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

"Mommy, wouldn't it be fun to climb onto an empty train car like the Littlest Hobo on TV and explore the country, stop in new towns and meet new people?" Her daughter said one day after they had stopped to watch a long cargo train pass.

"Yes it would be, but you know we can't do that."

"Why not?" said her daughter in a demanding tone. "It would be fun to see new places, travel around like a circus. We never get to go anywhere."

III

Her daughter was now a teenager and preferred trips into town with older boys who had cars. She never knew where her daughter was half the time anymore, or got a straight answer when she asked. Her husband had started drinking and her daily walks seemed to drag out longer and longer as she stopped more often to feel sorry for herself and the life she'd wasted. If only ... But it was too late now.

It was summer holidays and a rare day that her daughter was home and looking bored so she knocked on her half open bedroom door and said "Let's go for a walk into town, we can stop for coffee."

"Yeah, sure," mumbled her daughter.

They walked along the tracks in silence. The bright sun was at it's fullest point in the sky, and they stopped in a patch of shade to rest.

"Mom, did you ever want to leave this town?"

"Sure I did!"

"So why didn't you? Why did you stay in this hole?"

"Well, sometimes things don't happen the way we'd like them to, and we have to just accept what we've got." she said with a hint of sadness.

"That's not going to happen to me. As soon as I graduate, I'm leaving this stupid town."

IV

Her daughter had moved to Vancouver two years ago. She rarely came home. She called every now and then, talked about all the exciting city things she was doing, but she didn't understand half of what her daughter was talking about.

"Why don't you catch a bus and come stay with me for ahwile?" her daughter asked.

"No, no, it's too crowded there for me, too noisy. I'd just get lost! Why don't you come home for a visit instead?"

Her daughter seemed frustrated by her response. She couldn't figure out why.

V

Her daughter was moving again, this time to New Zealand, it seemed she had grown tired of her job on the cruise ship. She couldn't understand why she kept moving. It seemed like with each move she was sliding further and further away from her. Her daughter had no intentions of coming home it seemed. Two and a half years ago when she was living in Taiwan her daughter offered to pay for a plane ticket to fly her out for a visit. Taiwan was so far away, she was too scared to make the trip alone. She politely declined and asked her daughter if she was coming home for Christmas. She no longer reacted in surprise when her daughter said no.

She put on her winter coat, and walked to town, her usual way along the tracks. Stepping out of the way for a train to pass, she stood next to a lone tree, it's leaves long since fallen. She did not notice the direction the train was headed.

About Yolanda Tong

Yolanda Tong is originally from Canada, but travelled extensively before finally settling in Melbourne, Australia at the base of the Dandenong mountains. She is inspired by nature, driven by emotion, and loves to write about all that is sensed but not seen.

Week of 8/8/2012

Photo courtesy of Kristoffer Sorensen

Words Required

Skyscraper

Bet

Reform

Balcony

Surface

Touch Me Not by Carrie K. Sorensen

It grew between one day and the next. The depths were green, fading out to a pale yellow and pointed tips sharper than glass. It was unlike any plant my parents had ever seen. When Grandpa saw it he glared.

"Don't go looking too hard at that, Jules."

"Mama and Daddy are looking," I snipped back.

"They ain't young. Now reform that attitude."

"So you know what it is?" Grandpa scowled at the thing in the middle of our field.

"It's a Skyscraper," he said. "It's best if we just stay away."

Before the afternoon was through, neighbors and travelers had come to see the Skyscraper that was now twice as tall as a man.

"I bet it will grow up to the clouds." I say, hanging out the kitchen window. Grandpa didn't look up from his whittling.

"I suppose it may."

"Has it grown here before?"

"When I was about your age," he answered reluctantly. "Now get back in here. That ain't no balcony to be hanging over." I huffed and continued cleaning dishes.

I was in bed when Mama and Papa came in, exhausted and upset about the damage done to the crops by all the people wanting to see the Skyscraper.

"Don't you worry about that field," Grandpa's voice rumbled so deep I could feel it in my chest. "You worry about that girl. Make sure she stays in bed."

"I'm sure she will," Mama replied.

Grandpa harrumphed. A chair scraped closer to my door and I heard the whisper of knife over wood.

Outside never really got dark. I watched the sun go down through my window. but a soft yellow light kept the air glowing. The moon must be out, reflecting off the Skyscraper. I had to see it.

