Renee Yancey

“How Cold Was It?” by Renee Yancey

How cold was it? You tell me. What is the freezing point of neon? The bank sign, which usually flashes the time and weather, is fully frozen. It’s neon solid frozen as solid as everything around it. In Northern America, cold isn’t unexpected but this cold… no. The above the fold headline in the local paper shows a picture of the bank sign with the caption, “How cold is it? You don’t want to know.” They didn't. Nor did they want to know how cold it would get. But they found out.The local news was all about the weather. Stories about emergency...

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“The End?” by Renee Yancey

He didn’t think his life could get any worse. The stiff blanket twists around his thin body as he wakes up under a bridge, to the strange quiet, he begins to believe he is wrong. Homeless for five years now, he is used to waking up to the sound of the city around him. Honks and the sound of people talking, fighting, and making up. This morning though, there was none of that. No sound of cars moving over him. No sound of birds. Really, no sound of anything outside of his own labored breathing.  A frown as he tries to recall whether today...

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“The Stepsister ” by Renee Yancey

Submitted to Contest #277

I know. I know I got a bad reputation in the story. Called evil even. I am not. No, just a grieving daughter. They ( the other reporters) forget why I was her stepsister in the first place. It is all about Ella. Is my frustration showing? Forgive me. Let me take you back to the time before. “I am sorry. There is nothing more we can do.” I sat beside my mom and sister in the doctor ‘s office. My father lays in a hospital bed a few doors away. He got weak just six short months before then. Tests and scans finally gave us the answer. Cancer. Ag...

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“The Vegan Vampire ” by Renee Yancey

Her human memories grow vaguer every day. For a while, she tried to hang on to them. The changes are so severe, she thought if she could recall what it is like to be human, she could maintain her sanity. Even as they grow farther away, she holds on to one thing. She won't take a human life, no matter what.  “Still holding on to your vamp vegetarianism, I see,” Sophia snears, “you're a vampire. Embrace it.” She shakes her head, turning away as Sophia drains the blood of her helpless victim. “I am good with animals.” “Surviving but not th...

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“Jigsaw Puzzle ” by Renee Yancey

Jigsaw Puzzle The table is lit by the overhead light. Outside the fluttering curtains the moon adds a sliver of light. At the table, a mom and daughter sit over a thousand piece puzzle. The clock on the stove turns over another hour. Neither woman pays attention to it. Their entire focus is on finishing the puzzle and the conversation they are having. *Are you sure?” The daughter nods. “He is the one. Mom, I know you have concerns. He isn't, dad.” The older woman pushes her hair out of her face where it has come loose from the ponytail it i...

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“Past Is Prologue ” by Renee Yancey

Submitted to Contest #268

He is dying. She knows that and doesn't know how to feel about it. Is she supposed to be unset? He is her father. She should be grieving. Moving towards the house she grew up in, her steps slow as she reaches the porch. A creak as her foot hits the bottom step. A pause as she waits for her heartbeat to catch up. A thousand memories flood her mind with just that sound. Jumping over it, as not to alert him. Sitting on it, locked out of the house. She pulls in a deep breath as she prepares to climb the others. The squeak of the screen door b...

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“April, 1974” by Renee Yancey

Submitted to Contest #267

PBS doesn't have weather alerts. Thank God the big picture window’s curtains were open. An unbelievable sight that had all three adults paralyzed as they looked out at it for a moment. A whirling gigantic force that is quickly making its way across the open field. The children, laying across the shag carpet, eyes glued to Sesame Street, are blissfully unaware of the approaching danger. It is the thought of the children that frees them from the paralytic fear. They run towards them. He grabs his daughter. She doesn't have time to ask what's w...

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“Second Meet” by Renee Yancey

“I don't even know what to say.” Her hands shake as she packs her travel bag. Her friend hugs her shoulder. “Hi mom. It is your daughter.” She offers. Hannah smiles but it has a sick look to it. She knows Greta is trying but…” “Right, the one you last saw as a newborn.”  She started searching for her birth parents as soon as she turned eighteen and aged out of the system.  “You know she thought she was doing the right thing. She couldn't have known…” “I know.” She had almost been adopted as a baby. Her diagnosis of leukemia had cha...

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“Never Like This ” by Renee Yancey

“Not like this,” she thinks to herself as she prepares for her wedding, “never like this.”. She has dreamed of this day since she was a little girl. Back then, people were married for love, or so her romantic heart firmly believed. Most probably were. No one, well, almost no one, saw this coming. A reduction in population was so severe that the governments around the world took over.  It started small. Posters and advertising encouraging childbirth. The  abortion centers, those that remained, were closed. A good thing. It did start...

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“Moms” by Renee Yancey

Submitted to Contest #261

You wouldn't know it to look at her, hair unbrushed, pulled up in a messy bun. Her clothes are several years old and covered in baby spit up and other unknown stains. Her eyes are fierce with love and heavy with fatigue. She wears no cape, isn't called by a light in the sky but by a baby’s middle of the night cry or a teenager ‘s phone call.  No, you wouldn't know it to look at her, but she is a hero. To the newborn on her chest, looking at her with eyes full of love and wonder, she is everything. To the toddler, curled on her lap, exha...

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“The Forgotten Photo ” by Renee Yancey

He is cleaning out his dad's drawers. With him entering the hospital, probably for the last time, it is time. He wants to bring him his comfortable pajamas, his most comfy socks, bits of home. Tears stream down his face as he gathers them. He is only fifty but the cancer is aggressive. The doctors are discussing hospice care. Moving his dad's clothes around, he finds a photograph buried under his socks.  Lifting it out and into the light, he is shocked by the face looking back at him, for it is his own in a female form. Her arm is aroun...

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“A Journey to Acceptance ” by Renee Yancey

A Journey to Acceptance  It takes her forty years. Forgiveness is a process, she comes to understand. Forgetting can't be done, not completely. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children. Her first childhood memory, the first clear one, was of her dad touching her under her panties. Then her being spanked for not having any on. She was around three. Had the abuse started then, she doesn't know. It could have. Who has memories before three? Whether she was touched under her diaper too, she will never know. Her mom says he was a ...

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“Incognito ” by Renee Yancey

Incognito No, I am not her. I loathe her. You think you know, right. You are wrong. So begins a journey of self discovery. A venture of redemption. The shame is too much. It eats at her. Too young to understand, she hides deep in herself. Her outer and inner eyes remain closed throughout. This is when the split starts. A part of her must remain with ____. A part though, it hides, keeping her safe. Growing and moving past her toddler hood, it gets harder. She finds safety in stories. Devouring books from the tender age of three, when Sesa...

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“If Only” by Renee Yancey

The baby rests on her daddy ‘s chest. Her mommy lays beside them. The sweet summer breeze blowing in them just ruffles the lace curtains over their bedroom windows.  “This is perfect,” the new mommy breaths out, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”  Her husband smiles, moving his eyes from his newborn to his wife. “Could you imagine? Just us and her, in this room. Her remaining this size. It would be heaven, for a while. Remember, darling, you were bored out of your mind while on bed rest in this same room.” She acknowledges t...

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“Secret Library ” by Renee Yancey

She wasn't surprised that her great -grandmother’s house was full of books. She has been a librarian and her great-grandfather, a historian. So, the piles of books everywhere, from the overstuffed bookshelves, to the piles on the desks and tables, were expected. “It will take me a good month to go through them,” she says aloud. The old house absorbs her words, seemingly to tuck them away with all the others, “thanks granny.” “When I die, you shall take charge of mine and Michael ‘s books. There is no one I trust more, Leah.” Granny was dyi...

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