War Cake

by Jill Glendening Clingan

Annie sat at her scarred dining-room table and fingered the cake recipes from her wooden recipe box. She furrowed her brow in concentration and didn’t even notice the wavy strands of brown hair that had escaped from her low ponytail and now curtained her soft, gray-blue eyes. She seemed to be looking through that curtain of hair into a tiny world that somehow existed inside that box. Some recipes were stained with fingerprints of vanilla, butter, oil. She self-consciously bent her nose to one of these and sniffed, hungering for a memory, a taste.

Mystery Cake

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Coconut Cake

Other recipes, the more complicated ones, were adorned with curlicues and spirals. She had a habit of doodling when she was concentrating.

Lady Baltimore Cake

Italian Cream Cake

Waldorf-Astoria Red Velvet Cake

And then some recipes were recently penciled in on lined 3×5cards. These were the newer recipes, with curious ingredient combinations composed in an age of want, of rationing, of war.

Vinegar Cake

War Cake

Red, White, and Blue Carrot Nut Ring

Annie sighed. She got up from the table and walked over to the sugar jar on the counter. Glancing over her shoulder—she didn’t want her husband, Joseph, to see her–she opened the jar and peered down inside. She scratched her index finger on the bottom of the jar and quickly brought her finger to her mouth for a taste, just a tiny taste. Nothing but a few crystals of sugar remained in the bottom of that jar, but she closed her eyes anyway, tasted the sweet, tiny crumb, and imagined the smooth sweetness of Red Velvet Cake, the rich textures and flavors of Coconut Cake, the satisfyingly sweet crunch of… She stopped, sighed again, and closed the jar.

Sugar and Surprises

Olivia arranged the tree branches until she was sure not one negotiator could discover her hideout. Her body ached with the nervous tension she held in every muscle as she waited. From her vantage point, she could see the stretch of Main Street where the action would soon take place.

An out-of-towner would wonder if the village were deserted, the way things looked today. There was a time when storefronts were smartly arrayed in seasonal decor, swept clean daily, with brightly painted signs proclaiming “The World’s Best Fudge Here!” or “50% Off All Merchandise – for a Short Time Only!” As supplies had steadily diminished, local shoppers and entertainment became more and more scarce. Now, most windows were so dusty, it was hard to see what might lie behind them, though one would have only been disappointed by empty buildings, long ago scavenged by the more daring villagers. Some windows, broken by said scavengers, had been replaced by chunks of plywood ripped up from floors. Many simply were left broken, jagged edges framing the vacant, yawning chasm within. Used to be one could see the signs of    rodents’ work in these lonely places: piles of rubbish carefully gathered into a corner for a nest of sorts, droppings leaving a pungent reminder that at least some creature had eaten enough to defecate. Eventually even the rats had left the town, deserting a starving civilization in favor of more wild offerings.

One corner of the town remained alive, though the owner of the building did not seem terribly interested in keeping up appearances. The store served whatever purpose was most needed for the day: sometimes a courthouse, other times a livery; on one glorious occasion, a receiving station for a rare delivery of mail and produce from the other side of the mountain range by a determined young man who gathered up his mother’s brother and promptly headed back into the mountains.

Deliveries were nearly nonexistent since the bridge over the pass failed a year ago. No one realized at the time that it would serve as the beginning of the End. A sharp disagreement had risen between the settlers as to who was responsible for repairs. After weeks of dispute, the first snowfall struck, followed by the worst winter the settlers had ever experienced. Days became weeks of snowfall without respite, temperatures never rising above freezing to allow for any thaw. The entire landscape shifted and changed as drifts filled furrows while wind rearranged the powdery top layers at a dizzying rate. People became disoriented and lost in the swirling white, never to be seen again until spring revealed corpses, some only a matter of yards from town.

Sugar Free Society

by Jen Gregory

Liz “Candy” Thomas drove down the rugged Canadian highway towards the US border. She would make the drop/pick-up on the side of the road next to nettles and vines, pretending to be a stranded driver. It was by far the most dangerous part of her addiction. She never knew who was bringing her “stuff” to her and honestly, as her cravings increased, she didn’t care.

Her blonde hair was shiny and bouncy, her lips forever glossed and she had a natural rosy glow to her cheeks. She was slim and attractive with brilliant green eyes that photographed well. As she handled the mini van around the curves and admired the somber grey sky she sang along to her music, tapping short, neat nails against the steering sheel, her large diamond ring sliding side to side on her thin finger.