I got up, easing the casement open, listening to Grandpa's snores as I slipped out the window. I walked through the tall grass around the house, gasping when I saw the light was coming from the Skyscraper. It was tall, reaching all the way to the heavy clouds covering the sky.

Each step took me closer, each blade of grass bending out of my way. I walked reverently around the Skyscraper, studying each pointed leaf. Only the ends looked sharp. If I was careful, I should be able to feel the surface of the smooth blade without hurting myself.

The strange leaves parted, giving me more room to explore. The leaf I was tracing began to curl back, changing from a sharp edge to a hand. I looked up in surprise, meeting a pair of green eyes, a face framed with spiky yellow hair. His hand wrapped around mine, pulling me in. The Skyscraper cracked, each leaf fracturing, crinkling and falling like broken glass. I had to get away, to get out from under the falling shards, but my eyes were trapped in his.

He pulled me in as the Skyscraper fell around me.

About Carrie K. Sorensen

I am the mommy of two fantastic little boys, three boxers and one mutt. My husband and my story is truly a fairy tale of modern origins. I attended Arizona State University for a B.A. but am lucky enough to be a stay at home mother to my amazing brood.

I write in whatever free time I can steal for myself, mostly fantasy or paranormal. I have lived in the country, the city and the suburbs, and I definitely prefer the suburbs. Still, the forest is what inspires me most, with velvet shadows, hidden nooks and possible fairy circles around the next corner.

http://chasingrevery.blogspot.com

 One Last Gift by Melissa Gardiner

She was still wearing his t-shirt when the blue box arrived. The postman handed her the

parcel, not meeting her gaze. They had been playing this game for the past two weeks - the postman and the woman. Every day he delivered condolence letters and "Sorry for your loss" cards, and every day he would avoid her red, swollen eyes. And she would will him to look at her, burning holes into the top of his head as he fumbled in his bag before whipping out the thick wad of pastel-coloured envelopes tied together with an elastic band. But, he couldn't look at her. Nobody could.

The death of a loved one is a tragedy.

Suicide is worse.

This morning there were no envelopes, just the parcel - no label, no card, no letter saying where it had come from. She waited for the postman to scurry back down the garden path before shutting the door and placing the box down on the kitchen table.

She wasn't sure how she knew it was from him, but she did. There were no tears left so she cried dry, crusty sobs, her body shaking with grief and anger.

On the surface, life had been good for a while. But, she had always lurked on the outside of something dark. A man trapped in his own nervousness, she had tiptoed around his neuroses, his panic attacks, the fear that somebody, somewhere was out to get him. He was a reformed drug addict when they had first met (so was she), but she hadn't realised the extent to which the drugs had rotted his brain until he started having the attacks after their first year of marriage. He had been to see doctors, who prescribed pills.

It was the pills that brought on the depression.

"You know that feeling of falling you get sometimes in your sleep?" He would whisper in her ear, as she lay on his chest, her head rising and falling with each breath he took. "It's like being pushed off the top of a skyscraper, and you just feel like you are going to fall forever. But, you can't. You know that one day you have to land. One day you'll be nothing but a splatter on a pavement. And after falling for so long, you start to crave that release ... the crack of your body hitting rock bottom."

She wondered with an empty laugh, whether he had lived long enough to hear his own body crack on the cement pavement below the hotel balcony he'd thrown himself from.

The medics had said, "Dead on Impact".

They found nothing in the hotel room - no suicide note, just his empty wallet and an old bet slip from Paddy Power. He had won a fiver the day he killed himself.

She picked up the last ever gift from her dead husband, and threw the box and its contents out of the kitchen window and into the flowerbed below.

About Melissa Gardiner

Melissa Gardiner was born on December 11, 1985. She grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and attended Collegiate Girls' School. Melissa began writing at an early age, typing short stories on her grandfather's rusted typewriter at her family's dining room table, and continued to write throughout her school years, winning various academic awards for her written work. Melissa describes herself as an "observer with a love for detail" and it was this quality together with her love for the writing that led Melissa to study towards a degree in Journalism and Media studies at Rhodes University, where she graduated at the end of 2007. Melissa is currently living in London and writing her first novel. She blogs about life as a 'wannabe writer' over at My Unpublished Life (http://unpublishedworksofme.blogspot.co.uk/)