Flash 500 by Nicole Pyles, Carrie K Sorensen (children's books read aloud .txt) 📕

Week of 2/13/2013

Creative Commons Photo taken by Felipe Micaroni Lalli - [email protected]

Words Required

Carpet

Definition

Sponge

Wardrobe

Pudding

Cloaked by Leanne Sype

Resting upon a carpet of eternal sky, the sun invites me to lift my face out and away from the confines of my internal world. I close my eyes, letting the rays wash over me and absorbing the winter air through my senses. The darkness tinged around my spirit reaches up toward the light, yearning to be seeped away into a sponge of oblivion, exposing the definition of who I could be. There's a fire that burns bright within my core, yet it suffocates, cloaked in a heavy wardrobe of confusion, doubt, and shame. As the spoil of suet pudding in summer heat, so do my inner thoughts feel rancid within my spirit. For this brief moment under a winter's sun, I shed the cloak and accept hope that my brokenness will one day be made new again.

About Leanne Sype

Leanne is a coffee-addicted freelance writer and editor who believes happiness is found in large slices of chocolate cake. Her favorite color is orange, and she loves connecting in community with other writers. Leanne is the founder of Pen to Paper Communications where she indulges her passion in helping individuals and businesses find their story and tell it well. She lives in Portland, OR with her three elderly cats, her husband, and her two adorable kids, all of whom constantly give her good writing material. You can connect with Leanne through leannesype.wordpress.com or on Twitter @pentopapercom.

Week of 2/20/2013

Photo courtesy of Patrick Feller

Words Required

Pocket Watch

Cosmic

Ghost

Vegetable

Train

This is Where the Nightmares Started by Nicole Pyles

This is where the nightmares had started and why they continued.

The train had long since driven on, and hadn't returned in years. Nothing but the ghost of its tracks remained behind. Janet walked down the side of the tracks, the gravel crunching underneath her feet. She hadn't known why she returned, except she remembered this was the place she saw them first.

She sighed deeply and shuddered. The kept her eyes forward on the city up ahead, refusing to look down.

A soft creak broke her thoughts. No, it couldn't be. He couldn't still be here.

She turned her head and looked into the distance. It was an old house, the type you usually would see out by these old train tracks. It nearly blended in with the dust and the dirt. She felt hot underneath her windbreaker. He was waiting for her.

She stepped away from the tracks and walked towards the vision. It was her cosmic calling and time she faced him.

The wind picked up as she walked. A wind that seemed to urge her to go back. To turn away.

It was the same wind she felt when she was seven. Playing with her friends. A game of tag. A flash of something metal on the ground. A hidden pocket watch under the old wooden train tracks that made her stop. The memory flashed before her eyes like a piercing needle in her mind. And when she knelt down ...

... Janet tore herself back to the present. The house was closer now. Clearer. She could see him on the wide porch, rocking back and forth. He stopped. Stood. Ready to face her.

... at that time, when she knelt to pick up the watch, she screamed. A terrorizing scream that filled the air. Yet no one else saw. When her friends ran forward, they didn't see what she did....

The steps to the house were broken and torn up. The weeds from a dying vegetable garden clung to the sides of its walls. If she looked, she could see underneath, but she kept her eyes forward. When she got closer, she noticed his eyes. They were the same. Those eyes that had nothing inside them. The eyes of someone not even human. The hatred. The evil. He was the reason she saw those bodies under the tracks.

And why no one else did.

At least, not until they searched the house at the end of the tracks.

About Nicole Pyles

Nicole Pyles is a writer living in the Pacific Northwest. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Communication in 2011 and works in marketing. When she's not daydreaming about the California sunshine she grew up on, she's writing about fantasy, horror, and science fiction (and sometimes all three at once). She's currently editing a fantasy novel she started when she was 15 (and finished at 25). Most of her editing work is done on her smartphone during her bus ride home. You can visit her blog World of My Imagination or find her on Google Plus.

