The sun was setting, cherry blossoms perfumed the air, and Esme’s handsome boyfriend, Al, paddled at her side. His fine, green Mallard head feathers looked purple in the waning sunlight. She nibbled on bulrushes.
Nosy daffodils crowded round taking selfies. You’d think it was an award ceremony.
Esme would let nothing lessen the magic of the evening. There on the riverfront, she and Al sipped water laden with tasty seeds. The silvery twilight faded, and fairies flickered like fireflies. Al offered Esme a tasty tuber under the Three Birches. She sighed with pleasure.
Al raised his wings and drummed the water from happiness. Together they swam figures eights, intertwining their wakes, visible ripples of pleasure. Before Esme returned to her family’s nest on the far bank, her beak brushed Al’s farewell. A door had opened in her heart, perhaps Al would pass through one day.
sun sets on longings
solitary triangle of ripples
rushes bend in winds
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is my farewell haibun dedicated to Al, but it’s fictional, so I called it a flash fiction in the title. Al has run the weekly Haibun Thinking prompt, which sadly has ended. I hope you don’t mind me making free with your moniker, Al! I am a bit late with my entry, but I was preparing for and attending a writer’s conference. I have to scale back my blogging in May. I will be rewriting my children’s chapter book. Wish me luck! My plan is to blog in the evenings if I have any energy. 🙂
References:
http://diet.yukozimo.com/what-do-mallard-ducks-eat/
http://www.ask.com/question/what-do-mallard-ducks-eat
64 thoughts on “Flash Fiction: River Romance”
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Friendly Fairy Tales 
Amazing! I Love the details!
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bob, you are so perceptive! I’m glad you like my story. I’m so happy you figured out how to comment! I love seeing messages from you pop in! LOL Hugs, Brenda
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AnElephant is later with his comment than you were with your post but he is unperturbed.
Your magic does not fade.
Wonderful as ever.
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Hello, Elephant. I hope your book is doing well! Thanks for your lovely comment. I’m now working on a book and blogging less, but still enjoying it lots. 🙂
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Always refreshing to see your beautiful photos! Have a wonderful week as always xxx
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Hi, long time no hear! I hope you are well! Hugs, Brenda
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I am well, thank you. Just some firewall. Everything is blocked here.
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This is so adorable. The photos are stunning and Al – does he have an available brother? Or cousin? 🙂
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LOL I’ll be sure to ask! 🙂 Thanks for commenting, warmly, Brenda
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Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
DON’T YOU DARE DUCK THIS ONE!!!!
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LOL at daffodils taking selfies 🙂 lovely photos!
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Excellent!! Those daffis really get in the way!! LOL
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I too have a great love of cherry blossoms and love their sweet fragrance! All the spring posts that are popping up in the blogosphere are such an inspiration and motivate me to get out into nature and connect. Lovely post Brenda, be well!!
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Thanks, being in nature is a joy, definitely, and I hope you get outside. 🙂 Thanks for visiting and commenting! Warmly, Brenda
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very pretty and like the river, all things flow and change in life. i’ll be sad to see you here less often, but happy as you work away on your book. best, beth
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Thanks!! I’m happily working away. My new book is not leaving me alone either, though, so I am working on both. An odd criss-cross of energy. 🙂 I’m enjoying it, though.
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Lovely!
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Thanks!!
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This is the last Haibun? At least we still got Haiku´s. Beautiful pictures as well obviously as the writing.
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Thanks, Charly. Will you miss them? I might still write one once in a while without a prompt. Eventually. Hope you are feeling well and treating yourself well. 🙂
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sure am Mrs. Brenda.
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LOL
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Oh how magical and lovely! This just carried me away!
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I’m so happy! Thanks for the lovely comment! 🙂 Warmly, Brenda
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Love the lake photo, very thought provoking. ‘Break a spine’ on your book! (Good luck!)
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OMG It takes forever to get a book published traditionally!! I’m committed to a major rewrite, then fingers crossed!!
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Awww this is so sweet Brenda. A wonderful farewell to the Haibun challenge. If only I had time to carry it on, I would have done.
Thank you for all of your support with it over the last few months, and I wish you well with the book. I know you will do well with it.
