Where the cash came from

January 25, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

This is a rewrite of a story I posted last year titled “Blood Flows.”

Where the Cash Came From
By Laura McHale Holland

A lanky, young mother arches protectively around her baby boy on the motel room bed as freezing rain pelts the window. The boys fever spikes while the temperature outside plummets.

The mother’s stomach growls with hunger; there is no food. Her husband left hours ago to pick up Tylenol and a pizza discounted with a Domino’s coupon they picked up outside the local food bank.

She drifts into sleep and dreams her husband is chasing her. But she’s racing to catch up with a man in black who is dropping $100 bills in the snow as he walks. Her husband is dreaming the same dream while hunched over the steering wheel of their wheezing Mazda. The car went off the road when he rounded a curve and crashed into a tree. In the dream, he is limping, bleeding from a head wound, and falling farther and farther behind his wife.

Hours later the husband wakes up, eases out of the car, and with pizza and Tylenol in hand, limps back to the motel. Inside, his wife and child sleep on. Her fists are furled around wads of $100 bills. He wonders where the cash came from as he puts his wares on the table, sinks into the chair by the window and closes his eyes. Snow falls outside as a scab glistens on his forehead.

Filed Under: Blogging, Family, Flash fiction, Life Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Ancient healing tune

January 16, 2012 By admin 8 Comments

Ancient Healing Tune
By Laura McHale Holland

Golden clouds collided in a chameleon sky the day everyone walked to the shore. By the hundreds, by the thousands, up and down the coast, moms with hair tied back and toddlers in tow, skateboarders wearing bruises like badges, office workers in suits and dress shoes, young couples with fingers entwined, mechanics in overalls, octogenarians in orthopedic shoes walked, ran, shuffled, danced, biked, drove, skated and slid to the end of the continent.

All electronics powered down, all shops locked their doors, all schools closed early; people gathered on piers, in the sand, on rocks and driftwood and watched the crimson sun set slowly in the west to the sound of songs sung by each one of them in an ancient tongue coming up from the fevered heart of the earth.

Colored shards in the sky shifted rhythm to the music until the moment the sun bled below the horizon. All was still for one slippery minute, and then people’s everyday concerns clenched their minds. In the twilight they disbursed to wend their way home, where all memory of the sunset slid back into the ground.

But sometimes in the night, when people are especially troubled or sad, they return to that afternoon in their dreams, and when they awake, they stretch and smile, unaware as they dress they are humming an ancient healing tune.

Filed Under: Blogging, Flash fiction Tagged With: , , , , ,

Marcy’s vision

January 7, 2012 By admin 3 Comments

Here’s my first story for 2012. I don’t know if I’ll do a story a week this year, but I’ll post something each week, probably most often a bit of flash, but sometimes maybe a rant or a guest post or a taste of something longer.

Marcy’s Vision
By Laura McHale Holland

The new day was melting snow seeping through the foundation. It was a draft coming from the empty fireplace. It was a microwave frying Marcy’s brain. She knew this and wanted to glide backward to when the house was solid, the hearth full of flames, the home full of laughter. Tired of being dragged forward year to year, she finally refused to go.

Like Clifford the red dog and Jack’s beanstalk, Marcy’s vision grew and grew and grew and grew, and then she lassoed her entire town—neighbors, pets, lawns and shrubbery, houses, businesses, trinkets, keepsakes, everything and everyone—and hauled the entirety back in time to when nobody carried a cell phone, when Big Brother didn’t take a seat in every living room, when children weren’t ferried from one lesson to another to another.

A crater whispers where the town once was. Folks from other towns sometimes stop by to listen to an absence they think has always been there.

Filed Under: Blogging, Flash fiction, Life Tagged With: , , ,
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