”

I was standing next to a shelf full of Halloween blankets that were never unfolded and laid on a bed  and vests of various sizes that  were never worn and she didn’t look up at me when she said,

” Yes. ” she said. ” Sometimes.”

Inspried by Writober Picture Prompt #2

Molly Bakes On Saturdays

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Molly Skelton lives with her family on Burr Oak Road, her house is pale green and she grows Sunflowers in her side yard and she tries to grow roses along the walkway to her front door, but for some reason they always die just before they bloom.

For her own private reasons, Molly enjoys walking on the dead dried rose petals. With each step she grinds them into the walkway and then she  reaches her front door scrapes them off on her welcome mat.

Molly has a dog, two cats and a husband named Frank and  a ten yeard old daughter named Dolly.

Her pets don’t have names.

Molly likes to bake on Saturdays and when she is in the kitchen, Dolly shows up and sits at the kitchen table.

Dolly likes to watch her Mother pour  and chop and grind her ingredients with her usal smooth icy effiency. She likes to watch her measure and  and mix and roll her pastry and when Molly is done she has a looks grim- so grim Dolly is left to sometimes  wonder if the cookies or the cakes or the breads are going to taste good.

Molly takes her baking very seriously.

” What are you baking today?” Dolly asked.

” I’m making gingerbread men. ”

Dolly got up  from her chair and went to where her Mother was standing. She leaned over the bowl. She put her face next to it.

She sniffed and backed up. ” It doesn’t smell very good. ”

” Oh and how does it smell to you Miss? ”

” It smells like Dad’s coffee can with the nails in it. ”

Molly shook her head- her daughter and her Mount Everest sized  over statements.  “That’s a pretty fancy way of saying you think my gingerbread men stink. ”

” Honest Mom. Usually your gingerbread smells so good- but- ” Dolly slid the bowl towards her Mother.

Molly leaned over and sniffed. She picked the bowl up and tipped it towards the window. She shook her head and set it down. Then she dipped her finger into the batter and when she lifted it, her finger was covered with red and pink goo.

She took a sniff and a taste.

” Oh look at that. I forgot to put the ginger in. ”

Dolly went back around the table  and took her seat. She rested her chin on her folded hands and said with encouragement:

” Good thing you remembered to put the men in Mom, otherwise we’d just be eating plain old sugar cookies.”

Inspired by Writober What’s Making That Sound

 

Nothing But The Night

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For Experience Writing first Halloween Prompt, we are considering our breath- I’ve reposted a story about a woman who is blocks, just a few blocks from her own home and the terror that she experiences as her the air is being robbed from her lungs.

It’s an old story, but I think it fits this prompt perfectly- so here we go:

Nothing But The Night

First Published

October 12, 2007

at The Soul Food Cafe

THÉOPHILE STEINLEN, 1900
” Cat In The Moonlight “

It was only five doors down to her own house; a three minute walk on a well lit street on a quiet cold night last October.

But that didn’t matter because Damiana Dergmuse knew she was in trouble the minute that door shut behind her and she heard the tumblers in the lock grind together.

With that sound that half block turned into miles and she was going to have to walk it all alone.

” There’s nothing to be afraid of, ” she told herself out loud. ” There’s nothing out here now that isn’t out here when the lights are on. “

Then she took a deep breath and it froze in her chest and she was about to run back into the house she had just come out of because that rah-rah speech she had just given herself wasn’t going to work.

In fact she was about to have a nervous breakdown right there on the street and how would that look?

It was settled,  she was turning back.

Before she turned around she told herself one more time…she could do this.

It was only five doors down and she’d be there in seconds, minutes if she could just put one foot in front of the other and move.

Then each of those steps would add up until she would be through her own front door and she would find herself in the safety of her own room and the cinnamon smell that always filled her house during the winter months.

Wouldn’t that be better then sitting in front of a neighbor’s fireplace, in a neighbor’s chair, petting a neighbor’s cat in a neighbor’s house?

Of course it would be better to be in her own home so Damiana started to walk and as she passed the first house she heard a thump, thump and then a drag and a hiss and she realized that was the sound of her own heart stopping and starting in her own chest.

” Stupid woman ” she told herself.

She put her hand to her heart and felt to make sure that it was still beating and when she felt it pound against her hand she started to walk again.

And almost hidden under the sounds of her own foot steps and rapid breathing she heard something sliding across the pavement behind her.

What she heard was a dragging sound, metal against concrete and as much as she wanted to stop and turn around to find out what could be making such an awful sound she couldn’t because now she was three doors down from her own home and in the horizon she could see a thin line of orange in the skyline.

Damiana was sure of one thing, that’s not the last thing she wanted to see on this Earth, so she walked a little faster and as she did the sky filled with crows, hundreds of them and they were flying east.

The sun was coming up, and the thin line in the horizon got a little wider and Damiana could hardly breath and behind her the dragging sound got a little louder and a little heavier and she was determined that sound wouldn’t be the last thing she would hear in this life so she picked up her feet and ran.

The scraping sound got louder and she heard a whoosh and she flew up her stairs and to her door and she pushed it open and without turning around slammed it behind herself.

It was morning and the sun was coming through the windows and outside she could hear birds singing and with that sound ringing in her ears she ran faster up the stairs to the top floor of her house.

” Made it!” she cried with relief, ” I’ve made it!”

Then she laid down on her bed and she said as slammed the coffin lid shut over her head, ” There’s nothing out there to for anybody to really be afraid of…not now anyway.”

For Experience Writing: Writober: BREATH

Date Night

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” Frida, ” my boyfriend Stuart always says, ” it’s date night, it’s not like we’re checking into a hospital so you can donate a kidney to me or the world is going to end in 15 minutes and we have to decide what we want our last words to each other to be. It’s date night. Wear something pretty and I’ll  be on time.

But date night is a big deal to me because Stuart Wolfe is the best person I have ever known in an entire life of knowing people I didn’t like.

So date night matters to me.

Tonight I was going to make a special dinner and I bought a new outfit and the center piece of the evening is a Vinyl copy of the first album we ever listened to together back in Junior Highschool- Dream Police by Cheap Trick.

I planned this night for weeks and weeks and wouldn’t you know it?

Tonight I’m running late-truly running late.

My chest feels full and heavy, my throat is dry. I can hardly draw a breath because I am sure that if I do I will break down and cry.

When I got it in, I nearly ran into a wall on my way to the kitchen, the kitchen which was cold and dark- it didn’t smell good and it wasn’t warm. I didn’t have to go into the living room to know how uninviting that was and  when I thought about how I had planned a wonderful evening with music playing on our old school stereo and how I wanted our living room to be bathed in golden fire light with the smells of a wonderful meal wafting through the air  when Stuart walked in I nearly sat down at the kitchen table and thought about what a scatter brained, unreliable wife I was.

He says that’s not true, but tonight I think I am going to prove myself right.

I standing there in the middle a cold dark kitchen- a  useless pile of emotional wreckage when I heard the front door open.

I heard footsteps go down the hall into the living room.

I squared my shoulders and I went down the hall into the living room.

I went up behind him quiet as a mouse, with small timid baby steps  and  I reached out  and wound  the hair on the back of his head around my fingers, then I yanked his head back and I slit his throat.

I stood, as I do on all of my date nights with Stuart- in stranger’s house in a pool of blood but tonight was different.

Tonight I was running late- I hope Stuart understands that I am an imperfect human being trying to be the perfect wife who can at least pull off the perfect date night.

I never quite hit the mark.

Inspired by Day One Flash Fiction Challenge / It All Starts With  A Breath