The ant scurried across the cement floor as Jeremy lay still. The days were long in this place, but Jeremy had learned that time passed faster if he kept his body still and his mind alert. He watched the ants as they carried the crumbs from his food tray from the door to the window and out the tiny cracks that grew slightly larger by the day. Today there was just one little black form struggling to carry a crumb three times its size. Jeremy admired its determination. His own movements, unlike that of the ant, were imperceptible. One corner, one chip, one millimeter at a time, the crack enlarged. Where once the ants had to traverse single file, now they came in groups of three or four. Soon, Jeremy knew, as long as he kept his body still, larger things would come through. A cockroach, maybe. Then a mouse, drawn in by the tiny crumbs across the floor.
The guards were terrified of mice, Jeremy knew. It was the reason he was imprisoned here. He gifted their limp bodies to his jailers until they locked him up. It was only a matter of time until a living, scurrying rodent would join him in the cell. At feeding time, the mouse would escape, the guards would flee, and Jeremy would leap through the open door to freedom.
Line’s too long. The book’s title eludes me, but my girlfriend told me to buy it and “fix my anger issues” (just like her to overreact). The store’s only clerk works checkout like she’s showing us how the equipment works at a riverside picnic; isn’t this one nice, if you like that one, you’d love this, and look-it’s-already-in-your-stack-you’ve-got-great-taste. Bloke in front of me agonizes over whether to return his book to the shelf, and I should shove him out of line and give him time to think. Imagine him crashing into a bookshelf and collapsing the whole setup. Everyone could go home.
Cashier’s buttons display tiny slogans about what our government bans from libraries. Her tip jar says, “help a reader out.”
“You know anything about this book?” I ask.
She writes the title – On Emptiness, by some Bhutanese monk – on a notepad of books to read. “Not yet.”
I fork over the dough. Is my girlfriend telling me I’m nothing on the inside?
The car ride home is another line. Street racers crashed, so I inch past the cops redirecting traffic and snap back up to ten above. I deserve my own Hollywood chase scene.
I can’t show off my new used book. Girlfriend’s not home.
My double-shot coffee finishes before the first chapter. I jitter, brew herbal tea, take a walk, and bring the book.
Its first word, “now,” is highlighted and underlined. Store has no return policy.
(after my father and whatever this sky is doing today)
….
I woke up not from sleep but from a kind of ambient vibration like when the fridge hums too long and you finally notice it and I thought ah yes today is the day for stillness and the universe said ok girl but not too much so I poured coffee into a chipped mug because all the good ones are in the sink and the sink is a metaphor obviously and I sat outside with a grapefruit and no spoon and I peeled it with my fingers like an animal which felt holy and citrus sprayed into the air like the beginning of something or the end and the dogs barked in the distance like a warning or maybe applause and I remembered a lover who said nothing is ever truly still and she meant atoms or love or maybe me and I watched the clouds argue over who gets the sun and the wind didn’t pick a side it just kept moving like a gentle betrayal and the world didn’t stop but it did slow down and I think I saw the ground breathing just a little the way a sleeping cat does and I realized I had not moved in twenty minutes except to chew and maybe that’s the journey maybe stillness isn’t absence but presence without choreography maybe I am not drifting I am docking maybe today I am the harbor not the ship and I don’t need punctuation to prove it
Gloria, this instantly reminded me of our German expression “die Seele baumeln lassen”—to let the soul dangle. Letting thoughts arrive, linger, and drift again, never quite rooting, never disturbing the stillness itself.
There’s something in the way you wrote this—like breath and weather, like grief and grapefruit—that doesn’t just describe stillness, it becomes it. That moment of peeling without a spoon? Sacred.
Today, I’m letting my soul dangle a little longer because of this. Beautiful streamed.
The cliff rose high above the sea, cutting into the sky. Kia sat there for hours, his legs hanging over the side, the wind pulling at his hair. Below, the waves crashed against the rocks, loud and wild, like the thoughts in his head. He had come here to get away—from the noise, the pressures of life.
He closed his eyes and let the quiet sink in. For a moment, everything seemed to stop. The birds were silent, the wind calmed, and even the sea seemed to hush. In that stillness, Kia felt something he hadn’t in a long time: peace. He realized he wasn’t running from life—he was running toward it. The mess he was afraid of was just on the surface. Underneath, there was something deeper, something waiting for him.
