POETRY By RENE

https://girlieontheedge1.wordpress.com/2025/10/05/sundays-six-sentence-story-word-prompt-387/

For anyone interested in more of the backstory to Finn and Bedelia’s saga, I’m sharing an extra “Six”.  (I apologize that it’s wordier than the limit I try to keep to 5 years later—there’s no obligation to read.)

This week’s 6SS prompt is “Fill”.  In an episode pulled from a 2020 file Bedelia and Finn were still getting to know each other, and it features the first budgie, “Mr Van Gogh”.  The prompt word was “Horizon”.  

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“‘Ello, Fenn!” Mr Van Gogh greeted Finn’s arrival, repeating it till Finn deigned to pay him proper obeisance—Bedelia laughed as she filled pans with fragrant batter.

While pumpkin bread baked, Finn offered to wash dishes; adopting a quietly jovial tone, he said, “if we were married we could do dishes together every night, Beedee”—(her response was to mutely wrench the dishtowel round and round the well-dried mixing bowl, like a wind-up doll unstoppable).

He’d brought Chinese take-out, she set the table; as he took his chair he cautiously inquired whether he’d said the absolutely wrong thing; when she murmured a soft “no”, he continued his thought: “I’m just wondering what you see on the horizon”.

After chewing a bite of sesame chicken, she replied: “I hope I’m seeing a long enduring friendship…I like you very much, Finn; I’m enjoying our companionship…it’s tempting, at holidays, to let emotions take control; but marriage requires cool heads willing to allow needed time for detailed discussions; you’d still be married had Elizabeth not passed away—my experience left me favoring a convent…aside from early-rising nuns.”

“Beedee, I wouldn’t be remotely like your ex-husband—I’m from the ‘happy wife, happy life’ school, I’m not the controlling type; I can’t foresee being slightly miffed at you, let alone angry; your self-esteem, confidence were destroyed…but Beedee, you’re everything a man might wish for—don’t give me the, ‘I’m not young and pretty anymore’ look, because on that point your vote doesn’t count”; he basked in her blush, touched the back of her hand, continued: “Beedee, I’ll slow down…but I’m going to say it, I’m in love with you, I believe we’d be happy together the rest of our lives; I’ll do anything to prove I’m God’s answer to your ‘too-afraid-to-pray this’ prayer; now…read your fortune.”

She opened the cookie: “‘Your world has enlarged…take the key to your new door’—what does yours say?”—“‘You’re on the right road, don’t deviate, proceed forward 20 miles’…ya think the Chinese guy accidentally put his GPS directions in here?”—they laughed so heartily that Mr Van Gogh chirped a close interpretation of “Ah-men!”

©Rene Heartsong, 2020 ~ All rights reserved.