5 Minute Stories

Dear Readers,

Over the years, I’ve had many, many short stories published in print magazines, literary publications, and online. I’ve brought together a few of my previously published stories in a small collection titled: 5 Minute Stories.

These are stories of a young girl growing up on the Nebraska prairie—surprisingly,  a lot like me. I hope you enjoy visiting another place with a quieter pace….

Click on the cover to be taken to your favorite bookstore:

5 Minute Stories, by Blythe Ayne

The 4th of July – Minute Stories

Here is a Minute story that is not in the collection:

The 4th of July

4th of July - Minute Stories

Minute chased Banner around his corral behind the house, but after a while of his skittery nonsense, she gave up, walked away and sat in the corner of the corral on a stump with her back to her horse. She slapped the bridle reins in the hot, dry, summer dirt, making poofs of dust. She turned to shout at him that he was no fun, but he stood, head hanging, right behind her.

“Oh … you don’t like it if I don’t play? Well, it’s no fun chasing you, either.” Minute started for the barn to hang up the bridle.

She heard the dull thud of Banner’s hooves as he followed behind her like a contrite puppy. She went through the Dutch door of the barn and turned to look out at the bright day, and her horse watched her with soulful expression. She brought the bridle back out, the sun glinted on the bit.  Banner shied.

“Come on, what a sissy!” She held the bridle low and patted his muzzle with her other hand. “Come on, now.” She brought the bridle up and slipped the bit between his teeth, then she led him to the fence, climbed up to the second rail of the fence and hopped on, bareback.

Finally!” she sighed. She reined Banner around and headed for the open land out back.

Minute!” Mother called from the back door. “Come on, we’ve got work to do. You’ve had long enough to play with that horse.”

“Rats,” Minute said to herself. “I just got on,” she called back to her mother.

“You always say that. Come on, now!” Mother went back inside.

“Darn it!” Minute rode one turn around the corral, quickly scrambled down, took the bridle off Banner and hung it up. “See now, if you hadn’t horsed around, we could have been out back having fun and she wouldn’t have been able to call me,” Minute scolded Banner. “It’s all your fault.” She climbed over the fence and ran to the house.

Inside, it was like a cave, cool and dark. At first she could see nothing coming in from the bright sunlight. But the kitchen smelled wonderful.

What are you gaping at?” Mother’s voice came to her from near the stove.

“Nothing. I can’t see, it’s too dark.”

“Stop clowning around and let’s get some work done. Wash up, then wash those strawberries and take the stems off.”

“Okay.”

Mother was boiling eggs and potatoes for potato salad and Minute could smell the beans baking in the Dutch oven.

“Should have made the potato salad yesterday,” Mother said. “It’s better the second day.”

“Your potato salad always tastes great.”

“What are you after?”

“Nothing. Just hungry.” Minute put a strawberry in her mouth to prove her point.

“Don’t you eat those strawberries up,” Mother said.

“It was a little one, nobody wanted it anyway. I hope we have a pretty sunset.”

“Why?” Mother asked, pouring cold water on the potatoes and eggs, steam rising up around her pretty face.

“Because it’s the Fourth of July.”

“I’ve got to get the custard made for the ice-cream,” Mother said. “I’m never going to get everything together in time to eat at a decent hour.”

“At least it’s Daddy’s day off. I like it when we celebrate the Fourth on the real day.”

“Um,” Mother said into her blue plaid cookbook.

“Don’t you think it’s more fun?” Minute asked.

“What’s that?”

“When Daddy’s day off is the same as the real Fourth of July. Then, we can have our own fireworks and watch everyone else’s at the same time. It’s more exciting.”

“Oh,” Mother said. “That’s true. But he gets double time when he works a holiday.”

“What does that mean?”

“That he makes twice as much money.”

“For just one day?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Minute almost said, “Phooey!” because now the railroad had taken the fun out of her holiday. But she looked at Mother concentrating on putting together the ingredients for the ice-cream custard, so she just kept taking the stems of the strawberries off, feeling quiet.

“I wonder where your father is?” Mother asked

“He’s in the garden,” Minute answered. “I’m hungry.”