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This was meant as a tribute to my deep feelings for writing haibun and appreciation for the time you had already put in, rather than as pressure to you. I understand how life throws things at you. Actually, I had been planning a post like this for a while, but had not gotten all the needed photos together until recently. 🙂 I’m glad you like it!! Best of luck with your new venture. 🙂 I have a draft for a more standard haibun for that same prompt, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. This one elbowed its way forward first. LOL Hugs, Brenda
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lol They do that sometimes 🙂 Thank you, If I clear time, I may be able to start it back up again, but it will be after the course is finished
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Well, I hope you’ll drop me word if you do. My reader is so jammed, I always miss things. Good luck with your course. Warmly, Brenda
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I will 🙂 Thank you
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That’s lovely. It is sad to see Al’s haibun challenge end. Your photo of the lake in the evening light sums it up really.
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It brought my feelings of sadness that the haibun thinking was ending together with the lingering feelings of the romance of writing haibun, where you share yourself in poetic bursts. It is to share the inner you in positive ways to make real connections in haibun, in dating, in life. I will miss the prompt, but I doubt I will stop writing haibun. 🙂
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So romantic. Best wishes for the rewrite.
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Thanks!
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What a beautiful post, Brenda…and the photos are stunning. 🙂
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Thanks! 🙂
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Al is quite the romantic duck! I love how you wove all of these elements together in this little piece. I’m sorry to read that you won’t be posting as much but we’ll be excited for you are as you prepare your work. 🙂 PINK hugs to you sweet Brenda 🙂
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Pink hugs to you, too! I’ll find time for some swinging pink! 🙂
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Enjoy the fun, don’t forget your tiara, fairy dust and wand and your gown! 🙂
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Never! Always in my purse, magicked small! You never know when you might have to bust out in full princess gear!! LOL
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Love the Daffodils taking selfies, but the entire romance was great.
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Thanks! Those daffies think they are the bee-all, end-all. 😉
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adorable! and all the best with your book 😊
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Thanks!!!
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I liked this! Good luck! 🙂
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Thanks! I plan to work hard, and I have all sorts of fun ideas to incorporate during the editing process. I really like editing, actually. 🙂
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Cool! When I’ve written papers for school, I’ve never edited besides in the same sitting as when I wrote the paper. There are a few poems I’ve worked on longer than a single sitting, and edited in depth before, but that’s about it. It is sort of fun I think, when it’s my own work I’m editing, as I have the freedom to make as many changes as I want!
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I took editing in college, years ago. I’ve always edited a lot, my own work and others. I find editing is better after some time away from a piece. Then you can get perspective, be more neutral about what is working and what isn’t.
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Hmm… that makes sense, hadn’t thought about that. Perhaps when I go back to college, I will write my papers early, and edit them another day!
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That makes perfect sense. Are you going back to college?
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I had hoped to this fall, but I don’t know if that is going to happen because of $ and transportation. If not in the fall, hopefully in the Spring of 2015!
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Good luck with that!! I loved college. I love studying, learning and growing in understanding. Professors have such amazing knowledge, and they are so generous with it.
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Thanks! I’m sure I’ll love it this time around. I hated high school, but liked college the two brief times I was enrolled before plans fell through!
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I hope it all comes together for you soon. I think you value it more when you pay for it yourself, like I did.
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Thank you! It was nice catching up with you by the way, it’s been awhile since we’ve talked much! 🙂
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Yes, it was nice to catch up. I have been insanely busy, and that’s continuing for at least another month… well, perhaps the rest of my life. LOL But I will try to stop by anyway. 🙂
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Brenda, Someday I want to discuss your writing process, what comes first the picture or the words, I truly enjoyed this. take care, Bill
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Bill,
I am always happy to chat with you. With me, the idea is always first, sometimes I hunt down the picture and sometimes I already have it. Then I write from the idea and the picture.
Every once in a while, I get an idea looking at a photo… but more often, I have the idea first.
My chapter book, I imagined it, mostly. I was inspired by some art work I was studying. Then I imagined characters. 🙂
Are you thinking about writing some photography/poem posts? Or have your thought of some other new direction?
Warmly, Brenda
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Have fun. Write when you can:) This was sweet.
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Thanks! I like that you read the notes, Gigi. You are a good friend. 🙂 I’ll be by to see what is going on at the coop. 🙂
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Cute!
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Thanks!
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