Taking a deep breath, Kia stood up. The horizon stretched out far and wide, full of possibilities. Without thinking twice, he stepped off the edge. For a second, he hung in the air, feeling light and free. Then the sea rushed up to meet him, its cold water shocking him awake. As he sank into the depths, the noise of the world faded into silence.
When he came up for air, the cliff stood tall above him, a reminder of the calm he had found. Kia swam to the shore, ready to face whatever came next.
The cat stretches into the sun patch. I sit in quiet. Not waiting—becoming.
This stillness holds weight. It isn’t absence. It’s origin. The journey of stillness is how I return to myself—not as echo, not as thought, but as presence.
I no longer fill the silence. I embody it. In this stillness, I hear the voice I once longed for—compassionate, firm, clear. It is mine now.
Every word I write from here stands for justice. Every pause speaks for those whose voices were crushed. I stand not above, but with.
I do not charge forward. I root down. My strength grows not in noise, but in empathy, in the soft persistence of water shaping stone.
This canyon remembers what the world forgot: that dignity lives in breath, that power does not have to roar.
In stillness, I listen for the interconnectedness of all things. I listen, and then I speak—not louder, but truer.
I’m no Charon. Nothing so grandiose. Nothing so mythological. Literally. No ferrying across the Stygian rapids. Blue collar all the way.
I’m just a simple working guy. No tariffs need apply. This is not a job like making sneakers they can send away to preteens in Malaysia. I’m hands on all the way. Customer service included. Brawn and brains. And heart.
They call me Fleetwood Mac cuz that’s the model I drive. I fix ‘em up. Keep ‘em running smooth. AND I drive ‘em. That’s what business school calls vertical integration. The Cadillac Fleetwood is the most popular brand of hearse in the United States. Has been since the 1930’s. Think of all those poor bastards always dreaming of owning a Cadi and finally get their first ride in one as a stiff.
Once I tune ‘er up I doff the coveralls and throw on the dark suit, my only, from that warehouse sale. Still fits like a glove. Change my shoes and socks, this is a class operation. Never had a complaint from a passenger yet.
I can’t offer wisdom. Can’t offer relief. But I can offer no satellite radio. No Yankees on the AM band. One last thing I can offer. Respect. A journey of silence. Journey of stillness.
this one rumbles with quiet swagger and unexpected reverence. I felt the grease under the nails and the weight behind the wheel—the dignity in doing the job right, without myth or drama. That turn from Fleetwood Mac to Cadillac hearse to “no complaints yet” made me laugh out loud, then swallow hard. You gave “journey of stillness” a working-class soul, and it hit me square in the chest. Nothing performative, just presence. Just respect. That stays with me.
The monk arrived at the city center, dragging a worn wooden chair with one uneven leg. He placed it in the middle of a crowded intersection at rush hour. Cars honked and swerved around him while the pedestrians filmed the scene on their phones.
The monk sat, spine straight, folding his hands.
He did not move.
Day cycled to night. Rain tapped on his shoulders. Still, he sat, unmoved. News anchors arrived to speculate... is it a protest? Maybe performance art? One journalist checked nearby mental asylums to see if any residents escaped.
Three days later, a woman skipped going to her job and decided to join him. No chair. Just the floor.
By day six, there were over twenty people. Four days later the mayor banned sitting citing its causing “economic lethargy.”
Police personnel arrived with batons and citations. When they tried to lift the monk, their arms suddenly felt heavy. Their feet became sluggish. One officer sat down “just to catch his breath.” He never got up.
Soon, the city productivity dropped 37%. The streets were peaceful and birdsong filled the air.
The monk never spoke. When he finally vanished, he left behind a note on the chair.
“The journey of stillness is not escape.
It is resistance without fists.
Attention without violence.
A revolution of being.”
Every year, a stranger approaches the chair. They sit.
To remember that the world is allowed to stop and be still.
I felt my breath slow as I read this—your stillness worked. The monk’s presence, quiet yet seismic, felt like a tuning fork struck deep in the center of a chaotic world. You built a revolution in hush tones, one sitting body at a time. That line—*“resistance without fists, attention without violence”*—gave me chills. You reminded me that sometimes the most powerful act is not doing, but being. I’ll be thinking about that chair for a long while. And maybe, someday, I’ll sit too.
