WRITER with flash BLOG

We get back into the house after a windy, rainy trip to the store. They knock me aside trying to get in. He's got the groceries and I've got the mail. Zippy is in first place.

Zippy Win! By tail wag! He settles into the big green chair by the fire place.

SPOUSE looks at him, and says, "OK, you can be co-Daddy for ten minutes."

I swear to you that dog smiled. Then of course came the petting and the snuggling. Two butts in the Daddy Chair.

Why is this so much like having a kid? Because he is one, sort of, to me.

I'm still laughing.

Tushi-bushi didn't say much but he sure as heck is earnest. I'm glad he didn't see Soylent Green. He'd sure have the answer to the Social Security dilemma.

Flash fiction:

The train tracks, overgrown with weeds and littered with cans and bottles, runs through the middle of town. No civic body can decide what to do with the land. A developer wants a mall, but the Green candidate wants a park. A woman still hangs out her sheets on the days the wind blows. She's there today. Hanging white sheets with clothes pins, one after the other. She's crying slowly and silently. She misses someone. Someone she loves. Someone that has been gone for too long. She always misses him. After all, he grew in her heart when he grew under her heart. She hears a car door slam. But she doesn't look. Not worth it, she thinks, shaking out a pillow case. The back door slams shut from the wind. She turns. It's her soldier son home at last. She still cries but she's got him in her arms again. Just like before. They both hold tight.