“You said that already.”

“I know. I’m still hungry. Can’t I have a pickle?”

“Pickles and strawberries, you’ll ruin your appetite.”

“No I won’t. I’m real hungry.”

“You’ll ruin my appetite. Why a pickle?”

“Because they’re little and you wouldn’t even notice it was gone.”

“Oh, you want one of those sweet pickles.”

“Yes. Gherkin, gherkin. It sounds more like what an animal would say then what a pickle would do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, I’m just so hungry.”

“Well here, eat some pickles and it would serve you right if you got sick.”

“Why?”

“Because you want to eat a pickle.”

“Oh. I’m through with these strawberry stems, now what?”

“Since you have your face in the pickles, make up a relish dish. Slice some carrots and put cream cheese in the celery.”

Soon the potato salad and relish dish and ice-cream custard were in the refrigerator with the strawberries. Then Mother was busy washing the sweet corn on the cob that Daddy had brought in from the garden that morning.

The sun pulled toward the western horizon.

“Shouldn’t I call Daddy to start up the grill?”

“Yes, I was just going to tell you.”

Minute ran outside, found her father in the grain bin with her baby brother.

“Mother says start up the grill, it’s time to eat! And I’m hungry.”

“So am I.” He picked up the baby and they walked back to the house. While Daddy got the grill going, Minute and Mother ran in and out, setting the picnic table with the brightly colored picnic dishes and bringing out the food. The back door slam-slammed after them. Walker, the baby, sat quietly in his little car, sucked on a carrot, head swiveling, watching all the interesting activity.

At long last they sat down to their Forth of July picnic.

Finally!” Minute exclaimed. “Somehow, I’m even hungrier than I was before! Wait ’til you taste the strawberries, Daddy, I washed them myself.”

“Did you now?” He nodded as he made short work of a long row of corn. “The cooks in this house are more than a harem of men deserves.”

“You cook really great, too,” Minute said.

“Why, I was including myself!” Daddy laughed.

“Such modesty!” Mother said, shaking her head.

When they’d devoured everything edible in sight, Daddy brought out the ice-cream freezer. He poured the custard into the metal center, set the beater in place and screwed the lid down tight. Then he positioned the container in the wooden bucket and packed ice and salt all around it. At last he fitted the handle on and began churning.

“This is the awful part,” Minute said.

“What do you mean?” he asked, “you’re not doing the work.”

“I know! But I’ve waited all day for fresh ice-cream. What if it doesn’t turn out?”

“‘Oh ye of little faith,’” Mother said.

“Well, I just can’t wait, that’s all.”

“Go bring the strawberries then, keep yourself busy,” Mother said.

Minute ran inside and grabbed the huge bowl of strawberries. Coming out the back door, she gasped at the sight of the city. The sun, setting in the west, thrust it’s orange and golden rays against the myriad windows of the city spread out in a valley ten miles to the east, sparkling like a village from heaven.

Oh, look!” she cried.

Her parents looked up in alarm to where she pointed, then smiles settled on their faces at the sight of the golden city on the prairie.

Daddy stopped churning the ice-cream. No one moved until the moment of fairy-tale beauty passed as the sunlight faded from the windows.

“I hope I didn’t ruin the ice-cream by stopping,” Daddy said, churning with new vigor. “Oh, good, there, I can feel it setting up.” He made a few more careful turns. “Here we go.” He took off the handle and unscrewed the lid. Inside, magic had turned the liquid custard into a gallon of white, frothy homemade ice-cream.

Won-der-ful!” Minute exclaimed.

Daddy pulled the container from the wooden bucket and carefully removed the beater. Mother handed him a bowl and a rubber spatula and he scooped the ice-cream into the bowl from the beater, then proceeded to take the first taste by licking the beater.

“Hmmm,” he said.

Minute watched enviously.

“Well, how is it?” Mother asked.

“The best ever. Yes indeed-y, this is the best ice-cream on the face of earth. Maybe heaven has better, but I wouldn’t risk my money on it.”

