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A quote: “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” ~~ Ray Bradbury
I’ll start with a story …
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A whisper from a client and he sent his swiftest grandson to warn market.
He was shocked at the suddenness but not surprised. Central tolerated the underground just enough to placate the populace. Raids were just another cost of business. This time of year made Central jealous and unpredictable.
He avoided market by cultivating private clients. But Central’s reach was long.
The youngster returned, too early, dejected. No time to lose. Shut down this workshop and get to the next.
He itched absently at the scar that ran from temple to collarbone. He was lucky. He survived his first lesson.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe stock standard license
GWB says: “We caught him!”
(It looks like someone threw a baby and they caught him in a large, shallow, mixing bowl.)
I also like your snippet, Darleen.
Cameron says: A bad divorce, mom in the hospital, friends are on vacation, laid off three days ago. I’m a blues song walking and right now I’m wondering what good there is to be found in the holidays.
Some kids were selling things they had made some of them looked good. And then I saw the little wooden figures in a Nativity.
He saw me looking at it. “Ten and it’s yours.”
“Too rich for me but you do good work, kid.”
“Two then. I think you need it more than I do.” He was right. And I still have it today.
GWB says: Excellent.
Darleen Click says: Oooo! I like this one very much.
Lewis says: Nice Cameron, I like it, too!
Cameron says: Thank you for the kind words, everyone. I write as a hobby and love the challenge of trying to shoehorn something into just one hundred words.
I found it almost by accident: a block of old cherry wood in the back of the barn, behind a forgotten stalk chopper. Without dendrochronological analysis of the tree rings, there was no way to be sure, but it had to predate the Cherry Blight which had nearly driven that whole clade of plants to extinction. We have blight-resistant cherry trees these days, but while we’re getting plenty of fruit off them, there just hasn’t been time for them to grow big enough to give us wood like this.
When I picked it up, I realized it had already been worked: a bas relief in the primitive style, although the pattern of cuts suggested it had been made with power tools rather than a hand chisel. Unsurprising, given its subject — the Old Traditions had not been overly welcome among those who’d thought themselves our betters. It might not be a DaVinci or a Reubens, but one could see the devotion in the figures worked into the wood.
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