Hall lay in his bed, dreaming of Molly, of their first meeting at Mr. Malcolm's farm, where they'd both landed summer jobs. Molly was different from the other girls, she was more of a tomboy, but he loved the way that she wasn't afraid of anything, and could work as hard and long as he, but was smart as a whip, too. Mr. Malcolm's sheep had escaped that day and were gobbling up the peppers, so Hall and Molly helped the old farmer herd them back to the pasture. Of course this was much easier said than done, and by the time the gate was securely latched behind the last woolly truant, they were covered in sweat and dust and burrs, but Molly just grinned merrily as though it had all been great fun. And of course, with her by his side, it had been a grand adventure. The vision of Mr. Malcolm's farm began to fade... "Molly, Molly, where are you," he cried. He awoke, but everything was indistinct and foggy, except for the pain ripping back into his innards.
His daughter, Jess had been holding his wasted hand as he slept. She saw his hands contract into tight balls, as he began to stir, moaning inarticulate sounds that she didn't understand. It was time for the hospice nurse to give Hall more morphine. As the pain eased, Hall slipped back to the dream world, where his Molly still lived.
Hall dreamed of long past family celebrations, of long walks in the woods with Molly, of sitting together before the fireplace, reading books as the winter winds howled outside the windows. He dreamed of the tastes of the first harvest of asparagus, the sweetness of new strawberries, the buttery feasts of corn on the cob. He dreamed of the rich tang of freshly baked sourdough bread, the soft powdery scent of their newborn children's hair, the welcome perfume of lilacs blooming in spring. He dreamed of all the things that he and Molly had ever shared, awakening from time to time into pain-filled confusion, only to be gently lulled back into his happy remembrances.
After his last dose of morphine, Hall's breathing became shallow and labored, and it was clear that he would not awaken again. As his children tearfully gathered about his bed to keep him company during his last journey of stillness, Hall dreamed one last dream of Molly, a dream of quite another kind of journey. They were sitting on the deck during the last summer before her death, watching the hummingbirds swoop and hover around the feeders, Molly holding his hand. One of the hummingbirds, the one Molly liked to call Roberto, landed upon their intertwined fingers, and that was when Hall felt himself dissolving with Molly, into a mist of swirling colors. The cloud that had once been Hall and Molly merged with Roberto, who took off into the promising blue skies, carrying the old lovers away from pain and into the eternal joy of togetherness.
this touched something very deep in me—the way you held tenderness and ache in the same breath. Hall’s journey of stillness didn’t feel like an ending, but a quiet homecoming. I felt the dust and burrs of the pasture, the sweetness of strawberries, the hush of winter winds—and in the end, that luminous dissolve into the hummingbird’s wings felt like grace itself. Thank you for bringing such vivid warmth to a moment that is so often cloaked in silence. I’ll carry that image of Roberto for a long time.
Thank you. I am so glad that you saw the tenderness as well as the ache. I grew up on a farm, and most farm kids acquire a nodding acquaintance with death.
That phrase—a nodding acquaintance with death—lands so gently and truthfully. It carries the quiet reverence of having seen life’s full arc up close, not in theory, but through daily witness. I felt that grounded tenderness in your story, the way love and loss sat side by side without spectacle.
Thank you for bringing that ache to the page in such a steady, generous way.
This is a cool idea! I like the idea of collaboration, but I definitely need more of a heads up. For this time around, I kind of collaborated with myself - this is a sequel to another short story I recently published, "One Last Dance with Roberto." (https://jeannine85f.substack.com/p/one-last-dance-with-roberto)
After a long week of imploding demands from his boss, Henry looked forward to a weekend at the cottage where he and his buddies could unwind.
Unfortunately, instead of his buddies, who all cancelled at the last minute, he had the solitude of the lake to himself. He was not looking forward to this as he was not in favour of doing things by himself. He always liked to be busy and pushing his boundaries where possible.
Late that night he picked up his wife’s book, A Journey Into Stillness. It always perplexed him as to how she could read these self improvement books. With nothing better to do he settled down in his favourite chair and began to read. Within an hour he was hooked. Somehow this book spoke to him like it was written only for his own personal satisfaction. He noted a few things so much so that he was surprised when the sun rose over the eastern shore.
