Happy Birthday WEP!!
This is the first post of the year for the
WEP - aka Write..Edit..Publish. And look, I managed to make this my first real post of the year 2020. Writing progress, lol.
I don't have a lot of time for intro - gotta get to work and make that money. So here's the copy/paste details from the
WEP linkz post. Hurry hurry to create your own submission.
1. SUBMIT your name to the list below on publication of your entry. Add DL after your name. (DirectLink) We will no longer add your Direct Link.
2. POST your edited entry, making sure 'WEP' is in the TITLE along with the CAFE TERRACE badge within your entry.
3. STATE feedback preferences and word count at the end of your entry.
4. READ other entries, giving feedback if requested.
5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog.
PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE FEBRUARY 21 (NY Time - check WEP blog clock)
ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum
LUCID
PAST
Sonia
coughed and spit a wad of bloody mucus into a sodden rag. The rag had once been
her favorite kerchief, the one Carlos had liked so well. Now it was thread
bare, colorless, nothing left to hold onto except the memories of love and life
and laughter. Sonia missed his laughter more than anything.
She
was a large dirty bundle tucked into a deep doorway, though she was thin, scraggly
woman of 70 years. Everything she owned was piled under and around her; keeping
her warm and well hidden. More than the foggy night creeped in the dark alleys
of the abandoned old city center. Her tattered scarf itched and moved, and she dusted
a fevered and mittened hand against the knitting, hoping it was wind and not
bugs burrowing into her thin hair.
This
doorway had been her permanent night home for more years than she could
remember. Across the street was a long wooden porch that had seen better years,
but somehow had not fallen completely apart. She thought it once must have been
home to an outdoor market, and reminded her of the Café she and Carlos met at.
Before the war, and death, and so many failures left her just as abandoned and
bereft as the city she streets she haunted. Not the same city, not even the
same country.
Between
the remnants of the farmers market, and the old school like building down the
street that resembled the orphanage where she initially made her simple vows.
Sonia’s hand fell limply to her side, her breathing slowed, and her mind
slipped into a memory of the day she met Carlos. The clatter of broken glass shifting
in the wind became the sighing tink of a tambourine.
Carlos
was known as The Gypsy Boy, even though everyone knew he was no Gypsy. Tall and
lean, in too small, patched breeches and a woolen shirt several sizes to large,
Carlos frequently entertained the lost ones and Nuns who ran the orphanage.
Sonia’s family just sent her Convent Dowery, assuring another year’s
comfortable existence as an initiate, but already the Reverend Mother was
expressing doubts about Sonia’s suitability to the religious community. She
loved people too much to be effectively cloistered, but the church needed the
income, and Sonia had a gift with the children’s education.
“Dance
with me pretty Sonia,” Carlos begged, waving his tambourine in front of
himself.
The
tinkling symbols made her giggle. The warmth of his hand made her heart skip a
beat. He took her bread basket and set it on the grass, then bowed.
But
no, that wasn’t quite right. Not on that day. That day the Café was just opening,
the owner was washing tables and setting out flower vases. Now it was busy with
smiling patrons, women and children were dashing across the street to laugh and
talk with each other, and Carlos was dressed in the Khaki’s she’d last seen him
in. She grinned at him as she had that day, only now trying not to remember he’d
been shot as a deserter.
“I
don’t think I shall,” she said, now as she had then. “The Reverend Mother is
watching.”
He
looked around, as he had on that day, and smugly replied, “But we are alone.
And the day is fine, and you have inspired a song in my heart.” He danced
around her, singing something non-sensical about love and undying devotion.
Her
heart leaped with him, and she felt the years of toil and despair fall away.
But that was wrong too; she was young, only 17, lush and fully developed
beneath her habit. Her tunic was new, her grey veil had been freshly cleaned.
She spun around as she watched him circling her, her bare feet relishing the
feel warm grass.
“I
should be wearing shoes,” she thought. Before her first initiation rites she
was the family disappointment, always shucking her expensive shoes and tramping
barefoot through the freshly cut grass with the servant’s children. It was
hoped life as a Religious Sister would calm her wildness, give her life purpose
since she had shunned all the arranged marriage proposals. Unexpectedly, Sonia
had agreed to the terms of service with enthusiasm.
Until
Carlos. It had taken months of mischievous meetings for her to succumb to his
charms. A bouquet of wild flowers appeared in his hand. She took them, inhaled
deeply, absorbing the colors and fragrance. He frequently offered her gifts of
flowers, bites of pilfered chocolate, pebbles that shinned like crystals, if
only in his eyes. Once he wove a ring out of fine twigs and asked her to marry
him.
She
looked at her left finger, and there was the woven ring. “Not on our first
meeting,” she reminded herself, but still smiled at the inaccuracy of her
memory.
Except,
it didn’t feel like a memory anymore. It felt like a new meeting, in a familiar
setting. Everything about their affair was mixed up, but fresh and new. He
laughed again, a sound that she loved and craved. More years fell away.
Sonia
let them go easily.
“This
day will never end,” Carlos promised, pulling the veil from her hair. He’d said
that often, and meant it every time.
Stars
burst overhead in brilliant rainbow streams, the cloudless day not dampening
their brightness. Sonia remembered the New Years celebration before he left to
fight a war he didn’t believe in. The promises, the night of romance. She didn’t
believe any of it then.
Sonia
believed now. She stepped into his arms, swayed with the shimmering tambourine
and the sweetness of his voice.
“Yes,”
she agreed. Willing it to be THAT day, everyday.
word count: 949
full critique acceptable
