Beverly, I relate to that first one so much you have no idea.

I probably did write in the third person as a defensive mechanism in that one. I've tried to write in a journal, but I could never do it, because to write something is to relive it. Also, my training and experience is as a journalist, so it's hard to put myself in the story.

I also want to thank Teppy for the drabble idea. It's helped me a lot. Now I have to nerve myself to tackle longer pieces.

It's been interesting to see how different the drabbles are in their focus. Some are tiny stories in their own right, and others, such as Beverly's second one, feel like a piece of a novel, with just the right detail, but more story somewhere.

I'm such a bitch for first...cause I type therefore I am, huh?Like this: I didn’t sleep well again last night. I don’t know why. Sometimes the room isn’t right; too hot or too cold. Sometimes I feel my thoughts chasing each other in a most unrestful way. Sometimes I get a good look at the people in power on my TV and shiver too much. Sometimes it’s an inconvenient burst of energy, or the book I can’t put down. The cheap lure of television, or too much garlic, a noise outside I can’t place. Inspiration, or , all too rarely, happy anticipation. Sleep may be natural, but that doesn’t make it easy for me.

I don't think I can write in first anymore, erika.

Okay, that just sealed my fate, didn't it. I have to try, now.

Ginger, that very thing of not having to connect dots, of not having to be linear and continuity-girl, as in, "When last we saw our intrepid heroine, she was climbing Mt. Shasta in the nude. Now, two days later, she's dealing with abrasions and sunburn..." has freed me to write. I'd worked in verse or in long fiction forms for so long I'd forgotten how to do a non-connected scene. And because of my imposed necessities, the very act of writing had evaporated for me.

So this word restriction, prose form, is the very best thing that could have happened, for me. I can do a scene or an eyeblink, and it doesn't have to progress, or move anything forward, or connect or bridge anything, or refer to anything. It can simply be, complete as it is. Or, in time, possibly, a trigger to something bigger.

But I'm not willing to think about that yet.

I just adore the discipline it imposes. A hundred-word restriction is precisely to my taste; I like using words as freight for other meanings, so saying to me, hey, you must use this exact number? Honing tool.

Love love love it.

I didn't go over this time, I don't think.

I did go over. I couldn't keep it short, but, with some struggle, got it down to 500 words.

Flip of the Cards

She flips the cards, King to Queen to Jack to ten. She ignores her burning eyes as she ignores the voices, fiercely.

"Tomorrow is another day!"

The cards snap, red to black to red to black, while her own voice whispers, "Just a little more peace, please. Just a little more."

The next: portentous, pretentious, deep, "Morning comes too soon and you won't be ready, but they will."

She grits her teeth and shuffles the cards. "Just one more game."

The Juju queen adds her molasses dipped opinion, "Lay 'em down, honey. You got things needing to be done."

Red. Black. Red. Black. "No."

The mother bustles in. "Laundry. Shopping. You really do need to bathe those babies every single day. I don't think it's right, they said every other day is better. I can't imagine it. In my day…" She bustles out, nasal whine floating after like a cloud of bad perfume.

King, Queen, Jack. "More time."

"When I was a boy, down in the bayou, I used to take my hounds out and go off in the swamp, do my hidin' thataway."

She snaps the cards down. "Well, I don't have a bayou, or hounds, and the babies won't care for themselves."

"Just sayin'. Maybe you could be writin' instead, or drawin'. You do that pretty well. Sometimes." The old man's rocker squeaks, his presence fading with his pipe tobacco.

The cards slip between her fingers, scatter on the carpet at her feet. She retrieves them slowly. Her eyes are gritty now, her hands shaky. She sips cold coffee and lays the cards again.

"You are so irresponsible." Him. Faded blue eyes, sagging lids and faint purple under-circles, they always find her. His jowls are sagging. "You know that, right? You know that you should be planning, PLANNING to sleep at least 8 hours. I have the perfect pillow for my head. It's just the right thickness to keep my spine straight. You need to go to bed. You have work to do. You're not going to accomplish anything tomorrow if you keep this up." He waits. She lays the next card with a snap, and he disappears with a disgusted exhalation.

The last voice. The one she's been braced for. "Okay. What is this? What's going on with you, really? Those babies need you tomorrow. They need you to be alert and aware. They need proper stimulation, exercise, healthy meals. Not only do they need those things, they deserve them. What are you going to do, feed them peanut butter off a spoon while they watch Teletubbies for the umpteenth time?

The cards falter. The voice changes.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sleep for fuck's sake. Go get in that bed and sleep. You know if you just lay down and try, just TRY, you know you'll sleep. You don't get five minutes of peace when you have responsibilities. Go. To. Sleep."

She lays the cards down, heads for the stairs, wondering when her mother's voice became her own.

Oh, man, Deena. Powerbar, that is.

Third person.

Umph, love. The exhausting oneself so one has a prayer of going to sleep. Been there. Sisyphus should have been a woman.

I like the man in the bayou.