A Way With Words (Trifecta Challenge)

Condensation trickled from the iron window frames, the rivulets parting company to dodge the greasy smudges my chubby fingers had left on the glass.  As each pane misted beneath my sugary breath, I moved to look through the next, watching the white feathers swirling towards me from a leaden sky.

Nanna was behind me; her lavender fragrance tickling my nose.

“Where do they come from?” I asked, watching the flakes settle over the hedgerows.

“They’re from the angels,” Nanna said.  “They’re making their beds…shaking their mattresses.”

Her words I conjured up images of gentle creatures with folding wings, peering over the clouds, laughing at the way the feathers had clothed the countryside.

Nanna had a way with words.

I remember one summer, at the same window, watching lightning cleave the sky, and waiting for the thunderous crash.

“Come away,” she’d said pulling me into the room.

“What makes it bang like that?” I asked.

“It’s God,” she said, “he’s moving furniture in his bedroom, and that’s him pulling his wardrobe across the sky.”

If Nanna’s explanations were scientifically weak, they were rich in images that were to accompany me throughout my life. Images I’d never forget.

She had an old mahogany moneybox on her dressing table.  When I asked her what she kept in it, she said it was her ‘nest egg’.  I imagined a single delicate blue egg, nestling in a bed of twigs, and sometimes I’d press my ear against the side, wondering when the egg would hatch.

On my seventh birthday, I found her sitting on her bed, her moneybox lying broken on the bed beside her.  She didn’t look like my Nanna any more, she looked hard and angry, her lips pressed into a tight line.  Later, when I was in bed, there were raised voices downstairs.  I’d never heard her speak to anyone like that before, least of all my father.

I wish you could have told me a magpie did it, Nanna. 

The Trifecta Challenge (third definition) this week was:

WEAK (adjective)

 

1: lacking strength: as

 

a : deficient in physical vigor : feeble, debilitated

 

b : not able to sustain or exert much weight, pressure, or strain

 

c : not able to resist external force or withstand attack

 

d : easily upset or nauseated weak stomach>
2a : mentally or intellectually deficient

 

b : not firmly decided : vacillating

 

c : resulting from or indicating lack of judgment or discernment

 

d : not able to withstand temptation or persuasion <the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak>
3: not factually grounded or logically presented weak argument>

– See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/#sthash.VujAYUDL.dpuf

And now the weekly prompt.WEAK (adjective)

 

1: lacking strength: as

a : deficient in physical vigor : feeble, debilitated

b : not able to sustain or exert much weight, pressure, or strain

c : not able to resist external force or withstand attack

d : easily upset or nauseated <a weak stomach>
2a : mentally or intellectually deficient

b : not firmly decided : vacillating

c : resulting from or indicating lack of judgment or discernment

d : not able to withstand temptation or persuasion <the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak>
3: not factually grounded or logically presented <a weak argument>

– See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/#sthash.VujAYUDL.dpuf