Mother filled bowls to the brim with ice-cream topped with fat, juicy, slices of strawberries.

Then they all—even the baby—had seconds.

“Oh, I ate too much,” Minute moaned.

“I told you not to eat that pickle,” Mother said, laughing.

“Yuck! A pickle.”

“I guess you’re too full to play with sparklers,” Daddy said.

“No-no-no! I’ll be all right in a minute. What about you, Daddy?”

“I guess I’ll be all right about the same time you are.”

As dusk crept to darkness, fireworks began to appear above the city like fireflies. Mother and Daddy moved from the picnic table to lawn chairs, and Minute sat in the grass, watching the increasing fervor of fireworks in the sky.

“There’s the drive-in theatre,” Daddy said.

“And there’s the air base,” said Mother.

“There’s the display at the capitol building,” Minute said. “Now I’m ready for sparklers!”

“Okay!” Daddy dug into his sack of goodies; snakes, one Roman candle, and blue, pink, gold, and silver sparklers. Mother started with a pink one and Minute chose a gold one. Daddy lighted their sparklers with the kitchen matches. Walker squealed with glee from Mother’s lap, while she held the sparkler away from him and wrote, “Walker” in the pink light.

After everyone had sparklered every color, there was much production and standing back and oohs and ahhs while Daddy lit the Roman candle. Then Daddy lit more sparklers for everyone. Except Walker of course.

Minute wrote, “HAPPY 4TH OF JULY” in the sky with the last silver sparkler.

All gone,” Mother said softly to the baby, settling back into her lawn chair.

They returned their attention to the firework displays in the city.

“A perfect Fourth,” Minute said.

“It was nice,” Mother said with a tone in her voice that said, “even though.”

Minute looked from Mother to Daddy. “Doesn’t the Fourth of July mean freedom?” 

“That’s right!” Daddy answered.

“Does freedom mean that you’re happy?”

“Hopefully.”

“You can be free from a lot of things, can’t you, or not free?”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

“Can you be free of not getting paid double time?”

Mother and Daddy exchanged a glance.

“‘Out of the mouth of babes,’” Mother whispered.

“Because,” Minute said, “we’re together and I want us to feel free, you know, and happy.”

“We are,” Daddy said, tugging on one of her long braids with one hand and reaching for Mother’s free hand with the other. “We are.”

“Like that,” Minute said, pointing to a huge firework raining to earth. “So free, everyone sees it.”

The End

EQUINOX PERSPECTIVE, an Allegory: The Moon & the Stem of Grass

Equinox

I went for a walk last night, on equinox, in the meadow. After putting in a lo-o-o-n-g 1sixteen-hour Saturday writing and doing yard work, I wanted to sit in the light of the perfect half-moon in a clear sky.

I wandered out in the moon’s light to my little 12 inch tall stump in the meadow. My throne. From here I witness untold riches – I watch and listen to the bats swoop and dive, I hear the owls calm conversation back and forth across the forest, I see the deer pass me on their well-worn path.

Moon Light, Moon Bright

I looked up at the half-moon on this autumnal equinox, when day and night share, half and half, the 24 hours. In my line of vision about a foot away from me, I noticed one tall grass stalk with a large head of seed, bent over in a perfect half-moon shape. I squinted and lined it up with the moon in my vision. The seed head was the exact shape and size of the moon from my perspective, and precisely covered the moon.

I opened both eyes, there was the moon. I closed one eye, and the moon completely disappeared. Amusing. But also causing me to contemplate PERSPECTIVE.

It All Depends on Your Perspective

This stem of grass – if I let it, from that narrow perspective – was able to entirely block out the glorious light of the moon that fell freely upon every single plant, creature and element in my world.

A remarkable metaphor! Do we not sometimes do this in our lives, allow some small, dark, thing that is close to us block the glorious light that sheds freely upon us all? The moon and the stem of grass encourages us to open up both of our eyes – our physical eyes and our metaphysical/spiritual eyes to get perspective, to see clearly.

When was the last time you sat on a stump in a meadow to get clarity on your perspective? Why not go now?

