injaynesworld "Funny Is The New Pretty..."

If you came by to watch me stick my foot in my mouth once again, you're in luck.  I'm doing plenty of that over at Funny Is Pretty today. Come on by and give me some love...

"Like" their Facebook fan page by midnight Friday for a chance to win a copy of "Suitable for Giving; A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry," by yours truly.

injaynesworld "What We Do For Love..."

Clutching fast to the well-worn sweater, the only thing she’d had time to grab before rushing Max out the apartment door, Rebecca shivered against the piercing, cold wind that tore at the thin fabric.

Her friends and family had warned her that caring for Max alone would be hard, and there were times, like now, when she, too, wondered if keeping him had been a mistake. 

But when she felt the warmth of his body snuggling against hers, his breathing in rhythm with her own, and the gaze of those innocent brown eyes, her heart filled and she knew she could not give him up.   They had both been left too many times.

So here she was again, her hand a frozen fist around the leash, waiting for the giant, Shepherd pup to stop his endless circling and do his business in the goddamn snow, while reminding herself that she had put up with a lot worse for love.

This post in response to the prompt “clutch” at Five Sentence Fiction.

injaynesworld "We Don't Do Windows..."

I seldom vacuum and I’m woefully behind the dust ball.   A perk of being single is it’s my mess.   One of my New Year’s resolutions was that I would keep my kitchen table completely free of crap.   I’ve been pretty successful, too, if you don’t notice the piles of said crap that have now managed to migrate to the counter tops.  

On Chicago’s South Side this past week, two people in their 70s were found in their home buried under mounds of trash.   Apparently, their neighbors began to worry when they hadn’t been seen for three weeks.  The couple was hospitalized and both are expected to recover.  You’d think stories like this would scare me into mending my ways.

I’m not a hoarder.   I just can’t seem to win the crusade against clutter.  

But if you think my house is a mess, you should see what’s going on inside my head..   There’s crap in there that’s been collecting for decades:   Old grievances and fears, worries over what has/hasn’t/may happen, unrealized dreams, and a huge assortment of other useless data that may only come in handy should I one day go on a TV game show. 

As another birthday approaches, I’ve resolved to finally get my house in order and to that end I intend to let go of everything that doesn’t serve my highest good. 

And while I’m at it, maybe I should do the windows, too.  It may help me get a clearer view on the world.    

injaynesworld it was "A New Year's Eve to Remember..."

Only moments before, Andrew had been in Times Square alongside all the other revelers, wearing stupid glasses that read “2014,” chugging back a beer with his buddies and watching the mirror ball slowly descend to the shouts of "10… 9… 8 – " and then a sudden vice-like grip on his heart and silence, darkness, a feeling of falling through a cavernous tunnel that slowly got narrower and narrower, squeezing him forward now like a tube of toothpaste, the pressure almost unbearable.  He wanted to cry out, but could not find the breath to do so.

A woman’s scream – distant, yet strangely close, as if he were inside the scream itself – sent his heart racing.  Strong, large hands cupped his head, gently guiding, until he felt himself slide from the tunnel into a light of such brightness he had to squeeze his eyes shut against its painful glare.  

An explosion of sound greeted him, and then the cries of “It's a boy!” mingling with his own.

This post is from the prompt “Moments” at Five Sentence Fiction.   Happy New Year everyone!