Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

A-Z challenge: Part G presenting the newest installment of story It’s not much different to holding a largish puppy: compact weight, body warmth, wiggling. ‘That’s a cat- that’s Scuro. Scuro says, miaow, miaow.’ ‘Ma-ow,’ the child says, ‘ma-ow, ma-ow!’ It peals into more laughing. A cheese-smeared hand pats her cheek. ‘Nom nom, ma-ow!’ ‘Yes,’ Claire smiles, ‘little jolly thing; Scuro likes cheese.’ Little jolly thing laughs. ‘Nom nom, ma-ow!’ She carries the child down to the cat shed. ‘Shh, sleeping.’ Claire puts a shush finger to her lips, points out Old Gray, slumbering in a sunspot. The child copies her gesture. Claire tiptoes along the path. Behind a raised finger, the child sports a conspiratorial smile. It rolls its eyes from Claire to the cats. They step quietly into the shed. One cat unsprawls, strolls to a dish. It laps, purrs, pads over to rub against Claire’s leg, looks up at the child. Claire watches the enthralled child. Her arms start to ...

Yesterday we dug up an unproductive tree. The morning was soft sun on frost. We are chicken-sitting, and the brood followed close enough to keep my ankles warm while I filled the corn hopper. Came back to the house with six eggs. We were lazy till after breakfast when the sun warmed up and the ice wind dropped away. Then we tackled the garden jobs, and the tree that only leafs was consigned to the hedge, leaving room for a miniature orchard. Healthy work: hot bath: glass of wine: sleep. Today was an early start, and the ice wind had found its way back. We traveled to Bridgewater for Black Belt training, nursing hot coffee from a big silver flask. In two weeks our next Dan grading will be over. I think of this: only two weeks, and its done: so I can ride through the nerves. Steel yourself, lady, with coffee and time! I am nervous too about the book. On Tuesday there will be one thousand copies of the Tae Kwon-Do Time Travelling Tour Bus and Other Stories taking...

Taking the A-Z Challenge: currently with short chapters from a short story. The next excerpt... in which there is joy and sandwiches. They regard each other. Claire stands still. The child; a year, maybe two years old; stares at her, rubs an ear with a smudgy hand. Gender, indeterminate. Miniature jeans, t-shirt, canvas shoes. Hair is shoulder-length, light brown, waves.  The light catches in it. The skin is almost luminescent. She doesn’t want to leave it. The animals are fine, if you leave them. It is easy to give the nonchalant friendly air to the animals. What does one do, with a child? Instinct tells her to hold ground. She keeps still. It makes unsteady strides, around her, to the doorway. Holding the doorframe, puzzles out the step, looks at her, solemn faced over one fey shoulder; turns its attention back to the threshold. One foot pats down to the path. A sigh of recognition is emitted. Claire follows, certain only that it should not be left unattended...

The next excerpt... an unexpected arrival. Although as a plot device, an arrival is never unexpected :-)  Claire scrubs dirt from under her fingernails in the cool kitchen. A sandwich, eaten outside, she decides, can be called a picnic. Scuro jumps up on the table again, illustrates a glimpse of curiosity towards the cat shed. ‘They have scratching posts,’ Claire informs her, ‘squishy beds, toys, space. You will like it.’ Scuro closes her eyes, absorbs sunshine.  Peaked solid clouds sit over the valley. ‘Beautiful view,’ Claire notes. Something clatters in the store shed. ‘Another newcomer?’  It sounds bigger than a cat, a medium sized dog, perhaps. From the clumsiness of the noise, she guesses a large puppy. Best not leave that unattended too long. She finishes the first half of the sandwich, walks inside, plate in hand, unprepared for the sighting of a small child.

Part 3: The happiness of dogs far outweighs the poop.  The dogs are ready to go before she slides back the bolt. ‘Stay…’ She checks her pockets for the roll of poo bags. ‘It’s not the best part of the walk,’ she confides, ‘but: necessary. Heel!’ They surge out like one many-legged animal, some kind of dog-centipede, jostling behind her, till they reach the field and she lets them roam. She loves the way they plunge nose to grass, as though the field is brand new to them. The dog pen re-secured, Claire fetches the hand trowel, a trug for collecting weeds and a straw hat to shade her eyes. The earth is soft to touch, lightly damp, warm, aerated. Sometimes a welcome shelter of cloud drifts between her and the sun. She watches the cloud shadow cross the yard, wonders where it will go from here. The trug is filled and lugged to the compost box, once, twice, many times; she sets herself a rhythm of work; loses herself in it until her stomach tells her it might be an ...

Part 2 of 18 of my alphabetically segmented story: a rather short piece, but a lovely moment in which a cat is named.  While she sits outside, yoghurt bowl in her lap, the tortoiseshell cat jumps onto the table, rattles the coffee mug. Claire holds a hand out towards it. The cat pushes a cold nose onto her fingertips, purrs briefly. ‘We might pick a name for you, today. Not Shady, something like it- like Chiaroscuro , do you know that word?’ Cat blinks. Claire rubs her ears. ‘ The use of light and shade in paintings and drawings, or the effect produced by this. Also called claire-obscure ,’ she quotes. ‘Like me. Claire-obscure. Scuro. That’s what I’ll call you.’ 

  Here is the first installment of a short story written for a competition - can't tell you which one as it was written in the diary that was stolen- but the deadline I'm sure has passed. The whole thing is titled Width Of A Plumb Line. The last section will pop up on the 20th April, if my counting is correct.  Sunlight is slipping under the curtains, recreating a daytime world. Like a tethered boat on a swell, Claire bumps in and out of sleep, until the light draws stronger. Unwilling legs slide out of bed. Curtains swoosh sideward. A solid rectangle of brightness opens out over broad floorboards. In the sky is the morning sun and the colour blue. Claire stretches, turns back to the sparse room. ‘Breakfast.’ For the new arrival first, she thinks. Not with the others, not yet. She walks across the warm yard, admires dots of glint on grass blades. ‘Like stars fell,’ she says. ‘Morning, Old Gray.’ Purring shimmers up from the elderly cat, lazing in the cat sh...