Autumn Magnolias, equinox

 

A book of meditations that explores perspective….
Click here to be taken to your favorite ebookstore: 45 ways to Excellent Life The paperback and hardbound may be purchased wherever books are sold.

Save Your Life with the Phenomenal Lemon (& Lime!)

Save Your Life with the Phenomenal Lemon (& Lime!)

Excerpt from Save Your Life with the Phenomenal Lemon and Lime:

“In the 1. contaminated environment, 2. emotionally stressful, 3. poor diet world we live in – three factors that contribute to your body becoming more acidic – we need all the alkalizing help we can get. Drinking a glass of fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice with water every day will help your body alkalize to attain a balanced pH.”

Testimonial:

Save Your Life with the Phenomenal Lemon and Lime is packed with dynamite information. By doing lemons every day as instructed in the book, I have noticed I don’t crave sugar and salt like I used to. Other benefits I have noticed are, weight loss, no colds last winter let alone the flu, my face is smoother and younger looking and my sciatica problem has all but disappeared. I just feel better all over.”                              C. G.

Lemon Slice-Square copy

Social Media & Saving Planet Earth

Communication

We have always found it essential to communicate with one another. Whether beating out messages on drums in the jungle, sending smoke signals on a hillside, tapping out the sound of dots and dashes on a telegraph wire or coordinating billions upon billions of bits of information with zeros and ones, we have been about communication, about being social.

Study any anthill or beehive. There you’ll see a kind of prototype, a little tiny mirror of our own species. Busy, busy, busy – touching antenna, gaining information and sending it on.

Intelligent Fingers

Science has shown that we have grey matter in our fingertips, and it seems that we’re proving it. Thinking and communicating at the speed of thumbs. Ah, our lovely, opposable thumbs!

Now it’s time to use the suddenly-upon-us-virtually-miraculous social media to Save Our Planet.

Use your thumbs for good!


Save Your Life with the Power of pH Balance Have you heard people talk about the importance of pH balance, but you don’t really know what they’re talking about

Because pH balance is so very important to your health, and the health of the planet, I read everything I could get my hands on and distilled it down to this one very easy to read and understand book that could truly contribute to saving your life or the life of someone you love.

Click here to be taken to your favorite ebookstore for a copy of Save You Life with pH Balance. The paperback and hardbound editions can be purchased wherever books are sold.

Maya – The Mystical Myst

Washougal River

Last night, as I drove home, the three-quarters moon was as bright in a clear sky as if it were a full moon. As I came along the Washougal River, a mist rose from it like a pure white, mystical, fifty foot tall wall. This was the most beautiful, yet impenetrable, mist I’ve ever seen. It was lighted directly overhead by the moon, which gave it the stunning illusion of physical substance.

Not only was this such a magical sight that I nearly drove off the road, but it was uncannily serendipitous …..

In my reading yesterday of Michael Bernard Beckwith’s SPIRITUAL LIBERATION, he wrote that after the world was created, there arose a mist.

The Mist of Illusion

This mist was always explained to me as a physical parting of, in simplified terms, wet matter and dry matter, or (again, very simplistically) water and land. Which may be the case. Michael Beckwith added to my understanding. He pointed out that numerous holy books define The Mist as the mist of illusion that comes between us and “the real” in order to make this three dimensions appear to be reality.

Maya

This mist is called maya in Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. Maya manifests and maintains the illusion, the dream of duality in what our senses perceive to be the phenomenal Universe. The goal of enlightenment is to understand maya, to see, sense, know, learn, intuit, and/or understand that a separation between the self and All That Is is a false duality.

But what a beautiful mist is maya! What a myst-ical myst! Wake up in the dream, live and love every moment of this illusion with curiosity, exploration, joy, and delight. You brought yourself here, to this dream, on purpose, don’t sleepwalk through it. Instead, discover all it has to offer. Knowing it’s an illusion opens up vast realms of beauty and enriching experience.

 

Grace and Awe

Spiritual Liberation

It’s been a rocky road of late. Though I’m always filled with gratitude and love, I’ve been having my mettle tested. Every day, as I deal with the seemingly burgeoning challenges, I tell myself I’m up to it, or they would not occur.

