"Leaning In" (Prompt Flash Fiction Content Written In 15 Minutes)

Description: A woman takes a journey to a lagoon where she hopes to experience a healing, and experiences an emotional connection once she arrives.

We were at the lagoon: the one that is known for its magical healing properties--the one spelled with a capital L--the one that is Negra because of the dark water that represents the Void where all answers and solutions reside.

I almost didn't make it to the mid-line of the mountain where Laguna Negra makes her home, grounded between two large stone formations looking like the face of the Incan ancestors from whom the legends about her were passed on from generation-to-generation.

Anemia choked my chest, and the breath became strange and stranger to me as we made the climb to reach her sacred space of tears that flowed from the heavens down the mountain into her liquid womb to fill her up: the largest cup for the seeker.

I was so breathless that the best I could do was to lay down my burdened body over a flat rock and lean my face in as close as I could, darkness regarding darkness.

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You can also LISTEN to the reading of the story (1:18 minutes)

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Note: Leaning In was written while participating in a writer's group with about 11 participants in Northern, NJ. A number of  writing prompts were provided, "leaning in" was one of them, and we all had fifteen minutes to write a story using that prompt.

Creative writing, storytelling has been (and continues to be) an extremely strong healing channel for me (journaling, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, songwriting, blog writing, and now, moving into screenwriting). There's nothing I can't touch, explore, release, imagine through writing.

Check out Elizabeth Levine's "The Writer's Rant" online publication. She describes it as . . . For all aspiring writers, follow the journey of memoir writing and the therapeutic process of writing to heal. Elizabeth Levine, M.F.A. Candidate in Creative Writing documents her process of writing What Remains, a memoir addressing issues of bereavement, loss, PTSD, AIDS and substance abuse and the redemptive process of documenting both her own story and that of the AIDS community. 

Holidaze (Excerpt From A Short Story About the Death of My Mother)

I am sharing an excerpt from a short story about the affect of my mother's death on my life (Sarah Bernice Turner Oliver Hoskins, March 2, 1933 - September 12, 1979).

A book of short stories is a component of my memoir project that's been in storage for a while. This one is from Holidaze in the chapter titled, "The Anniversary." The short story isn't finished yet, nor has it been edited (I've no guilt about imperfections as per this guest post at The Healing Artist Studio Project blog), but I'm happy that my Creator has guided me to share it with you just the same. Remember to hug your mother and tell her you love her. Love, serenity and joy to you and your loved ones.

HOLIDAZE
by Valerie Michele Oliver

THE ANNIVERSARY. 
I write. We buried her. Anger, sadness, and numbness competed inside me for priority. When I last saw my mom, she was not the person I wanted her to be: the face with the perpetual smile. She tried to be though, attempting smiles through urine-soaked eyes, and dry, wrinkled skin. She vacillated between being skeletal thin or bloated, expanding with intravenous fluids. Eyes full of sorrow and desperation, she asked me to take her home, far from the intensive care unit.
“I want to go home,” she stated. Her eyes looked into mine. I imagined tiny striped and solid pool balls in her mouth. Yeah. I smoked some extremely potent weed on the ride down from Athens, GA to Savannah. I shook the hallucination off.

I held her bony, frail hand, returned her look, and responded, “I can’t, Ma. This is the best place for you.”

That was not the answer she wanted to hear. Perhaps, she thought I hadn’t heard her the first time. Perhaps, she was expecting me to be the strong one, and take charge as I had many times in the past when she had been able to rely on me.

 
“I want to go home. Please. Take me home.” It was more urgent this time. A few of the balls fell out of her mouth and shattered on the floor. Tiny, white, thin skeletons laid among the remains.

“Ma, I wish I could, but I can’t. They can take better care of you here. Now eat something. Please ma, you’ve got to keep up your strength, so you can fight this thing and get better. Drink this juice. It will help you get stronger.” I placed the juice up close to her lips. She forced herself to take a few sips. I knew that it was not for her benefit, but for mine.

“Please. Please, take me home.” She had tears in her eyes now, and pleaded through them. My hand was in hers, and I knew that if she had more strength, she would have pulled me closer to her by them. It wasn’t happening, but I felt that pull anyway. I knew I couldn’t take her away. I had no power in this situation. My stepfather had all the control, and was calling the shots (which in my mind were bad ones). At that time, I loathed myself for being weak. I told myself, “You’re weak.” And after she died, I blamed myself. I was weak. 