A Ghost of Herself by Emily Jean Roche

Her calves start to burn. She looks back along the train tracks. Back past the overgrown bushes. Back the way she came. Back to where she doesn't want to return. She looks beyond the overpass and through the summer haze. She walked too far today. She can't even pick out the hospital from the other buildings in the skyline. Hours spent thinking and walking make her mind as sore as her legs. No one ever wonders where she is. Nothing is ever different when she returns. Maybe she should stop for flowers on the walk back. Not that he would appreciate them.

She turns his scratched and dented pocket watch in her hand. Looking at the unmarred side, she recalls the day she gave it to him. It was silly to be nervous. She just wanted everything perfect for their first Christmas together. Sitting in her parents' living room, she had been unsure if he'd like it until the moment he opened the box. He never was a traditionalist, but he understood what tradition meant to her. All the men in her family owned pocket watches. He loved it, of course. She knew by the way his face lit with true appreciation--not the fake, polite kind. He only ever wore it on special occasions. Didn't want anything to happen to it, he said.

She flips his watch over in her hand and rests her thumb in the dent. Why he got it out that day, she'd never know. What was so special? He was picking her up for lunch like every Tuesday. That bus silenced him, and she would never know. All the watch got was a dent. She opens it and checks the time. Noon. Cosmic irony, she calls it. Here, she stands on an abandoned rail line—a ghost of herself, alive and unable to live. There, he lies in an antiseptic hospital room—a vegetable, living and unable to die. She walks back along the tracks, turning his pocket watch over and over in her hand.

About Emily Jean Roche

Emily Jean Roche (@emilyjeanroche) lives in Kentucky with her husband, baby and cat. She works as an elementary school literacy coordinator. The best part of her job is encouraging the next generation of young readers. The second best part is getting to read kids books. Emily enjoys YA and MG fantasy fiction. An aspiring author, Emily has drafted the first book in her YA fantasy series. She also does freelance writing on the side. Website: emilyjeanroche.blogspot.com

Week of 2/27/2013

Creative Commons Photo

Words Required

Cook

Help

Relatives

Tears

Finger

The Distant Mountain and the Barren Tree by Tony Roberts

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?"

The verse flowed from Joseph's lips as tears trickled down his cheeks.

Joseph reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping away the tears. Out of his other pocket, he pulled out a letter, already opened. He began to read through his reddened eyes, following each word with his finger as if trying to decode a hidden meaning.

Dear Joseph,

I never expected I would be writing this to you. I want you to know how much you have meant to me. The last thing I wanted to do is hurt you, but I suppose that is exactly what I am doing. I have met someone else. We are getting married. What more can I say?

Please forgive me,

Leila

Joseph stared at Leila's name and an image came to his mind. The day he said goodbye, just outside her house. He was on his way West to work as a cook at a summer resort. But he wanted to see her one last time. She pledged her love for always. He simply replied, "Thank you." Not "I love you, too." Just "Thank you."

She looked hurt, as if she had fallen and no one was there to pick her up. That was just two months ago, but it might as well have been an eternity. Time is so relative when you are young, when your whole life is ahead of you like a distant mountain. Only, there is no way to cross. Joseph stared at the snow-covered mountain in front of him. He stepped to the edge of the cliff.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help?"

The question kept repeating itself in his mind. There had to be more, but he couldn't think of how it went. He just stared at the distant mountain and imagined Leila's face.

He took another step with his right foot. Suddenly his left leg gave way and he fell to the ground. Reaching out, he grasped hold of a hitching post and pulled himself up. He lay on the ground, heaving for breath.

Then the words came to him. "My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber."

Joseph lay on the ground silently. He looked up at the heavens and took a deep breath in. Relieved. Grieving, but grateful.

He climbed to his feet and walked back to his car. He fumbled for the keys and started the engine.

Before pulling out, he looked over and noticed a tree near the cliff.

Its branches were nearly barren, but it was standing firm.

About Tony Roberts

Tony Roberts is a balding middle-aged Midwesterner