Enter Michael Bernard Beckwith’s SPIRITUAL LIBERATION, which I’m reading for the second time every morning in my meditation. A few days ago when everything I’ve been dealing with was coming to a full crisis, I read:

“As a spiritual warrior, my courage to face all that is required for my transformation is embodied with grace and ease.

“This prayer is responded to by universal law.

“Beyond reasoning, intellect, and appearance, I make room for a great transformation to unfold and express through me.

“From this moment on, everything unfolds in a magnificent way. I release myself into the great excellence.”

My Mantra

I was so moved by this passage, but especially the first sentence, that I decided to memorize it and take it into my day – or my future – as a mantra. Interestingly, this is what I heard myself repeating:

“As a spiritual warrior, my courage to face all that is required for my transformation is embodied with grace and awe.”

I said it a few times before I realized that something was different, but I wasn’t sure what. I went back to the book and saw that I had spontaneously replaced the word “ease” with “awe.”

How interesting, I mused. My own intelligence is telling me to have a sense of awe about my challenges, my courage and my transformation.

Leading me on a path of considering what this meant … which I share, very briefly, here. I came to realize it told me to feel awe in being presented with such challenges as would manifest a profound transformation. Further, to acknowledge my challenges with reverence.

And so, with awe, as well as grace and ease, I accept my tempering and expanding challenges.

How might your life change if you encountered you challenges with grace and awe?

No Such Thing as Loneliness!

Swirling Energies

I love this quiet time in the morning when I meditate, keeping companionship with myself, and hooking up to the energies swirling around ….

The energies of velvety night, softly fraying at the edges of the branches of the trees and the bowl of the horizon into a gentle, delicate, purple lace, the slow, soft “drip, drip” off a gutter outside my open window letting me know it rained a little in the night, my warm blankets and fluffy pillow that I have myself propped among, typing away, looking forward to this day, planning it out in my mind.

I engage in the flow of meditation, where I consciously breathe, letting thoughts float up and out until my mind is still as a placid lake. When I return from this whole/holy, connection, I once again engage my senses, and I now hear the morning birds, calling up the sun. Ah! … yes, thank you little birds, there will be another day!

Glorious Solitude

I revel in my glorious yet peaceful solitude. So much is happening! I am profoundly not alone among all these creative energies as they flow about me—the lacy trees, the refreshing rain, the companionable birds, along with the myriad of thrilling mental and physical engagements of the day. Writings to be written, walks to walked! I cannot imagine being lonely, and I wonder at people who say they are.

How can one ever be lonely if truly engaged in life? And why have life if not to fully engage in it? Your soul knew a purpose when coming to this life, and loneliness is nowhere in that contract.

Glorious solitude is central to the entire miraculous experience of life. Within solitude you discover who you are. You can make the choice to fall in love with yourself and with LIFE anew, every single day!

Wild iris on the forest floor

Oh, Happy Day!

I’ve been going through some rough terrain of late … while affirming, always affirming, that all will turn out for the best.

Mr Goose

But I hit a new low when my one of my little goosies became very sick. Geese are pretty tough, (as well as very companionable) but I feared for this little guy’s life as he rapidly faded yesterday.

I scurried off to my local Feed store (LJC – thank you for being there) and got antibiotics to put into his water. When I got home I gave Mr. Goose a nice warm bath in the big laundry room sink. Even though distressed to be away from his “family,” he seemed to take to his bath, ducking his head into the water and trying to flap his wings (well, the sink is not that big).

Then I wrapped him up in a towel and held him and talked with him, and talked with his little goose angels, asking all for his recovery. Of course, Mr. Goose was not particularly interested in anything I had to say – he just wanted to be with his family.

I put the required amount of antibiotics in a pail of warm water, and, much to his dismay to be left alone, I left him in the warm laundry room for the night.

A Rough Night

Oh what a night! He cried and cried all night long. It was a sleepless night for geese, cat, and animal care giver alike. If you’ve never heard a goose cry, you’ve never heard just about the saddest sound there is. I wanted to go talk with him all night, but I knew that would only upset him more when I didn’t take him back to the other geese.