That evening, when to hospital rooms were dark, and most of them quiet, I laid on a cot next to my mother's bed listening to her breathing. I don't remember sleeping, but do listening. Her breathing became low moans like the kind you have when you dream someone is chasing you, and about to catch you, and you're trying to scream but it comes out like muffled moans. I climbed into her bed, put my arms around her, stroked and rocked her, and said "I love you." This was what she needed. What she didn't get from her husband. It was the exact opposite of what he offered her as she slipped away, everyday . . . a little . . . death. It was what she needed, and I gave it to her. 

That morning, I left town. I returned to my home about four hours away from the hospital. She told me she wanted to leave. I believed her, but could not face that she was dying, and that I couldn’t even grant her last urgent wish. I felt that I deserted her. She deserted me a few hours after I left. I got the call only minutes after I returned home. She checked out on her own.

Less than an hour after I returned home, the phone rang with news of her death. Three voices on the telephone, my sisters and my brother, spoke to me. “She’s dead,” said a voice. Was anyone crying? “She died not too long after you left,” said another.

I dialed my best friend. It was time for her to take charge, and she was definitive: “I’ll be right over.” Company and comfort were on the way. I rolled a joint and smoked it—a familiar, unconscious pattern to help distance reality. I shed my clothing—anesthetized—and stepped into the bathtub. I stood washed away by tears underneath the shower head. They kept flowing. They soaked my body. They went down the drain.

copyright © 2016 Valerie Michele Oliver

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Check out Elizabeth Levine's "The Writer's Rant" online publication. She describes it as . . . For all aspiring writers, follow the journey of memoir writing and the therapeutic process of writing to heal. Elizabeth Levine, M.F.A. Candidate in Creative Writing documents her process of writing What Remains, a memoir addressing issues of bereavement, loss, PTSD, AIDS and substance abuse and the redemptive process of documenting both her own story and that of the AIDS community.  

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"Back Up the Truck" (Prompt Flash Fiction Written in 15 Minutes) by Valerie Michele

Description: Two kids are up to some pay back against an adult who hurt someone they love.

"Back up the truck," I whispered under the shade of night.

It was about that time when the moon was up in the sky and the sun would have its turn soon. It was April Fool's Day and O'Neal wanted to play a trick on his Uncle Charlie.

My best friend O'Neal (whose real name was Maurice, but he hated it and liked the name in the middle) asked me to help him. I snuck out of my house and met him at the side of his house in the alley like he asked.

I didn't want to do it when he asked me earlier, and then I asked him: "How are you gonna move his truck into the middle of the street?"

"I know how to do it. I learned how to drive a truck when me and my mom lived at our farm in North Carolina," he said in a way that shut me up. So I did what he asked and made sure there were no cars coming down the street, and ran up to the truck door where he sat at the wheel with a fuck-you-Uncle-Charlie-for-beating-my-mom-yesterday look on his face.

He looked down at me and asked, "Back up the truck now?"

I looked both ways again and saw only parked cars and street lamps and some cats knocking around something.

"Yeah, do it now,' I whispered.

I caught his here we go look.

He put the truck in reverse.

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You can also LISTEN to the reading of the story (1:38 minutes)

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Back Up The Truck is the word prompt used to write this story. Prompts can be very useful when experiencing writer's block, to get straight to the heart of the matter, and as a way to get the creative juices flowing.

Creative writing, storytelling has been (and continues to be) an extremely strong healing channel for me (journaling, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, songwriting, blog writing, and now, moving into screenwriting). There's nothing I can't touch, explore, release, imagine through writing.

Check out Elizabeth Levine's "The Writer's Rant" online publication. She describes it as . . . For all aspiring writers, follow the journey of memoir writing and the therapeutic process of writing to heal. Elizabeth Levine, M.F.A. Candidate in Creative Writing documents her process of writing What Remains, a memoir addressing issues of bereavement, loss, PTSD, AIDS and substance abuse and the redemptive process of documenting both her own story and that of the AIDS community.