The Bettermost Drabblefest: Please Join In!

[notBastet]

     Ennis grabbed Wylie’s waist.  Wind roared up the cliff, pushed them away from the edge.  Wylie’s hair brushed Ennis’s cheek, his lean back pressed against Ennis’s chest. 
     “Steady...”  Ennis held tight, reassuring.  “Jack used to say, ‘Up here, we got the world at our feet.’”  He loosened his grip.  “You okay?”
      Wylie nodded.
      The sky darkened to crimson, the mountains, deep amethyst shadows.
      Ennis winced.  His very first day of school - First grade.  He dropped his marbleized composition book, his #2 pencil and ran to give his best friend Lukas a hug.  He remembered his father’s look... and the whipping.

     100 words

 
 

[notBastet]

I have some Sunday morning prompts...

• struggle

• character

• road blocks

[Clyde-B]

   Ennis remarked that Jack had never mentioned Wylie.  Wylie laughed and said who ever talks about pesky nine year olds?  He said the way Jack had carried on about Ennis, he grew up half believing Ennis was a folk hero.  Their body language and simple talk showed a growing ease.
   The tent they would share was the one where Ennis had spent his last night with Jack.
   “Gone a sleep in the truck.”
   “Ennis, that’s nuts, you’ll freeze your ass, this ain’t September.”
   “How’d you get this tent?”
    “Jack left it last time through, said he wouldn’t be needin it.”


    100 words

[mariez]

.......
    “Jack left it last time through, said he wouldn’t be needin it.”

Bulls-eye, Clyde - straight through the heart. 

Marie

[mariez]

Thanks for the prompts, Kelly 

Heart-to-Heart

Inured to life's struggles, he had always accepted the hand he was dealt and played it out in silence.  He'd never imagined that he would open his heart so easily, so intimately, and he cherished the nightly ritual, feeling the days fly by, knowing that this precious time together was limited.   

For when he held his newborn daughter close and felt their hearts beating in sync, he was able to whisper to her his foolish hopes, deepest fears, and most secret desires.  She accepted them all without question or judgment, her pure and unconditional love a balm on his weary soul.

~~~~~~~
100 Words

[notBastet]

Heart-to-Heart

so sweet, Marie...  here is mine...

Didn’t Jack know he struggled too?  Didn’t Jack know how deadened he was, having to spend practically every damn day of his life hiding?  How he only got to breathe the few times of year they were together? 

He had never said it out loud, but he knew that’s what he did.  Hid almost every bit of himself.  Scared people knowing one part might end up knowing all parts.  He had been doing it for so long, he didn’t know how to stop.  He had tried to tell Jack about it, but Jack never understood the fear.  “Why don’t you just leave?” Jack had said. 

Well, maybe Jack understood the fear, but he sure didn’t understand what it was like being crippled by it. 

“Come back to me, Jack,” he thought, pushing the last bite of pie around his plate.

[Rogue]

     Ennis and Jack had just had another fight about their relationship.  Jack wanted Ennis to be more open, but Ennis still didn't feel comfortable about it.  Sometimes Ennis didn't think Jack completely understood his inner struggle,it was a day to day thing, but it was staring to affect his character. Ennis really wanted everything between him and Jack to work out, but he was sure Jack had to have noticed the change in him, maybe thats why they were fighting more these days. 
     Ennis was starting to hate his father fo ever taking him to see Earl's dead body. That had become the biggest road block in his realtionship with Jack and he didn't know how to make it go away.  The strain it was putting on them, Ennis felt was becoming too much.  Sure they were living that sweet life Jack had always talked about, but Ennis was afraid it wouldn't last.  He had to figure something out quick before it was too late.

[MaineWriter]

Welcome, Rogue. Glad to have you here with us at the drabblefest.

For today, give these a go:

• free will
• penultimate
• "the shingles fell from my eyes"

L

[fernly]

for a prompt from a few days ago... (takes me a while...)



Fair  Enough  - a drabble in four voices


the way your hair curled up along the collar of your shirt
I used to love how the shirt and your skin smelled the same,
sage and wind blown across both

nothing ever fairer

now your hand on the back of my neck, as you're leaving,
and your skin already smells like it will when you get back, rough and desperate,
against the smell your shirt gets from the dryer downstairs, half-burnt

never fair again


they asked what made me fall in love with you,
my friends, acting like they were trying to understand,
they must have been blind and deaf and dead not to know

nothing ever fairer

now there's the pass of your lips across my cheek, as you're leaving,
and your eyes are dull as dust sometimes, mine too,  I think,
and our words blow past each other like dry leaves

never fair again


mouth on mouth, the other's breath we drink like water,
hands tracing lines of bones, needing to know again, leaving bruises,
don't need a watch to count the hours, sun burning into us
when we're out in the dust, sage crushed underneath, driven into our skins,
scratches and blood that go black in the moonlight, every night
the moon changing, eaten up by the shadows, don't need a watch
to count how little is left

nothing ever fairer
never enough

[Clyde-B]

      Mrs. P. and Wylie retired for the night leaving Ennis alone by the fire.  He found himself haunted by the uncertainties of his life, whispering to him like ghostly characters.  Would Jack still be alive if he’d been with him that last day?  Could they have navigated the road blocks to a sweet life? 
      Struggling to free his thoughts he stared at the moon floating full in its sea of stars.  The wind played with his hair, bringing with it the scent of pine resin, mountain sage and fading embers.
     I got paradise alright, but nobody to share it with.


      100 words