The drive, the danger of it was part of her addiction too. She was the good girl. Nobody suspected a thing. She was healthy looking, happy, three kids and a mini van. She was room mother for goodness sakes! No one suspected a thing and that maybe was the second most delicious part about her dual life. The first, most delicious part was the sugar. Her obsession started maybe twenty years ago as her great grandmother told stories of Coca Cola bottled with real cane sugar and white powder confection floating through the air as she baked, the way you could taste it’s sweetness even as you inhaled and it hit the back of your tongue.

Liz had started to bake with all types of “legal” sugars, brown rice, Splenda, guava nectar, honey, you name it. She formulated a heavy blog following and developed three number one cook books based on her research. All of it to try and replicate a life she had never known, a world where cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup flowed abundant. The inside of her upper lip would tingle as her grandmother would tell about how they would eat frozen grapes dipped in the stuff. As Liz gained success with her “sugar-free” sweets she gained the nickname “Candy” and it stuck. She liked it.

12/26/11

Write a story about a town that ran out of its sugar supply

Three Wisecracking Men

by Ethan Wiley, age  10

One starry night the three wise men in Iran were looking through their telescope at three stars.

“That’s the star!” said the first.

“What star? I don’t see any special star…it’s the same stars we see every night,” said the third.

“*Snort* huh? What? Where? …….what are you two talking about? And I mean seriously waking me up like that…IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!” yelled the second.

“Well it’s not all MY fault!” replied the third.

“………..well don’t look at ME cause I found THE STAR!” retorted the first.

“What star?” asked the second.

“Yah I asked him the same thing which was ‘what star? I don’t see any special star…it’s the same stars we see every night’ does that sound familiar? Huh? HUH!” said the third.

“Would you two stop just stop and for Pete’s sake tell us what this STAR is or WHAT it does!” the second yelled.

“Well this star will lead us to the everlasting savior, the Christ or Messiah.  Well it’s just a hunch BUT but but but there’s about a oh I’d say………a ninety-five percent chance my hunch is right but there’s really no telling whether it’s just a myth or if it’s true,” replied the first.

A Baby Really Does Change EVERYTHING!

by Jen Gregory

I wanted to write a short story but if you haven’t guessed there is nothing “short” about writing a short story at all! Christmas has wound tight around us and I must keep moving and let go. In my ponderings on this idea of a modern day Nativity I was having so much fun creating a relevant Nativity all under the pretext of the world we live in now. There was my hiccup; I’m a literal kind of girl. I like to take the facts and fictionalize. So in order to write a modern day birth of Jesus I had to ask, if there had been no Jesus in the last 2000 years what would the world look like. It took about a minute for the humbling thought to saturate my brain, bleed into my inmost being.

It would be so very, very different. My world as I know it would be radically changed. I can’t fathom it at all. For heaven’s sake, I’m from the Bible belt! What would we worship? What “religion” would I be? What would America look like? and Israel? Would there be Muslims? There is a song that says, “A Baby Changes Everything” and it totally does. All week I’ve asked people, what would a modern day Shepard be? I was looking for that clever and perfect story but instead I ask you, what would “modern day” anything look like without a Messiah. It doesn’t matter what you believe, the question is, what would today look like without Jesus having ever been born?

I’m grateful for belief, for certainty, for faith that clings to me when I forget to cling to it. I’m glad those many years ago there was a young girl brave enough to look crazy, faithful enough to bring into the world a son who literally did change everything. Maybe the story of a virgin birth sounds crazy to you, it’s supposed to. Crazier is the thought of just what today would look like without Christ. I’m grateful tonight. Merry Christmas friends!

Prepare the Way

by Tara Wiley

I walk past the fortress surrounding Rachel’s Tomb towards the end of my work route every night. I remember what it was like when I was a little girl: a beautiful, smooth dome surrounded by aged stone bricks, almost austere in its profound simplicity honoring the beloved wife of Israel. I would gaze on this monument of my namesake and wonder in the wide-eyed, egocentric imaginings of a child: Would someone someday think of me and whisper to her daughter, May you be like Rachel ben Gedi? And what words would follow – well-loved, admired for her faith, for her amazing abilities… for what? As a little girl, anything seemed possible.