About 4:30 a.m. he finally became quite. I didn’t know if this was good or the worst, but I still forestalled going to check on him, as, if he was sleeping (which I hoped and hoped was the case) I would only awaken him.

And we all needed our sleep.

I slept a bit, and then at 6:30 I couldn’t wait any longer. I went to the laundry room, bracing myself for perhaps the worst … cautiously opening the laundry room door ….

“Good Morning!” in Goose

“Honk!” he said. “Honk, honk, honk-honk-honk!”

Even with all the stressful crying most of the night, he had, miraculously, almost completely recovered ….

Oh, Happy Day!

Yes, I still have all those other dreary concerns eating up my time and attention. But my companionable birdie is well, and life is good.

Health is a blessed commodity … and I wish it for all your creature companions, be they feathered, furred or finned!

Happy day, 2 Geese

Ides of January

Happy Ides of January ….

May your 2010 be filled with Miracles and Joy!

Love is The Answer

Valentine’s Day ….

is a month from today, and there two things I like to celebrate –

Any occasion to be happy

Any occasion to express love.

Agape Love

I’m talking about Agape Love – Unconditional Love and Metta Love – Universal Love. The love that flows through all of Creation, filled with the source, force, flow, feeling, energy, attitude, desire, gratitude and love of LOVE.

So, instead of having only a day of celebrating romantic love, why not have an entire month of celebrating all forms, feelings, and states-of-being of love? Or even better, a life time of celebrating love!

The Promise of Spring

Spring is Afoot

This morning I smelled spring in the air.

I know, it’s early – not even the Ides of January yet. But spring floated on the air, just the same. 6:45 a.m., 45 degrees F, the deck door slightly ajar. In stole the scent of spring on thin, delicate feet, tip-toeing through the forest high in the fir trees, pirouetting across the meadow, and slinking in through the narrow opening of my door.

Yes, winter could return. But the promise of the ages came into my room early this morning – the fresh, loamy aroma of LIFE waking up in the earth, of the long-dream hibernation coming to an end, of a hunger for new fruits.

Something new is afoot.

Wake Up!

The Jumping Window Shade – A Year of Miracles

A Strange Sound

January 3, 2010

This morning I tried to convince myself to get up and get to work. But the cat was purring in the crook of my arm, it was dark as pitch outside, and chilly inside. I was so comfortable in my bed.

But then there was a strange sound … some small thing had fallen somewhere in the house. The noise startled the cat. She stopped purring and moved. So I got up to investigate. I opened my bedroom door and saw the narrow window shade that hangs in the long window aside the front door lying on the floor.

Strange!

I replaced it, and went back to my room to begin my morning meditation and thus, my day.

As I sat silently, I realized that if the window shade had not fallen I would have stayed resting with the cat on this, the first Sunday morning of the year, 2010, and probably fallen back asleep. But the odd – and one might dare to contemplate miraculous – event of the window shade jumping from its spot compelled me to get in motion … and to write this!

Life is full of miracles. Some rowdy, and demanding attention – such as a window shade jumping from its station. And some quietly taken for granted – such as the purring cat in the crook of one’s arm.

A Year of Miracles

My Wish is for a Year of Miracles, both serene and boisterous – and myself in an awakened state to enjoy them.

____________

My Book, 45 Ways to Excellent Life has 45 “Action Meditations.”  An action meditation is something you can do every day to make each day more sweet and meaningful. Available everywhere books are sold, as an ebook, paperback or hardbound.

pH Balance & Christmas

pH Balance

What do pH Balance and Christmas have in common?

Hopefully love and care for you and those you love. Save Your Life with the Power of pH Balance is an excellent gift to give this holiday season. It’s easy to read and quickly takes the mystery out of all the things you hear about pH Balance.

Your body – and everybody’s body – wants to be pH balanced. This is the single best, truly affordable, thoughtful gift you can get for everyone on your holiday list – family, friends, co-workers – and don’t forget yourself!