She -5minutefreewrite (x4)

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-752-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-helmet
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-753-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-greens
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-754-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-lentil-soup
And https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-755-5-minute-freewrite-thursday-prompt-homemade-waffles

I’ve been sick. I’ve never let that stop me from freewriting before, but… Well. I did. I don’t know if it was the sickness mixed with the grief from my dad dying or if it was worse sickness than usual, or if it was that plus just not… feeling like it.

You know, the not feeling like it is probably a symptom of grief.

Anyways, here goes.

Helmet.

Lochlan has a helmet. He got it with his scooter for his second birthday. He has a helmet and a scooter now. And he’s in love with balloons. I guess, infatuated more. Because he seems to only think about them when they’re around.

Helmet. Helmets are important. I’ve never suffered an injury because of not wearing one, and I shouldn’t tell other people’s stories, but suffice it to say, I personally know how important helmet-wearing is.

I don’t think I wore helmets when I was little. I wore… no protective gear? Or did I wear helmets? I might have. I honestly don’t remember. I certainly wore helmets when riding horses… sometimes. But bicycle helmets? Huh. I rode my bicycle to the corner store to get a popsicle. It was 2 miles. Three miles? But once I hit a pothole. I still have the scar on my left palm. That must have been 25 or more years ago.

Geez. Childhood is far away.

Greens

She wore the healer greens when she was in the Grand Council Chambers, and at healer’s hall, of course, but when she was not on official duties, she preferred the plain linen that every peasant could afford. She didn’t enjoy standing out, though she couldn’t help it. Her bright eyes and dark hair ensured that she was an uncommon sight in the dens of vice and villainy that she most frequented. No one doubted that she belonged there unless they didn’t belong there themselves.

It had been a long day. She couldn’t remember having seen the sun that day. She’d arrived at healer’s hall before the sun rose, and had missed her lunch tending to a stone hauler’s daughter’s broken arm. He’d been telling the truth, she thought, when he said the load had shifted and a big stone had fallen off the side which she was walking next to. She was glad to work on a simple break for an honest family.

But her employers didn’t care if they were honest or the work were simple.

Lentil Soup
Beans. Beans go into it, and beans come out of it into the belly of the hippy, the hungry child, and the old man.

On lentil soup day, all the residents of this old, drafty house, sit on boxes in the kitchen to eat. There are too many things to be done to lose time to eating separately or having a formal family meal. That’s why lentil soup is eaten on lentil soup day. It fills bellies quickly.

It’s harder for the old man, because he keeps his mustache long, and it dips in the soup. He seems irritated at this, but flabbergasted each time as well, as if he’s made an agreement with his long mustache, and the mustache has failed to hold up its end of the bargain each time.

Once the soup has been eaten, and everyone has had their fill, they all pile the dishes in the sink. Someone will wash them after the day’s work is done, but that repast was a brief respite. On lentil soup days, the work gives way for no discomfort.

Homemade waffles
“Homemade waffles!” Josie shouts from her front door. She’s hoping the little children who she calls her own, though none are hers, will rush from their playing into her home to devour her homemade waffles.

She lays out sticky jams and real maple syrup. She puts caramel and whipped cream and marashino cherries in their own bowls and sets a spoon beside each. A pot of honey with one of those special honey servers sits in the center of the table, as if on display. The waffles sit warm, but colder every second, on a plate on the counter top. She’s burnt the ones she was trying to make chocolate chip waffles, but most of them are palatable regardless, and all the plain ones look find.

Josie holds her hand up, as if halting someone who is not there mid-sentence, so that she can interject, “butter” And she briskly strides the two steps to the refrigerator to get the butter.

But none of these children. No one, in fact. No one comes to help her eat her waffles. Who would? If she asked the old man who is her neighbor to come and eat some waffles, he might say yes, but all he’s heard is the shout, and he thinks that she is simply telling her large family that she has made waffles, not from a mix, but from scratch absolutely.

That’s not what she meant by “Homemade Waffles!” That’s not what she meant.