Now I am 29. The dome is almost invisible to me as I walk by the huge concrete fortress and watchtower that surround the landmark. Guards with machine guns stand watch; video cameras capture every image, every  movement of every soul, looking for danger. No longer does this place hold wonder; now it holds suspicion. Kind of like me. I used to wonder, dream, idealize my life and future. I have lived a lifetime in the last decade, enough to lose the dream. In its place: a hardened fortress, laced with suspicion.

Elohim, Adonai, what I wouldn’t give to believe again, my heart whispers, the first prayer I have uttered in years, and the words form themselves without my approval, and then my feet move towards the monument, and I don’t know what has come over me, but I am buying a roite bindele from the very vendors I usually mock. I pay with money earned by thrusting my weather-worn hands into the thankless job of mucking stalls in the many small barns littering the countryside, but I imagine the coins transformed into something more pure in this woolen red thread I now hold.

Christmas Prompt

Retell the Nativity story in modern day times from any perspective you choose.

Holly and Jolly

by Amy Ables Lawson

For a guy whose belly laugh was one of his trademarks, he sure didn’t feel very jolly.  He glanced at his watch again. Drat! He was fifteen minutes past the absolute latest he could leave and make his rounds on time! He would have been well on his way if he’d been able to blow through Walgreen’s like he’d originally planned. But no, just as he was leaving, Holly remembered a couple of “essential” ingredients for the Christmas dinner party that he wouldn’t be able to find at the drug store.

“Sweetie, since you’re going out anyway, couldn’t you just quickly grab a few things for me?”

Quickly? She knew there was no such thing as “quickly” at Walmart any day of the year, but especially not on Christmas Eve! All he needed was an extra set of double A batteries (to replace the ones she’d taken from his stash) for Ben in Florida’s remote control helicopter. That would have just been an errand. Now he had an actual shopping list which made this a full-fledged shopping trip.

The crowd in the store was ridiculous. How were all of those people still so woefully unprepared? Every year, much to the chagrin of many, retailers pushed Christmas into the spotlight a little earlier than they had the year before. This year Black Friday started on Thursday, for crying out loud!  Why then, were these people out buying whatever they could grab from any shelf for Aunt Sally instead of sitting home with their families by a crackling fire drinking hot chocolate and watching Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life?

That’s where he wanted to be right now. Instead he had to fight his way through frantic, last-minute shoppers to get to the baking aisle to find the things Holly needed. Then he waited in a line that snaked all the way back to sporting goods, only to have the cashier for his line take her break when he was only three people away from the register. Twenty-five excruciatingly long minutes later, it was his turn and now he was finally out of that loud, stuffy, crowded excuse for a store.

Only where in the world had he parked?

Clause Gets Outsourced

by Jen Gregory

He sucked in for the millionth time, buckled the big black belt and took a final look in the extra-large ornate wood framed mirror. He saw rough pine floors, oversized antique furniture. This room, his dressing room was grand, luxurious in its simplicity. The lemon oil, the soft scrape of shoes on the floor, that heady fog of musk that lingers over clothes stored for long times inside cedar walls. It was magic to him. He could breathe that air, look in that mirror and muster up the courage for another year. He wouldn’t need to this year. This year in the grand mirror’s reflection he simply saw an old man.

“You look so wonderful in your uniform, dear.”

“Thanks,” he managed to mumble.  His voice sounded like a rock tumbler sloshing gravel around. He was tired and worn down. She stared at him with what he was afraid was pity. “I should try to look good for my own funeral, I guess.” He started laughing, the sound of thick gravel falling in chunks to the ground. It was heavy, insincere and Gertrude knew that. Still, the male ego is a fragile little instrument that every good wife knows is one discouraging comment away from total meltdown, even if your husband is one of the most well liked people in the world.

“None of this was ever about you. You couldn’t control it. Don’t blame yourself.”

Her kind brown eyes crinkled into a smile and as they did their warmth melted her two amber orbs into small pools of liquid chocolate. He was pitying himself, he saw it in the confection of her gaze, her always sweet face saying everything her kindly mouth would not.

“Buck up Clause!” at least that’s what he heard as he walked over to her and kissed her on her plump peach fuzzed cheeks, his flagrant whiskers tickling her nose. Gertrude always sneezed after a kiss from her husband. Always.  He murmured, “God Bless you” as he left.