Henry put the book down and wandered down to the dock. He sat there cross legged looking out at the water, watching the gentle waves ripple to the shoreline. He had never seen a sunrise at the cottage. It shocked him how beautiful it was.
He smiled as his journey of stillness had come at just the right time.
Forgot to say - I really, really like the idea of getting us to do a longer thing every few weeks or so. The collaboration thing sounds fun too, if we can sort our shit out (no mean feat, for sure).
If anyone else wants to do something featuring a mashie niblick, well...
This sounds like a fun new idea! It'll be very interesting to see what everyone comes up with, and if we can make some of the stories connect together... 😎👍
227 words:
The ant scurried across the cement floor as Jeremy lay still. The days were long in this place, but Jeremy had learned that time passed faster if he kept his body still and his mind alert. He watched the ants as they carried the crumbs from his food tray from the door to the window and out the tiny cracks that grew slightly larger by the day. Today there was just one little black form struggling to carry a crumb three times its size. Jeremy admired its determination. His own movements, unlike that of the ant, were imperceptible. One corner, one chip, one millimeter at a time, the crack enlarged. Where once the ants had to traverse single file, now they came in groups of three or four. Soon, Jeremy knew, as long as he kept his body still, larger things would come through. A cockroach, maybe. Then a mouse, drawn in by the tiny crumbs across the floor.
The guards were terrified of mice, Jeremy knew. It was the reason he was imprisoned here. He gifted their limp bodies to his jailers until they locked him up. It was only a matter of time until a living, scurrying rodent would join him in the cell. At feeding time, the mouse would escape, the guards would flee, and Jeremy would leap through the open door to freedom.
Fun! 🤩
Line’s too long. The book’s title eludes me, but my girlfriend told me to buy it and “fix my anger issues” (just like her to overreact). The store’s only clerk works checkout like she’s showing us how the equipment works at a riverside picnic; isn’t this one nice, if you like that one, you’d love this, and look-it’s-already-in-your-stack-you’ve-got-great-taste. Bloke in front of me agonizes over whether to return his book to the shelf, and I should shove him out of line and give him time to think. Imagine him crashing into a bookshelf and collapsing the whole setup. Everyone could go home.
Cashier’s buttons display tiny slogans about what our government bans from libraries. Her tip jar says, “help a reader out.”
“You know anything about this book?” I ask.
She writes the title – On Emptiness, by some Bhutanese monk – on a notepad of books to read. “Not yet.”
I fork over the dough. Is my girlfriend telling me I’m nothing on the inside?
The car ride home is another line. Street racers crashed, so I inch past the cops redirecting traffic and snap back up to ten above. I deserve my own Hollywood chase scene.
I can’t show off my new used book. Girlfriend’s not home.
My double-shot coffee finishes before the first chapter. I jitter, brew herbal tea, take a walk, and bring the book.
Its first word, “now,” is highlighted and underlined. Store has no return policy.
Thanks for contribution! Sorry I didn't include you in the round up, I scheduled it in the morning before you posted 😭
No worries at all! I know I tend to pop in late to these prompts anyways…
The batch turned out really well this time around, too. Lots of great responses!
Journey of Stillness
.
(after my father and whatever this sky is doing today)
….
I woke up not from sleep but from a kind of ambient vibration like when the fridge hums too long and you finally notice it and I thought ah yes today is the day for stillness and the universe said ok girl but not too much so I poured coffee into a chipped mug because all the good ones are in the sink and the sink is a metaphor obviously and I sat outside with a grapefruit and no spoon and I peeled it with my fingers like an animal which felt holy and citrus sprayed into the air like the beginning of something or the end and the dogs barked in the distance like a warning or maybe applause and I remembered a lover who said nothing is ever truly still and she meant atoms or love or maybe me and I watched the clouds argue over who gets the sun and the wind didn’t pick a side it just kept moving like a gentle betrayal and the world didn’t stop but it did slow down and I think I saw the ground breathing just a little the way a sleeping cat does and I realized I had not moved in twenty minutes except to chew and maybe that’s the journey maybe stillness isn’t absence but presence without choreography maybe I am not drifting I am docking maybe today I am the harbor not the ship and I don’t need punctuation to prove it
Gloria, this instantly reminded me of our German expression “die Seele baumeln lassen”—to let the soul dangle. Letting thoughts arrive, linger, and drift again, never quite rooting, never disturbing the stillness itself.
