Tagged: brother

We Finally Reached

  • by jensat around the dwellings
  • Are you still left-handed?
  • a desperate plea for sanity
  • ten mile hike with a full backpack
  • I became too feeble to move
  • which inspired the nickname
  • my fake damn bladder
  • if the plane crash hadn’t killed him
  • going into the lawn care business
  • that patch of New Mexico soil

We finally reached that patch of New Mexico soil we’d heard so much about. After the ten mile hike with a full backpack we endured to reach this place, I became too feeble to move, and so sat around the dwellings with the others. Our immobility was in response to a desperate plea for sanity from our overtaxed muscles. Conversation centered around Bob’s plan for going into the lawn care business, until he looked at me and abruptly asked, “Are you still left-handed?“

I responded in the affirmative which inspired the nickname Lefty. Bob was never known for his creativity.

At that point my fake damn bladder started acting up and I cursed the day I’d ever met Bob’s brother Lou. This was all his fault. If the plane crash hadn’t killed him, I would have done it myself by now.

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Cecelia Opened the Door

  • by jensomething else inside that boy’s head
  • the Upright Man’s precious cargo
  • the reality of Paul’s shoes
  • the fir tree smelled
  • felt indecently robust
  • I thought you were in Africa
  • a large number of plastic crates

Cecelia opened the door and saw Paul standing on her front porch amid a large number of plastic crates.

“I thought you were in Africa!” she cried and gave him a hug.

“I was.” He gestured to the crates. “The Upright Man’s precious cargo proved easy to retrieve.”

Cecelia invited her brother inside and waited for him to remove his shoes. The reality of Paul’s shoes is that they were of a highly complicated design and it took a long time for him to unfasten them. She gave up waiting and went to make them some coffee. By the time Paul joined her in the kitchen, the coffee felt indecently robust on the tongue.

They carried their mugs into the living room and sat by the Christmas tree, watching the lights blink on and off. The fir tree smelled like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It was one of the new genetic hybrids. But Paul didn’t even seem to notice.

There must be something else inside that boy’s head besides the holidays, Cecelia thought. I wonder where the Upright Man is.

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When My Brother Arrived

  • nothing that would offend meby jen
  • My manservant read to him
  • decorated with red leather stitching
  • and another with lust
  • with a rueful chuckle
  • He abuses your trust
  • annoyed and proud at once

When my brother arrived for his visit he wore the boots decorated with red leather stitching that were his inheritance from our father. He was annoyed and proud at once, for those boots were Father’s most prized possessions, yet were worth very little monetarily when compared to the family estate which was left to me.

My manservant read to him two stories, as he requested, one with daring deeds and another with lust. “But,” my brother said with a rueful chuckle, “nothing that would offend me.”

Once my brother was asleep, my manservant came to me and said, “He abuses your trust. Those are not, in fact, the boots of your father.”

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from the comments, Jen has another take on the same prompt:

“I want to hear a story,” the old priest demanded. “But nothing that would offend me, if you please.”

His request made me feel both annoyed and proud at once, so I had my manservant read to him from the big black book decorated with red leather stitching that has been in my family for countless generations.

Afterwards the priest took me aside to gossip about my manservant. “He abuses your trust,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “I smelled alcohol on his breath. He read one story with vice in it, and another with lust.”

I nodded, secretly pleased that my manservant had done just as I told him.