Occasionally, I write very short stories. Flash Fiction. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have enough patience to write long stories. I liked the latest one so much, I decided to post it on the main page.
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Where Does Juice Come From?
How to get juice from spinach? She contemplated her predicament as she rolled the carrot between her fingers. She had one carrot, a half of an onion, and a big pile of spinach. The challenge was to make a good tasting juice from what she had. And what she had, wasn’t much.
She promised her kids some juice, but the piggy bank was empty and the cupboard was filled only with dust. Now all she had was one carrot, half an onion, a bunch of spinach, and a sick heart. She didn’t even like spinach.
As she twiddled with the carrot, she stared out the kitchen window and slowly, without even realizing it, gave up hope. The carrot dropped to the floor. She slid her back against the cabinet and slowly sank down beside it. Closing her eyes, she thought of her two beautiful young children. A single tear formed in each eye, one for each child.
Her kids walked down the hall to the kitchen doorway, where they stopped abruptly. They stood there quietly, watching their mother for a few moments. Eventually, the youngest one, prompted by an unseen truth, said simply, “Have faith mommy. There is always hope.”
An hour earlier, a next door neighbor had been at the grocery store. In a rare moment of quiet insight, he actually listened to his heart instead of the noise and confusion of the world. He bought extra groceries to give to his neighbor. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, an hour later, he pulled in her driveway and hoped she would not consider him silly when he showed up on her doorstep with an armload of groceries.
His arms were so full he had to knock on the door with his elbow. The kids heard the knock, ran to the door and opened it. “These are for you,” he said. The kids got so excited they both latched on to him in an effort to give him a big hug. In the process, they knocked him off balance. Had it not been for a little push in the right direction, he would have surely dropped the gallon of orange juice.
