Why?

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

The little roadside stand didn’t get a lot of business. Granny tried to shelter from the blazing sun under the old beach umbrella, but she kept having to move it as the sun travelled across the sky.

“Why do they put an old woman like me out here to bake under the sun?” she wondered. “I could be a lot more helpful inside that air-conditioned house. I could watch the baby. Or prep the veggies for supper. But they put me out here”- — – she gasped, clutching her chest as she hit the ground- – -“To DIE!”

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Different Strokes

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

He snorted, as always, as he stood in the door of her office. “Tchotchkes. Bric-a-brac. How do you stand all this mess? Clutter, nothing but dust catchers!”

I’m not having this conversation with you again.”

“Right. They all meeeaan something to you. One day I’m going to clear it all out so you have space to work!”

“The day you do that, you’ll have lots of wide open space for yourself. I and my “mess” will be gone. Now leave me alone.”

“Bah!” He snorted again as he stomped away.

Elegy on a Rose

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

It is so lonely here. When I was cut, my life span ended.

They stuck me in a vase of water, now quite low and mucky.

I miss my siblings. I miss the outdoors. Why do people do this to us? Are we being punished for something? Our execution involves being left in isolation until someone comes in and fingers our petals. A human nose–disgusting!–sniffs us and says roses don’t smell as good as they used to.

You’d stink, too, if you were cut off from all your kindred and left alone to rot.

Conversation

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

The flower petals ruffled in the breeze. It was good, because the breeze concealed their conversations.
“What are you red guys doing in our bed? You have no business here!”

“We don’t know! It wasn’t our choice! We’d rather be with our own kind over there!”

One of the yellow flowers piped up: “But you look really pretty mixed together! The contrasting colors are brighter than if you were all separate.”

A red flower snorted. “There’s always a cock-eyed optimist!”