There’s something in the way you wrote this—like breath and weather, like grief and grapefruit—that doesn’t just describe stillness, it becomes it. That moment of peeling without a spoon? Sacred.
Today, I’m letting my soul dangle a little longer because of this. Beautiful streamed.
– Jay
Thank you, Jay. I think the way I wrote it is the way we think—stream of consciousness.
As I said: Beautiful streamed.
Very cool! I especially love the idea of clouds arguing over who gets the sun.
Thank you 🙏
You're very welcome.
Well, I have learned a new word today: sesh. That brought me a halt.
I have been wondering how to link you and me with similar writings.
Or are we such rugged individuals that writing in groups feels too insane.
I have been a poet in my cloistered
bedroom for many years. I knew nothing but how to make rhymes.
I think y' all have helped me grow. I admire you all with your forays into fiction. You are a talented bunch.
And I am grateful for every like you give me.
Thank you all and God bless !
"Sesh" was new to me, too. I think it might be a British thing...
Haha, I thought it's regularly used.
I had heard it before...
The cliff rose high above the sea, cutting into the sky. Kia sat there for hours, his legs hanging over the side, the wind pulling at his hair. Below, the waves crashed against the rocks, loud and wild, like the thoughts in his head. He had come here to get away—from the noise, the pressures of life.
He closed his eyes and let the quiet sink in. For a moment, everything seemed to stop. The birds were silent, the wind calmed, and even the sea seemed to hush. In that stillness, Kia felt something he hadn’t in a long time: peace. He realized he wasn’t running from life—he was running toward it. The mess he was afraid of was just on the surface. Underneath, there was something deeper, something waiting for him.
Taking a deep breath, Kia stood up. The horizon stretched out far and wide, full of possibilities. Without thinking twice, he stepped off the edge. For a second, he hung in the air, feeling light and free. Then the sea rushed up to meet him, its cold water shocking him awake. As he sank into the depths, the noise of the world faded into silence.
When he came up for air, the cliff stood tall above him, a reminder of the calm he had found. Kia swam to the shore, ready to face whatever came next.
“The birds were silent, the wind calmed, and even the sea seemed to hush. In that stillness, Kia felt something he hadn’t in a long time: peace.”
Peace. I barely remember her.
Excellent addition, Gloria
That was my personal lament. 😢
Journey of Stillness
The cat stretches into the sun patch. I sit in quiet. Not waiting—becoming.
This stillness holds weight. It isn’t absence. It’s origin. The journey of stillness is how I return to myself—not as echo, not as thought, but as presence.
I no longer fill the silence. I embody it. In this stillness, I hear the voice I once longed for—compassionate, firm, clear. It is mine now.
Every word I write from here stands for justice. Every pause speaks for those whose voices were crushed. I stand not above, but with.
I do not charge forward. I root down. My strength grows not in noise, but in empathy, in the soft persistence of water shaping stone.
This canyon remembers what the world forgot: that dignity lives in breath, that power does not have to roar.
In stillness, I listen for the interconnectedness of all things. I listen, and then I speak—not louder, but truer.
This is my commitment.
This is my way.
This is how I begin again.
Beautiful.
🙏🥰
Last Rides
I’m no Charon. Nothing so grandiose. Nothing so mythological. Literally. No ferrying across the Stygian rapids. Blue collar all the way.
I’m just a simple working guy. No tariffs need apply. This is not a job like making sneakers they can send away to preteens in Malaysia. I’m hands on all the way. Customer service included. Brawn and brains. And heart.
They call me Fleetwood Mac cuz that’s the model I drive. I fix ‘em up. Keep ‘em running smooth. AND I drive ‘em. That’s what business school calls vertical integration. The Cadillac Fleetwood is the most popular brand of hearse in the United States. Has been since the 1930’s. Think of all those poor bastards always dreaming of owning a Cadi and finally get their first ride in one as a stiff.
Once I tune ‘er up I doff the coveralls and throw on the dark suit, my only, from that warehouse sale. Still fits like a glove. Change my shoes and socks, this is a class operation. Never had a complaint from a passenger yet.
I can’t offer wisdom. Can’t offer relief. But I can offer no satellite radio. No Yankees on the AM band. One last thing I can offer. Respect. A journey of silence. Journey of stillness.
