Back in the day, we called them “chicken hawks”. Dad always had that name for them. I would stand in the yard and watch them swirl around while they soared in the skies. That’s how we had always known when there was something that had become one with the Earth by dying when they swarmed the skies like this. It was usually a deer or livestock that was killed by a coyote over the night hours.
Dad stayed out in the country in a small town called Dana, Indiana, and these old birds (ugliest things you would ever see in person) wouldn’t even move at times when you drove by. Dad called them a nuisance, and I think they were too as I look back on them.
We barely saw them in the night sky, but we were sure to see them in the morning and throughout the day. Their soars up high were sort of majestic. It’s when they were on the ground that you could see why he named them the way he did. They look like a mix between a turkey, chicken, and a hawk.
The vulture bird better known as a “chicken hawk” by my father. Image Credit: Julia Calderone, Business Insider
One of my other favorite prompts is this one from Sadje, and it is called What Do You See? We get a picture, and we get to write what we see. The thought is to trigger something creative from the picture, whether it be a story, poetry, or feeling.
Image credit: Being. the. traveler@ Pexels
She didn’t want to remember his pain or his passing. She wanted to remember the times. The times with him that made her smile were the best. He was her love everlasting, and she was his dream come true. Even with death feeling so final, as she lit the candle and set it out on the water, she knew he was finally free.
“Swim in the sea of eternity, My Love. Until we meet again, I will live and breath your breath of life to the skies.”
Even when the fire burnt out, the cord of love was never broken. He was her forever.
Sadje hosts a prompt called What Do You See (WDYS) every Monday, and this week’s writing prompt is especially epic, mystical, and beautiful. I was in awe when I saw it.
Image credit: Kellepics @ Pixabay
Strength fills his arms that grow into wings as he protects this city.
Though faceless, you can feel him watching over each of us.
He hears our worries, our fears, our complaints, our prayers.
The friendly cat meows in the breeze of a sunny day, and she rubs up against the basket filled with fruit, purring loudly and stretching her back against the weave.
The boy says, “Grandma, sit with me a moment! Let me show you what I’ve found!”
Grandma sat beside him and giggled at his amusement with his laptop, “Dear boy, what have you found?” she asks.
The boy says frankly, “Our family tree!”
The cat looks away as she hears a sound in the distance, and Grandma moves closer to see the screen of his laptop.
“Well, isn’t that something? The whole family is there…” She points her finger around at the various names that sat upon the digital tree.
“Grandma, where is my brother’s name…he’s not there?”
The little boy did not know the grown things of their family, like the fact that his brother was adopted into the family.
She spoke with compassion and said, “Remember this, my dear grandson…blood is not always the family you keep. There are those that embrace our lives with their goodness that have no blood in common. Be excited about them too. Family means everything!”
The boy smiled at his grandmother as she sat there fiddling with a piece of stick, and he knew exactly what she was saying. He added his own entry to the tree with his brother’s name. “Family makes the world go around, right Grandma!”
She patted him on the head and nodded in agreement. The kitty followed her as she walked inside.
This post is for Sadje’s What Do You See? I said that I wouldn’t be posting any more of my book, but I couldn’t resist any longer. Plus, I was inspired to start Brooke’s connection with Flannery on this post with the photo that Sadje provided. I put the links at the bottom for the other stories if you are new to my blog and story. Have a great day, and thank you for an awesome prompt Sadje.
Image credit: Photomix company @ Pixabay
Brooke rushed up to the front door with her keys jumbled in her fists. She was trying her hardest to get to the door before he could catch up with her. She had to sort her keys into one hand and put her groceries and the curve of her arm as she fumbled to get the key in the door. As she quickened her pace from the driveway up to the door, she realized that he had caught up with her just as she got her house key into the lock to turn it.
Her face flushed with red from the frustration, and she turned around in an about-face. Her face filled with grit as she asked the man, “What do you want?”
He stopped in his tracks behind her as she flipped her body around in anger and fear. His jaw was clenched so tight that you could hear the grit of his teeth against each other. He was so tall and sturdy that Brooke was in shock at how burley he was. She let out a mewl from the fear she was feeling from being in his close proximity. He said nothing back to her. He just stood there. Still…like a tree that was missing the wind. She kind of thought that he had been following her for days, but she did not want to seem like she was paranoid. He was the man that she had written about in her diary years ago after seeing him at the family’s house. It was Jericho Flannery, and he was nothing but bad news.
Brooke stood there for a moment feeling her body shake within itself. “Look…I don’t want any problems. Finn should be home anytime now. Please go.”
“That’s the problem.” Flannery inched closer to Brooke while speaking. His voice was as rough as his appearance.
“You’re the problem…I am not in love with you, Jericho. I love Finn, and we are going to be together. You need to accept that!” Brooke finished turning the key in her door and pushed it open.
The light from the outside shined into the entryway of her and Finn’s home, and she got one foot in the door when she felt Flannery’s hand on her shoulder. It sent chills down her spine because he was just so cold and sinister. She had always been afraid of him, and he had always looked at her like she was a piece of lunch on his plate.
“Brooke, he’s going to get you killed. I want to be with you.” The scruffy whiskers above his top lip curled up with his scour. “You’re mine, and you will always be mine.”
Brooke winced inside herself. She had never been interested in him, mostly because he was her father’s best friend and much older than she was. He was old enough to be her father, literally. She did not want to entertain any idea of being with him, nor did she want to give him any sort of confirmation that she would never be with him. He was one of those dangerous types, and she didn’t want to be the person that threw him into a rage.
“Look, Jericho…you can come in and have some coffee, but then you need to be on your way.
Jericho’s face turned away from her gaze as he heard a car approaching on the nearby street. “I better be going…see you soon, Brooke. I’ll be seeing you real soon…” He walked away from her down the sidewalk of the house and disappeared into the alley beside her house.
Brooke breathed out a gasp of air she had been holding in the entire time he was standing before her. He had always been so scary in her eyes. If only she would have known then that he had every intention of having her one way or another, she might have disappeared that day.
Just as she finished her shudder over Flannery’s visit, Finn pulled into her driveway, and Brooke felt safe again.
For my new readers, this is an ongoing story. Here are the previous posts:
The bolded and hyperlinked words in the story were using word challenges from the Daily Spur, Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, Ragtag Daily Prompt, Word of the Day Challenge, My Vivid Blog, Your Daily Word Prompt, and Three Things Challenge. This story started from a flash fiction prompt from Fandango.
This post was written for Sadje’s What Do You See? It’s a weekly prompt to trigger our creativity and imagination. Please join us in telling us what you see.
The Ramblings of E.M. Kingston 
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