I leave Dr. Vargo’s office as I increasingly do, confused and discouraged. After five years of twice-weekly sessions of her trying to find trauma’s etching pieces in my early developmental puzzle –via talk therapy, hypnosis, and regression modalities, but finding nothing — still she insists on finding something that I have to conclude, just isn’t…
Category: fiction
#FF — Keaton Island
Keaton Island My morning bike ride will take me to town, where I’ll pick up sourdough bread and assorted produce from the CSA share. I hear laughter before seeing them. Around the curve, in matching red Adirondack chairs, their gazes are fixed on Keaton Island. I stop and ask if they are on vacation. “Our…
#FF — Hand and Glove
PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart Hand and Glove Holling and I met at university, in the Forestry Program’s biology lab. We teamed up as lab partners, then as more. “Darla, we’ve been together six months. I want you to meet my family.” Flying in a small private plane over dense forest towards the northernmost tip…
#FF — Spoiled
PHOTO PROMPT © Lily Spoiled Although I’m sitting poolside at my villa, sipping Margarita, my soul feels like chipped, latex-coated lead: cheap, artificial, and toxic. The adage goes, how did I get to this place; but I know, know how, and who is to blame. When you’ve had enough trauma cast upon you as an…
#FF — Season One
PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz Season One Snow crunches under Mara’s slippers. Her feet, beyond cold, numb, pain, exist as dead grey. Wooden matchsticks now, she totters until a loud snap. Falling… Waking… Soft mattress, machine breathing, smell of antiseptic, low hum of conversation… Where am I? She opens her eyes and sees a video…
dVerse Prosery Monday — Heard
Publication – is the Auction Of the Mind — Emily Dickinson, from Publication – is the Auction (788) Heard The first things she remembers are screams. Her own. And too much red. Twelve years later… Lilac wafts through window of the third-floor dormitory, waking Dahlia. It’s laundry day. Still an hour before dawn. She pads…
#FF — Why This Time?
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Why This Time? Why this time? Our best vacation ever; on the ocean. Fresh-caught, rosemary-grilled swordfish, with citrus Margaritas, and similar variations of, every dinner. Sweating, rolling in rose-scented sheets each midnight. Your eyes laser onto the hostess’ deep cleavage; the receding ass of our waitress after taking our orders;…
Tao-Talk 