I’m going to be honest with you, this year has been the bomb. From sickness to the deaths in family, to writing interruptions, because of the traumatic situations, this 2025 passage was extremely dark and rough. I kept waiting for another shoe to drop, and it always did, and they kept coming in bits and pieces. This threw me into a process of learning how to deal with the tragedies occurring in my life.
The first thing I learned is that you don’t control trauma. There is no way to run from it or to beat it over the head and be victorious over it without having faith in someone who is bigger than yourself. In my case, that someone was and still is God.
Thinking that the tide was over, on the Second Christmas Day, December 26, I received a phone call informing me that my nephew had been killed on Christmas Day. I thought to myself if anyone had told me at the beginning of 2025, I would receive notices of five deaths sprinkled out over 2025, that would pinch me in my heart, I wouldn’t have believed them. But it happened, and I am thankful that I was able to work through it and keep slowly moving forward.
As traumatic as things were in my 2025, I am thankful that gratitude permeates my life. It is now January 1, 2026, and I woke up this morning thankful to see a New Year and no snow in the area where I live. The sun is even showing itself every now and then. 🙂 I’m thankful to have that first cup of coffee, to hear my voice as I sang the first song that rose up in my heart, and to look out of my patio windows and see squirrels climbing in my trees and birds flying low between the green leaves.
Now that I have taken my first steps into 2026, let me say that I hope all my readers and friends crossed into 2026 and are looking forward to a great year.
Getting back to the title of my New Year’s article, One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the title of this blog article:
My Beloved spoke, and said to me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
(Song of Solomon 2:10-12, NKJV)
Let us hope that this is so in our individual passages in 2026.
Hello Everyone, I am presenting the second story in my Flash Fiction anthology, which is written as a trilogy within a series. Three Flashes are connected as one story. I hope you enjoy seeing Beno and Zelda again. Have a lovely day and take care. Shalom shalom
Pat Garcia
Zelda tossed from one side to the other in the king-size bed belonging to her and Beno. She made herself lie still and shaped herself into a spoon on her right side, staring at the chipped, brownish-red-toned vase standing on the end table where Beno always slept. As ugly as that vase was, it radiated the only hope she had that he wasn’t dead. Like a persistent gnawing in her spirit, the vessel fanned the flame in her that Beno was alive.
Since he’d slithered into their new home to surprise her on her birthday, she’d heard nothing else from him. He’d received a thirty-six-hour pass and hadn’t allowed her to ask any questions about how he got it. Instead, he’d rushed her out of their home and taken her to the flea market. There, he’d shown her what he’d discovered. His face lit up when he pointed to the chipped antique vase. Even though it was the ugliest vase Zelda had ever seen, Beno’s lips had kissed and caressed it while scrutinizing its damages as if it were a precious jewel.
She’d asked him why that vase. There were others so much prettier.
His head had slanted slightly toward her, and his eyes had locked her in place.
“Chipped, Zelda,” he’d said. “The vase’s disfigurements display its inner beauty and its strength. Don’t you think so?”
He’d purchased it for more than it was worth and handed it to her. “For your birthday, my sweet Zelda.”
They had returned home, and he’d taken it to their bedroom and placed it on the nightstand by his side of the bed. “Think of us every time you turn toward where I sleep and see the vase,” Beno had said, and he had taken her in his arms.
Afterward, exhausted from their lovemaking, she’d fallen asleep with her head lying on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
Beno snuck away just as he had come, suddenly. Since then, fresh purple and white orchids, accompanied by a single bloody red rose in the middle, have appeared on their doorsteps every two weeks, accompanied by a four-word text-“to fill the vase.”
Today, I continue working on the Flash Fiction Anthology, which is scheduled for release in winter 2026. I have been privileged to participate in Flash Fiction contests over the years. I love Flash Fiction. I have learned a great deal about the Flash Fiction and short stories Genre from reading the works of Eudora Welty, Joyce Carol Oates, and the late Canadian writer Alice Munro.
This is a snippet I wrote for The WEP, a writing organization founded by Denise Covey. I learned a lot from all the writers who participated in the contests. I hope you enjoy the snippet.
Shalom shalom
Pat Garcia
EXCERPT:
Netta scrutinized the red wheelbarrow placed before the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room.
