Wild and Reckless

Dad was never much of a hockey fan, although he liked to comment on Foster Hewitt’s play by play when the rest of us were glued to the tv on a Saturday night, cheering for the Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada.

“What number is that fellow, Abandon?” he asked us once.

“Everybody is always skating down the ice with Reckless Abandon, if you can believe that announcer, and I don’t know, I’m wondering if maybe he has a younger brother at home called Wild.”

We stopped arguing which favourite player was better, Frank Mahovlich or Davey Keon, to laugh at the idea of the Abandon brothers making all the assists.

But then “He shoots…he SCORES!!” popped it right out of our heads.

 

Five Sentence Fiction –   Abandon

Junk and Treasures

Before bed she watches her grandma scurry about the house making preparations for tomorrow, putting what appears to be worthless junk on the kitchen table, although she knows her mother considers these things priceless family treasures and will be thrilled to have them.

In the  morning she is still disoriented and exhausted after her long flight across the ocean, the drive to the farm and her restless night in yet another strange bed, with nothing better to look forward to now than a two-day road trip on her long journey home.

With a defeated sigh, she throws her things back in to her travel-worn bag, wishing she could stuff her bad mood and all her worries in there right along with them.

Once she gets everything downstairs she simply can’t stop laughing at the sight of her funny little grandma, giant fork under one arm and enormous spoon under the other, declaring herself all set and ready to go.

And just like that, all the irritation disappears.

Five Sentence Fiction  is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. This week’s word: IRRITATION

…and…

In Good Times and Bad

They  travel by snow machine pulling a heavy komatik behind them, for hours and hours across the tundra and the ocean ice towards the horizon, getting nowhere.

The sunlight reflecting off the ice and snow is blinding and the cold dry air makes her face feel like frozen leather, chilling her body to the bone.

This is not the life she imagined.

Back home at a dinner party he is animated in the telling of their great adventure while she sips her wine with fever blistered lips and a puzzled stare.

Roxy looks at one and then the other and back again, suddenly raising her glass to drink to the notion that theirs is surely a marriage made in hell.

Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. This weeks word – Marriage.

One Crazy Little Chick

When she heard that baby chicks could be hatched from incubated chicken eggs, it seemed like a simple enough procedure to find out if It was true.

Since her new winter boots always kept her feet nice and warm, she decided they would no doubt make perfectly excellent chicken hatchers.

She carefully snuck two eggs from the fridge, placed one in the snug toe of each boot, and promptly forgot about them for the duration of the long wait which came next.

She remembered well enough after she was asked to put her coat and boots on to go outside,  responding to the request by wailing and screaming at the top of her lungs about broken eggs and squished baby chickens and life being generally just dreadfully unfair.

Now, although she doesn’t know for sure if that was the first time her confused and exasperated mother threw up her hands and demanded to know what in the world was the matter with her, she can tell you with a great deal of certainty that it definitely wasn’t the last.

 

Five Sentence Fiction – Confusion

The Doll Carriage

It was the best birthday present ever in her short little life, that beautiful blue doll buggy made from tin.

She packed it full of dolls like sleepy-eyed sardines, upside down and backwards, arms and legs and heads in all directions.

When the wheels got rusty and wobbly with a terrible squeal that hurt their ears, her big brother helped transform the treasured carriage into an amazing spaceship painted shiny silver.

For their not-so-voluntary astronaut they chose the least suspicious barn cat, who appeared to have no great plans for his morning.

They climbed up to the crest of the rooftop on the chicken shed and launched him into outer space.

 

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Five Sentence Fiction – Wheels:  packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist.