CHARACTERS: Byrdie

RATING: G

SUMMARY: Storms, flooding and cake.

A/N: Some views may be controversial

PROMPT daily_prompt 131 credit prachensky

WORD COUNT 324

THE STORM IS COMING

Do you feel that change in the air? There is a storm coming. I can smell the rain so it must be close. You’re from the city I don’t expect you to know what rain smells like. It’s sweet but cool all at the same time.

This time of year it’s probably a thunder storm. They come up on us quick this time of year. Don’t worry about the thunder and lightning. That isn’t the part that’s the most dangerous. When it rains hard, like it looks like it going to, it flood the hollers. The water will get so high in places that it will even wash away people’s homes.

Some say it’s the coal mines that make the ground so loose so that the hillsides wash away in the rain. That is one possible answer to it. But I don’t believe it for a second. I think it’s more the logging company bringing in those big trucks and cutting all those trees. It’s the roots that hold the dirt in place. Without the tree roots the whole mountain can go especially if it was once the fill from a strip mine. All that shale shifts over time making those fills unstable. That’s why the coal companies get blamed.

Those strip mines do more than just deposit that shifty shale. They also cover the streams that used to drain the water out. With those covered up by waste, the water just comes out of everywhere and floods everything.

We better get in now. It’s close. I can see it over yonder. It sure is pretty. Nature is always beautiful but it’s dangerous too. Come on in. I have fresh coffee and a yellow cake I made just this morning. After the storm passes you may have to wait for the roads to clear. But there is no out running it that’s for sure. What do you like in your coffee?

Rating: PG

Summary: Bydie talks about an old house

A/N: Some themes are controversial.

Prompt: (muse_prompt photo prompt b 7/13/12)

Word Count: 395

WE WERE YANKEES

Pretty ain’t it? That is part of one of those old southern plantations. We had them here too. There ain’t too many left though. Most of them were burned or tore down to make room for new houses. 

It’s a shame that so many of those old places have gone to ruin. You can tell it was a beautiful house once. The historical people came through and picked some of the places to preserve. This wasn’t one of them. I wish they had been able to save them all but some were just too far gone.    

The slave quarters are gone now. They were over the hill. They were probably the first to go. They were never built very sound. They may have even been burned after the war by the slaves.

Awful thing slavery, it still affects people generations later. It amazes me what one human can do to another. Then these people turn around and call themselves a ‘Christian.’ I don’t think Jesus would agree with them.

The old woman gives a short laugh and then sighs. 

We were the South once but we went with the Union and President Lincoln during the war. That’s right, we were Yankees. I know it’s hard to believe. Brothers fought against brothers in that war.

There is a graveyard behind those trees full of soldiers from both sides. There are women and children in there too from that time. I’ve read some of the grave stones. Whole families were killed at the same time. That war was bloody. No one was spared.   

It’s sad when history is lost. Stories of what was never to be told again. That’s why I tell you these things, so someone will know what was. I’m sure I bore you silly.

Now my Granny, she was a storyteller proper. She could tell you about anything. I have her stories in a journal. When she started to get sick she wrote them all down. She didn’t want them all to be lost. Someday I’ll read you a few. I believe she may have had one about this place here. Not that Granny was that old but she remembered stories that her Granny told her. You could say that storytelling is a tradition in my family.  

Character: Byrdie (original character)

A/N: This is a conversation with an old mountain woman.

Prompt: (musewrite prompt set 2 photo c)

Word count: 251

It’s beautiful isn’t it? Those mountains over there are treasures. I hope they don’t disappear. How does a mountain disappear? Well they get exploded.

The polite people call it ‘Mountain Top Removal’. Daddy called it ‘Strip Mining’. That’s what they do. They strip off the top of the mountain to get to the seam of coal inside. They take all the dirt and shale and pour it into the hollers. It changes the land and not always for the good.

Didn’t you ever wonder why that pretty golf course up north is so flat? That was a strip mine. It sure was. That’s what they call ‘reclaiming’. I don’t care what they say mountains are treasures and can’t be reclaimed as a golf course. 

A mountain is more than a pile of rocks and dirt. It’s a living thing. It has creatures on it and springs coming out of it. Things grow on it.

Haven’t you ever wondered why we don’t get the bad storms from the ocean? The mountains block them. They keep us from harm. Both sides. We don’t get all those tornadoes either.

But no one cares about all that anymore. They just want cheap coal. They say it’s safer than underground mines. Either way it still costs us our treasures.

Remember what they look like because someday they may all be gone. That will be a sad day indeed.

Well I know you have to go so I won’t keep you. I’m sure I’ll see you around.