Full

Admin Posts : 8858 Join date : 2013-08-24

Welcome to spring, and a new challenge story. This month we are going for a homophone. So it's not April Fool, it's

Full

and that can be anything that's full, from a belly to a bank stuffed with money. From a head bursting with knowledge, to a fool stuffed with pride and full of himself. Or it can be any other take on the prompt your imaginative minds can come up with.

So without further ado, time to get writing!

Subject: Re: Full Sat Apr 02, 2022 4:35 am

A briefest of revisits to my After Amnesty storyline. If anyone wonders why Jed's wife doesn't know what Lizzie looked like when she was born- she's his second wife, his first died when Lizzie was a baby.

Jed Curry stared down at his new-born son, before meeting the eyes of his wife, who was smiling tiredly at him. His eyes began to brim with tears, his heart so full it almost hurt. He turned as his daughter came running in with her aunt on her heels. Emily smiled at them both, her own eyes bright. “I couldn't keep her away any longer, but Mrs Henderson told us it was fine to come and see the baby.”

She gazed down at the boy, her face softening into absolute joy as Lizzie almost bouncing in excitement, peered round to stare at her brother and laughed in delight. “Oh Ma, he's real funny looking, he looks like a peanut!”

“Lizzie!” Jed said in remonstration, but his wife only shook her head and looked down at their son, her face creasing in amusement. “Well, maybe you're right, but I imagine you weren't much prettier when you were born.”

Jed laughed himself then, remembering the squawking, red faced, wrinkly thing his daughter had been on first sight. He'd thought she was most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, but Heyes had been less than complimentary. “She's right sweetheart, I ain't gonna repeat what your Uncle Heyes said when he first saw you. Now, your Ma needs to sleep and we gotta go tell all the other folks outside that everything's fine- before they all burst in.”

Lizzie tugging her Aunt's towards the door nodded happily. “Baggsy, we get to tell Uncle Heyes, Victoria and Caroline. I wanna see Caroline's face when she finds out that I got a brother too!”

Jed smiling shook his head as his little tornado exited, his eyes straying back to his son. He kissed his wife's forehead softly as her eyes began to close. He gently took the baby from her and placed him carefully into the Moses basket. “Welcome to the world, Thaddeus Curry.”

Subject: Re: Full Sat Apr 23, 2022 6:36 pm

April 2022 Challenge

Prompt = Full

“Han, come over here.”

Ten-year-old Hannibal Heyes turned to look at his Grandpa Curry, not wanting to leave the card game he was playing with his siblings and cousins. “But I’m having a lucky streak.”

His mother looked up from the sock she was darning. “Han, do as your grandpa asks.”

From the look in his ma’s blue eyes, he knew to do what she said. “Yes, ma’am.”

Standing in front of his grandpa’s overstuffed brown chair, he was swept up onto his lap. Han’s eyes stayed on the card game as he watched his seven-year-old cousin, Jeddie, break into tears when he lost all his matchsticks.

“Grandpa, I would have won that hand. I had a full house. I’ve been really lucky tonight.”

“Oh boy, haven’t you ever heard the Irish proverb, ‘Luck never gives, it only lends’?”

“But it’s not all luck, it’s skill,” he boasted. “I’m better than all the older girls. They’re girls,” he said not for the first time, wishing that he had older brothers and more than one boy cousin, not just girls.

“’A kind word never broke anyone’s jaw.’” Grandpa reprimanded him gently and then reminded him, “What about Jeddie?”

“He’s too little to really play with us.”

“Han, he idolizes you and I’ve seen the way you take care of him. Friendship is a gift, nurture it. A wise man named Aristotle once said that friendship was ‘A single soul dwelling in two bodies.’”

Han felt guilty as he watched Jeddie run and sit with Grandma Curry, who made room for him on the couch next to her and dried his tears.

“Han…Han!” His grandpa’s voice caught his attention and he looked him in the eyes. Han could smell the whiskey his grandpa drank after their dinner on his breath.

“Yes, sir?”

“Thought it’s time we have a talk about life.”

“Life?”

“Well, we never know how much time we have on this earth, and I’ve had a long, full life. I’ve learned a few things the hard way I’d like to pass on to my eldest grandson before I die. That’s what I’m doing now, and I’ll go to my heavenly reward happy.”

“You’re never gonna die, Grandpa. You’re healthy. You still work in the fields with pa.” Hugging the man tightly, he gave this serious conversation all of his attention.

“Oh, Han, sometimes one single day can change life forever.”

“But you’re careful, too. Ma says so.”

Michael Curry smiled, wondering what kind of conversation had led to his daughter making that comment.

“I want to tell you what’s important. First, you must remember another Irish proverb, `What a sober man has in his heart, a drunken man has on his lips.’” As Michael spoke, he realized he was the latter. “Remember what’s important, son: family, love, friendship. Never take it for granted; work hard for it.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the confused boy who had grown up surrounded by family, love and friendship and could not imagine being without it. Sadly, he saw the poker game had broken up and his sisters and Jed’s older sisters were talking about the upcoming barn dance and the boys they hoped would ask them. Han considered it nonsense.

As he looked around the room at his growing family, Michael Curry took another long drink of whiskey. He was enjoying sharing his wisdom with this intelligent boy. “’Tomorrow’s not promised to anyone, my boy, but what we have here, right now, you will always carry in your heart.’”

Still not understanding, Han turned his attention to Jeddie leaning against their grandma.

Smelling cookies, he slipped from his grandpa’s lap to find his ma and aunt pulling the first tray of sugar cookies from the oven.

“Han, would you like a warm cookie?” ask his ma.

“Yes, please, and may I have one for Jeddie?”

ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ

“Heyes, come over here.”

“Eighty-year-old Hannibal Heyes turned to look at his cousin, Jed ‘Kid’ Curry, not wanting to leave the card game he was playing with his and the Kid’s grandchildren. “But I’m having a lucky streak.”

His wife, Laureline, looked up from the sock she was darning. “Han, do as your cousin asks; he’s working on paying the bills.”

“Yes, Dear.”

Suddenly, the situation and the words brought back a shared memory and the cousins locked gazes.

Breaking the gaze, Curry said, “Remember what Grandpa Curry said about luck?”

Answering slowly, Heyes surveyed the family the Kid and he had built in the years after they had received amnesty. “Luck never gives, it lends.”

“He was right, you know.”

Bitterness crept into Heyes’ voice. “You mean when he said, ‘Tomorrow’s not promised to anyone,’ and they were all killed two days later?”

Silence fell over the room; they seldom heard that day mentioned and never with such angst in the words.

“No, Heyes, the other part.”

“The other part?”

“ ‘What we have here, right now, you will always carry in your heart.’” Curry smiled looking around and back at Heyes as the ex-outlaws realized that they once again had built the family, love and friendships they had taken for granted as boys.

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