Like the Prose: Challenge #29 – Revisit one of your previous challenge pieces and rewrite it from a different POV. (I chose Carob Drops.)

“I will check on her,” I say, “Stay by the fire. Enjoy your wine.” I leave my wife on the couch and move into the kitchen. Calling up the stairs, I assure our young houseguest, “Sophie, it is just a power outage from the storm. You are safe.”

A tremulous voice responds, “Okay.”

I’ve already got the kettle on – fortunately our stove is a gas one – and a mug ready with a bag of fragrant peppermint tea. Peppermint was my favorite, as a boy, and I suspect the child in our loft will appreciate it also. If you stir in just the right amount of turbinado sugar or organic honey it is as if you are drinking a candy-cane.

The kettle whistles. I pour the water over the bag, agitate it with a spoon, and gather the rest of my supplies: a storm lantern, a battered paperback novel, a zip-lock bag of tiny brown candies. Separately these things seem ordinary. Together, they are an arsenal meant to battle a small girl’s fear of (I chuckle to myself as the clichéd phrase comes to mind unbidden) a dark and stormy night.

The tea is ready. I remove the bag after pressing out the water, and decide honey is better than sugar on this night, though I’m generous with the sticky sweetener. In doing so, I become the little girl’s co-conspirator, and perhaps, one day, a friend, rather than the strange brown man who married her mother’s college roommate.

I light the lantern, and place it, and everything else on a bed tray – the kind the with the fold-down legs. So armed, I leave the candle-lit glow of the kitchen and climb the stairs to the loft where our bedrooms are. Sophie is in the smallest one. It’s not more than a nook, really: a small space for a small child. Perhaps, one day, the child will be his child. (I spend a moment imagining a daughter with Emily’s bright blue eyes set into tawny skin slightly lighter than my own, but with my jet-black hair. Or a son, with my dark eyes, but his mother’s soft features. It doesn’t matter… but I hope… oh, I hope….)

“Sophie?” I balance the tray on one arm and knock on the open door. “May I enter?”

“Hi, Rajesh.” Her dark eyes seem huge in the flickering lantern light. They’re not as dark as mine, and yet, I feel a kinship with this child. “Is Mom okay?”

“She is fine. She called earlier. Her conference is going well, and she said to tell you she loves you and to be good. Your Aunt Emily is so cozy on the couch that when you called out, I asked her if she would let me come keep you company for a few moments. Do you mind?”

She shakes her head, and I see her golden braids bob back and forth. “No. I don’t mind. What’s on the tray?”

“Supplies,” I say, making my voice mysterious. “The storm is loud, but you know it cannot get in, yes?”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I know.”

“Still, it makes it difficult to sleep. When I cannot sleep, I like to read, and your mother has mentioned that you, too, like stories, so I have brought you one of my favorites.” I place the lantern on the desk near the bed while I talk to her, just far enough away so that an errant hand cannot knock it over, and then I show her the cover of the book. “A Wrinkle in Time,” I intone. “Have you read it? It’s about a very brave girl, a little older than you are.”

“Is there magic in it?”

“Not precisely. There’s science in it. And sometimes science can seem like magic. Would you like to try it?”

But she’s already taken it from me and is reading the blurb on the back. “I think I’ll like it.”

“I think so, too. I first read it when I was nine.”

“I’m only eight.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sniffs the air. “I smell peppermint.”

“Ah, yes. More supplies.” I take the mug of tea from the tray. “Peppermint tea with honey in it. It’s still quite hot, so sip it carefully.”

“I will.”

“And one more thing.” I dangle the bag of candies in front of her.

“Chocolate?”

“Not quite.”

“Then what?”

“Carob drops.”

“What’s carob?”

I smile at her. “It’s a sort of bean from my country. It comes from a kind of evergreen tree, but not the kind we have here. It tastes a lot like chocolate, but it has its own flavor, too. Try one?”

Her small hand reaches into the bag and pulls out a carob drop. She pops it into her mouth, and I watch as her face first grows serious – she is analyzing the flavor – and then lights up: she approves!

“It’s a little… earthier? Is that the word?” I nod and she continues. “It’s a little earthier than chocolate. And there’s something else in the flavor. But I like it. Thank you, Rajesh.”

“You are welcome, Sophie. Now, cuddle up with your book and your tea, and let the storm become a friend instead of a foe. When you’re ready to sleep again, the carob drops will bring sweet dreams, and in the morning your mother will be back.”

She nods at all of that, her eyes wide like saucers and her face so serious. But before I can leave, she puts her hand on my arm. “Rajesh, wait.”

“Is something wrong, Sophie.”

“No. Only… Emily is Aunt Emily.”

“Yes.”

