Apr 28, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
PHOTO PROMPT © Mary Shipman
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Fairy tale? Demon-Tale! (Alas, I seem to not have much realistic fiction left in me – I’ll give it another try!)
Shopping Trap
©April 28th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
It was a curious shop. Rolling pins, lamps and chemises hung down. At the far end, wearing a long, dirty nightgown, sat a man, with wispy white hair on his head. His teeth were yellow-stained, his fingernails dirty.
As far as Nina knew, he’d never sold anything. Day after day, she passed his shop; the same things hung down, or sat on the shelf.
Passing one day, she looked straight into his eyes.
His returned gaze rattled her. Despite herself, she entered.
In seconds, the shop, the man, and Nina vanished, before the mournful words, “Another one gone” echoed everywhere.
______________________________________________________________
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Fairy Blog-Mother Extraordinaire for hosting Friday Fictioneers, where we get to meet and mingle with some of the finest story-tellers in the blogging world. Thanks, as well, to Mary Shipman for that photo-prompt!
Tags: #Fantasy-FairyTale-Mystery, #Original 100-word Flash Fiction based on a photo-prompt, #Shopping
Dec 24, 2014 Teaching and Learning
This is Serendipity / My Christmas Eve Story:
We’d done some Christmas shopping at a Tibetan store a couple of weeks ago (S and I), and then, we’d gone to another store, and then to Porter Square Bookstore. We bought a few books, and, as bad luck would have it, left our bags of stuff behind in the store.
AND we forgot ALL about it for the next two weeks. (How COULD I? you ask? It’s easy when you’re sleep-deprived and juddering from one thing to another.)
Then, yesterday, I went looking for the stuff all over the house, and S too, wondered about where they were, independently of me.
We didn’t find it.
Yesterday evening, when we were out to dinner, S said, “I think we left it at the bookstore.”
At first, I thought, “No, I do remember carrying it around.” Then, it struck me. I never carried it out of the bookstore.
So, not to be done in by our forgetfulness, we went there. And, JOY! They HAD one of the bags, which contained gifts for our family and friends — but, SADNESS! They didn’t have another bag of our stuff — which contained, among a few other things, a lovely Tibetan doll that S had prevailed upon me to get her as an un-surprise Christmas present.
We asked the people there to double-check, but they couldn’t find anything else of ours in the Lost and Found.
As we were leaving, we saw one of Warren’s old friends, who works there. We waved to him, and he waved back — you know, just en passant. I didn’t think to say much to him about this, since someone else had already checked the L&F. So, S and I returned to the car, semi-happy, semi-sad at finding some of our things, but not all of them.
S was very, very sad, though. She didn’t blame me for forgetting, being the kind soul that she is. All she said wistfully was, “Wish that doll were alive and could walk home to me.”
I tried to cheer her up, and said, “I KNOW that doll’s out there, waiting for you. I’m GOING to find her!”
So, on an off-chance that I could still get the doll back, I FB-messaged that friend we’d seen in passing, and he said he’d look for it today when he went in to work.
AND he called me this afternoon. YES! He found that doll! Serendipity! My husband went and picked it up. Santa does exist!
S is ecstatic.
Happiness is knowing your child is happy.
Sometimes, I think our bodies know that the things that are bound to us which are of importance are magnetically charged.
Okay, okay! Just being fanciful. Don’t toss things at me, all you logicians out there.
The important thing is that my little girl was reunited with her (discounted to $10.00) doll with the sweet face and traditional dress which had been in a TIbetan store, covered in dust, waiting for the right person to claim her, and once lost, the doll awaited her again, and was found again.
Sentimental?
Hell, yeah!
Merry and Happy, everyone! May you find peace and fulfillment and love in your lives, and may you have good health always!
Love,
Dreamer of Dreams
____________________________________________________________
Tags: #Serendipity, #Shopping, Christmas Eve Story, Doll, Little Girl, Reunited, Santa does exist
May 11, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
Awaiting the Doorbell
©May 11th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Shopping disgusts me
Yet I do it.
Not all the time, mind you.
And usually, it’s for things I need.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth
And a buzz in my brain
As if I vomited out my soul
And helped a corporation’s gain.
I want to not need things
I want to not want things
I want to be unpressured.
I want … to be delivered.
Not packaged, not sealed,
Not signed, just
Delivered
Unto myself,
Sans frills,
Sans frippery,
Sans foolishness,
Sans forgetfulness
Sans flirtation
Sans filigree
Sans fancies
Sans fantasy.
Just plain,
Unbowed,
Unadorned,
Unashamed
Unapologetic
Undefeated
Untired
Alive and awake
In joy and in eternal
Leap mode. And so,
I await the doorbell.
Tags: #Original Poetry, #Shopping, Deliverance, deliverance from needs, Delivery, doorbell, nirvana