This is so beautiful. People who honor death are unique individuals.
Thx, amen, especially good prompts lately.
It's perfect.
😊
Scott,
this one rumbles with quiet swagger and unexpected reverence. I felt the grease under the nails and the weight behind the wheel—the dignity in doing the job right, without myth or drama. That turn from Fleetwood Mac to Cadillac hearse to “no complaints yet” made me laugh out loud, then swallow hard. You gave “journey of stillness” a working-class soul, and it hit me square in the chest. Nothing performative, just presence. Just respect. That stays with me.
Thanks for this ride.
Thanks as always for your generosity in reading and providing incisive feedback which is literature itself
Thank you Scott, I am glad my answer resonated again.
Oh nice one! You got everything from serious to hilarious. I was chuckling at, "Change my shoes and socks, this is a class operation." Great job! 😎
Thx. That’s a lot of words for a daily prompt I need a nap lol
STILLNESS
The monk arrived at the city center, dragging a worn wooden chair with one uneven leg. He placed it in the middle of a crowded intersection at rush hour. Cars honked and swerved around him while the pedestrians filmed the scene on their phones.
The monk sat, spine straight, folding his hands.
He did not move.
Day cycled to night. Rain tapped on his shoulders. Still, he sat, unmoved. News anchors arrived to speculate... is it a protest? Maybe performance art? One journalist checked nearby mental asylums to see if any residents escaped.
Three days later, a woman skipped going to her job and decided to join him. No chair. Just the floor.
By day six, there were over twenty people. Four days later the mayor banned sitting citing its causing “economic lethargy.”
Police personnel arrived with batons and citations. When they tried to lift the monk, their arms suddenly felt heavy. Their feet became sluggish. One officer sat down “just to catch his breath.” He never got up.
Soon, the city productivity dropped 37%. The streets were peaceful and birdsong filled the air.
The monk never spoke. When he finally vanished, he left behind a note on the chair.
“The journey of stillness is not escape.
It is resistance without fists.
Attention without violence.
A revolution of being.”
Every year, a stranger approaches the chair. They sit.
To remember that the world is allowed to stop and be still.
240 words.
So thought provoking and original!
lovely
Ashlesha,
I felt my breath slow as I read this—your stillness worked. The monk’s presence, quiet yet seismic, felt like a tuning fork struck deep in the center of a chaotic world. You built a revolution in hush tones, one sitting body at a time. That line—*“resistance without fists, attention without violence”*—gave me chills. You reminded me that sometimes the most powerful act is not doing, but being. I’ll be thinking about that chair for a long while. And maybe, someday, I’ll sit too.
Thank you , Jeannine!
that's fun!!!
Hall lay in his bed, dreaming of Molly, of their first meeting at Mr. Malcolm's farm, where they'd both landed summer jobs. Molly was different from the other girls, she was more of a tomboy, but he loved the way that she wasn't afraid of anything, and could work as hard and long as he, but was smart as a whip, too. Mr. Malcolm's sheep had escaped that day and were gobbling up the peppers, so Hall and Molly helped the old farmer herd them back to the pasture. Of course this was much easier said than done, and by the time the gate was securely latched behind the last woolly truant, they were covered in sweat and dust and burrs, but Molly just grinned merrily as though it had all been great fun. And of course, with her by his side, it had been a grand adventure. The vision of Mr. Malcolm's farm began to fade... "Molly, Molly, where are you," he cried. He awoke, but everything was indistinct and foggy, except for the pain ripping back into his innards.
His daughter, Jess had been holding his wasted hand as he slept. She saw his hands contract into tight balls, as he began to stir, moaning inarticulate sounds that she didn't understand. It was time for the hospice nurse to give Hall more morphine. As the pain eased, Hall slipped back to the dream world, where his Molly still lived.
Hall dreamed of long past family celebrations, of long walks in the woods with Molly, of sitting together before the fireplace, reading books as the winter winds howled outside the windows. He dreamed of the tastes of the first harvest of asparagus, the sweetness of new strawberries, the buttery feasts of corn on the cob. He dreamed of the rich tang of freshly baked sourdough bread, the soft powdery scent of their newborn children's hair, the welcome perfume of lilacs blooming in spring. He dreamed of all the things that he and Molly had ever shared, awakening from time to time into pain-filled confusion, only to be gently lulled back into his happy remembrances.