“So, aren’t you Uncle Rajesh?”

“If you wish it, Sophie.”

“I do, please.” And she stretches up and presses her little-girl lips to my cheek.

One day, I think, my own child will give me goodnight kisses like this. Sticky with honey or carob. And I will do to my child what I do with Sophie: I reach out and tug gently on her nearest braid. “You are very welcome, Sophie.”

And I leave her there, wrapped in quilts, in the tiny loft bedroom that is her nest for the night. The little girl with book and peppermint tea.

And carob drops.

* * *

Dark-eyed little girl
Golden braids, serious face
May I be your friend?

Like the Prose: Challenge #28 – Write a Lipogram (A story where you eliminate a specific letter. In this case, the actual story does not use the letter ‘t.’)

Sun.

Sand.

Sea.

She feels her skin baking, feels her scalp burning, feels her lips cracking from marine chemicals, from sol’s inferno, from her own obsession.

She and her board are one.

Endless waves command her focus, her balance, her prowess, her finesse.

Her braided hair flows behind her as she flies over boundless blue and pale foam.

Her body hums ocean music, and  her deep blue sea responds in kind.

Her parched lips spread in a broad grin.

She is joy embodied.

She is free.

She is a surfer.

* * *

Hours pass.

She wakes in her wee beach house.

Inhaling, she recognizes cooking aromas.

Her lover has arrived, dinner is in progress.

A fresh smile appears on her face.

She padds on calloused soles and kisses him hello. “Smells awesome.”

“Me? Or my chicken?”

“Mmm. You. And your chicken. How long?”

“Mmm. Mere seconds.”

“Wine?”

“Yes, please. Chardonnay.”

* * *

She knows his body as well as she does her ocean.

He surfs her body as ably as she does each wave.

As one, rising, falling, laughing, sighing.

A kiss.

A lick.

A nudge.

Ahhh.

Sleep comes only when each has given pleasure and been pleased.

* * *

Dawn wakes her. He remains asleep, snoring.

Dawn is shark hour.

She should be concerned.  She will be careful.

She crosses cool, damp, sand, board under her arm.

Pink rays warm her morning face.

Her waves welcome her.

She and her board are one.

She surfs.

And she smiles.

Like the Prose: Challenge #27 – Use metaphor to explore a mental illness without naming it. (Special thanks to my friend Fran H. for her assistance & insight.) 

If you look at a zebra, you might think you’re seeing a white animal with black stripes. After all, these not-quite-horses have white underbellies, don’t they? So white must be the dominant color.

That’s the order of things.

People often associate white with order. Because it’s clean and fresh, I guess. And maybe, maybe if you’re talking about bedsheets with hospital corners that’s true.

But if you’re creating the lightshow of your life, aligning the prisms so they bend and refract at exactly the right angles, you know the truth. White isn’t order at all. White is chaos. The presence of all colors. White is what you get when you spin the top and everything blurs, and you can’t think or process or feel because everything is too much and too loud and too fast…

But you come out of the white, at the end, and you realize that you’ve amassed this collection of art – writing, paintings, light sculptures – but you didn’t really get to experience them because you were in a frenzy of creation when they sprang into being.

And so, you sink.

You sink into black.

And at first… at first the black is soothing. Because you recognize that the black is your true color. Underneath the white fur, there’s black skin holding everything together.

But sometimes there’s too much black.

Too much darkness.

Because if white is the presence of all color, all light.

Then black is the absence.

The bleak nothingness where you are disconnected.

And while a touch of black is soothing, too much becomes a weight, like an anchor pulling you too far down, or, no, not an anchor, but a lame hoof, causing you to lag further and further behind the herd.

Intellectually, you know they’ll watch out for you.

But in the blackness, if you sense anything at all, it’s the predators you recognize. The ones that live on the edges of the dark forest and spring at you just when you’re starting to emerge from total nothingness, pulling you backwards.

They have stripes, too. The tigers. Or spots. The leopards and cheetahs. They have bits of blackness in them. But it’s a different sort of blackness. Still, it’s enough. It allows them to find you at your weakest point.

Eventually, though, there’s a shift.

Dappled sunlight breaks through the darkest part of the forest.

The herd circles around you, protecting you while your lame hoof (lame head) heals itself (maybe not forever – you’re kind of a klutz – but at least for now).

You catch your reflection in the pond before you take a refreshing drink of the clean, clear water, and you realize your stripes aren’t meant to be isolates. You are not black with white punctuation, or white with black interruption.

You are Zebra.

You are black and white, and when you move your shoulders, sometimes the white dominates, and when you stamp your hooves, the black ripples ominously, but both are parts of the whole. And when you manage to accept that, you also find balance.

Maybe not forever.

But at least for now.