Three Five-Sentence Stories-GBE2#127

Submitted for GBE2 Week#127

He Guards The Echoes of His Memory

Forty years and a day ago, he had it all--laughter, love,youth, and a family of warmth joined safely together in his living room . Nobody ever sees a tornado coming from their blind side. He didn't watch the weather channel that morning before he rolled out of the driveway. Something the sky was brewing was on its way, and it appeared as dark as the end of time...as eerie as a ghostly fist repeatedly pounding the same dreadful chord.

 Forty years and a day later, the neighborhood children take turns daring each other to startle the long-bearded man with dusty eyes, who stares all day and night at the broken-down shack  that so wearily leans over the edge of a dead-end street; but he hears and sees no distractions...he'll never leave or lose sight of home again.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Runner

Every evening she takes long runs that lead to anywhere but there. If she runs fast enough, she could almost be the invincible wind...nothing could ever snatch the wind when it flies through the dark. A hope beats beneath her chest that this is the final run that will put the screaming daylight to rest. She knows if she turns to look back at the long stretch of road behind her, she'll see bruises everywhere, and that solid white line will become a scar that connects the past to now.

Suddenly, a pale little girl--with the woman's same scared sound, though much younger voice --
hurries and catches up to the runner just as she collapses near the bridge; kneeling beside her, she asks with good-bye eyes, to be rocked to sleep one last time.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Autumn's Paint

She climbed as far north as she could up October's tree, and waited patiently until December--but she still felt the same when the first snow finally came. She shook her hair in the brisk air hoping her thoughts would drop with fall. The tag on her clothes described what little girls were made of, and the fancy ladies they must grow to be. The mirror on the wall told her she should love a boy or not at all. Now Autumn has run out of paint, and it doesn't matter, because changing her true colors was never a possibility.

Today is Okay

Today all is okay

Death stayed

deep in the black

Of the last funeral

And did not come forward

To make geese

push through the freckles

Of my smooth skin

With its cold breath

Today the sky

 is soft

And safe

All the souls

Have placed their blankets down for a picnic

None have booked a flight

And all I see

Is an angel

Peeking through

The opening of a cloud

To check on me

And she leaves

With her smile

Because I’ve got plenty

Because I am at rest

Because some days

Loyalty shines brighter

Than a cloudless sun

Stronger than the endurance

of a summer’s blazing day

And I can bask in it

With no burning risk

 And I can sing

all the things I love about it

And pluck every blooming chance

I once walked by

 with closed eyes

through a dreamy spring

Buried Word

There was a word

Laying on the silence

Of a body of sorrow

Unmoved by the wind

Whispering its strong concern

There was a word

Stuck in dark seclusion

Unmotivated

by the determination

Of dawn’s touch

There was a word

that couldn’t find a voice

To lift it to its heaven

To rescue it

From the layers of uncertainty

Shoveled over it like a grave

All it could do

Was remain a slave

To nothing