FAMILY TIES

From www.nairaland.com

                           http://infectiveink.com/ for Aug 13, 2013                                             

When young Fancy came to Master’s Big Place, his birth momma, Emma, had him all hugged up in a buttercup yellow blanket.  They glimpsed each other sometimes after that. Emma sometimes found a reason to come up to the Big House and rest her scratchy palm on his head, for a second.

Betsy, the cook, took daily care of him.  At night, she would tell him ‘jump on up’ to the lumpy soft mattress behind the kitchen. Emma slept cross the yard in the Quarters with the hands.

Due to Master’s whim, as he grew, Fancy learned to eat when James, the Master’s son ate, at the low blue table, near him.  He had to be finished whenever James was, so he had to eat quickly.  After lunch, they played hoops and with the red ball.  Soon he was allowed to practice on his own slate, while Tutor Foster lectured and examined James in Master’s study or in the screened porch, if it was very hot.

UNDETERRED

                               .published June, 2013 

About six years ago, a dark-haired, thirtyish man in a white T-shirt pushed an arresting young woman in a wheel chair up the main aisle of the hardware store. She had intense brown eyes, smooth tan skin, like her companion, and exuberant, thick eyebrows.

He approached me. “Do you have a little time you can spend with my sister? Anna has a few questions.”

“Sure. What can I help with?” I said. I was grateful. I am a rover in the store, free to help almost anybody with pretty much anything, but especially a pretty girl.

The girl had the same shiny rich, black hair as her brother, shoulder length. Her upper body was brown and broad; her legs were in jeans, but Velcro-wrapped to the foot rests of the chair.

“Well, I hope you can help me with pulleys, because I have to invent some things. I can picture it, but I need help to get the pieces together.”

Her eyes were mirrors into which I didn’t dare look. “Okay.  Anna, I’m Jerry. What are we building?”

Married Love, Year Thirty

                     Published in U.M.M. Binnacle UltraShorts 2012


Fading memory is now our little family’s art,

And gravity unwraps the careful packaging of youth;

So let’s meet in serenity, embracing grief and joy,

In the mercy of moments that dawn perpetually.

When you quit pressing weekdays into weeks,

And I stop scraping flotsam into heaps,

We’ll come together in the unmapped dark

And shine our flashlights at the moon.