After his last dose of morphine, Hall's breathing became shallow and labored, and it was clear that he would not awaken again. As his children tearfully gathered about his bed to keep him company during his last journey of stillness, Hall dreamed one last dream of Molly, a dream of quite another kind of journey. They were sitting on the deck during the last summer before her death, watching the hummingbirds swoop and hover around the feeders, Molly holding his hand. One of the hummingbirds, the one Molly liked to call Roberto, landed upon their intertwined fingers, and that was when Hall felt himself dissolving with Molly, into a mist of swirling colors. The cloud that had once been Hall and Molly merged with Roberto, who took off into the promising blue skies, carrying the old lovers away from pain and into the eternal joy of togetherness.
This is stunningly beautiful
Thank you!
Oh yes, beautiful.
Thank you!
Loved this one ,Jeannine!
Thank you!
Jeannine,
this touched something very deep in me—the way you held tenderness and ache in the same breath. Hall’s journey of stillness didn’t feel like an ending, but a quiet homecoming. I felt the dust and burrs of the pasture, the sweetness of strawberries, the hush of winter winds—and in the end, that luminous dissolve into the hummingbird’s wings felt like grace itself. Thank you for bringing such vivid warmth to a moment that is so often cloaked in silence. I’ll carry that image of Roberto for a long time.
Thank you. I am so glad that you saw the tenderness as well as the ache. I grew up on a farm, and most farm kids acquire a nodding acquaintance with death.
Jeannine,
That phrase—a nodding acquaintance with death—lands so gently and truthfully. It carries the quiet reverence of having seen life’s full arc up close, not in theory, but through daily witness. I felt that grounded tenderness in your story, the way love and loss sat side by side without spectacle.
Thank you for bringing that ache to the page in such a steady, generous way.
– Jay
Thank you and you're very welcome. 🤗
This is a cool idea! I like the idea of collaboration, but I definitely need more of a heads up. For this time around, I kind of collaborated with myself - this is a sequel to another short story I recently published, "One Last Dance with Roberto." (https://jeannine85f.substack.com/p/one-last-dance-with-roberto)
I adore hummingbirds. My father-in-law has hummingbird feeders as well do.
They are wonderful little critters. I'm awaiting the return of my real life Roberto in May.
agreed--more time to organize and collaborate
After a long week of imploding demands from his boss, Henry looked forward to a weekend at the cottage where he and his buddies could unwind.
Unfortunately, instead of his buddies, who all cancelled at the last minute, he had the solitude of the lake to himself. He was not looking forward to this as he was not in favour of doing things by himself. He always liked to be busy and pushing his boundaries where possible.
Late that night he picked up his wife’s book, A Journey Into Stillness. It always perplexed him as to how she could read these self improvement books. With nothing better to do he settled down in his favourite chair and began to read. Within an hour he was hooked. Somehow this book spoke to him like it was written only for his own personal satisfaction. He noted a few things so much so that he was surprised when the sun rose over the eastern shore.
Henry put the book down and wandered down to the dock. He sat there cross legged looking out at the water, watching the gentle waves ripple to the shoreline. He had never seen a sunrise at the cottage. It shocked him how beautiful it was.
He smiled as his journey of stillness had come at just the right time.
“He smiled as his journey of stillness had come at just the right time.”
So profound!
Forgot to say - I really, really like the idea of getting us to do a longer thing every few weeks or so. The collaboration thing sounds fun too, if we can sort our shit out (no mean feat, for sure).
If anyone else wants to do something featuring a mashie niblick, well...
Yes! Journey of stillness fits PERFECTLY with what's going to happen to Larry & Ruby & Afterlife friends!
Thank you!!!
God said : Be still and know that I am God
Is there no writing pod
To know what knowing is
So we can know God as His
Children on Earth, a family
We read Roman's last night and He
Told Isreal the Gentiles were in
To make them pay for all their sins
What kind of love is this ?
We are in but we're out - i am pissed
A love triangle is what it sounds
Number three in a divine round -about.
“Children on Earth, a family”
if only *sigh*
Thank you, Evelyn!
This sounds like a fun new idea! It'll be very interesting to see what everyone comes up with, and if we can make some of the stories connect together... 😎👍