That wheelbarrow isn’t just attractive, but it’s a downright elixir for the soul.
She stood between the doorframe of the door, across the hall from the living room, admiring and examining the object of her curiosity. It stood so majestically before the window, in its bright red color, as if it were giving a queenly audience. She could have sworn the thing was smiling at her.
Her husband, Jonathan, had turned it into a flower bed. He had chosen the living room to place it in, stating that he could admire his handy work when he returned home every evening.
Netta shook her head. In the sunlight, the red wheelbarrow seemed to wink, but a wheelbarrow couldn’t wink, or could it?
She’d met Jonathan at her favorite Italian restaurant. She’d been sitting at a corner table with a big plate of spaghetti and a mozzarella and tomato salad. She’d just happened to look toward the entrance door of the restaurant and had gazed directly into the saddest but prettiest green eyes she’d ever seen. He’d stared back at her and then walked to her table and asked if she minded him sitting with her. Her mouth had been full of spaghetti, and the only way she could answer him without spilling the food out of her mouth had been to nod in acceptance.
Jonathan had ordered his meal after introducing himself and then began asking her questions, which made her hesitant to answer. When he’d asked her about her marital status, her eyebrows had furrowed, and her heartbeat had quickened. She’d not been so sure that it had been a good idea to let him sit at her table. Then, Jonathan assured her that he posed no danger to her. He was looking for someone to share his home with. He’d said he wanted the comfort of knowing that a trustworthy person was living with him. He needed a wife but not one to share his bed. Just a faithful wife to be there. He’d insisted on putting that clausal in their marriage agreement.
At first, Netta didn’t believe or trust him. She thought he was some ax murderer or a cannibal who wanted to kill and eat her. Her vivid imagination had her packed away in plastic freezer bags in small portions in his freezer. With her chubby size thighs, big arms, and breasts, she was pretty sure Jonathan would have had enough meat for a year.
Netta didn’t understand why a man from out of nowhere was asking her, a stranger, to marry him. What she did know was that she said yes.
Here is a new snippet from my Anthology of Flash Fiction Stories that will be released in winter.
Wishing all of you a lovely day.
EXCERPT:
The man worked hard. He and his three sons hammered and pitched each wooden plank together. Sure, people thought he was crazy, but that didn’t disturb him. He closed his ears to what others said. If he were honest, and he was, he didn’t give a hoot. He hadn’t made it so far in life by seeking the approval of others.
The other day, his sons had informed him that the neighbors thought he was insane. He had laughed and told his sons to get to work before he fired them. After all, he was not only their father but their employer. No one would give them the amount of money for the work they did for him. They had no choice. The father gazed down at the oldest son. The son looked up at the sun. The old man thought about the discussion they had had the night before. His sons thought he was a daydreamer and had invited a lawyer to his house without his permission. Their excuse for not telling him had him laughing. They wanted to rattle his brain.
After talking with him, the lawyer said that declaring their father insane wouldn’t work. Besides, the majority of the judges knew him too well as that no-nonsense man who spoke what he thought. The sons’ wives were outraged, shouting they had become the laughingstock of the whole town, maybe the whole world. They were sick and tired of people pointing fingers at them. So, what, the old man said. They had tried to explain what it meant to them not to be among the popular crowd. They considered these people their friends.
Come to my house for tea; my wife would enjoy your company, he’d answered back.
Hello, Everyone, My Snippet for today continues with a second excerpt from Boteè and The Strain Man.
Hello, Everyone,
My Snippet for today continues with a second excerpt from Boteè and The Strain Man.
EXCERPT
Boteè and the Strain Man
Strain Man played the first trio, and the spotlight appeared, covering her with light from her head to her feet. The music lifted her body, lying it flat as if she lay on a cot. The music raised her from the ground and lulled her into a trance. She looked up at the sky as he transported her with the musical notes he played. It was peaceful, and she began to snore. Strain Man moved into the second trio to wake her. The light over her head brightened, and she felt like she was lying on clouds of sheet music.
Suddenly, she lay before Strain Man. He bowed his head towards her. His cone-shaped head shone, and his metallic clothing looked absolutely chic.
Strange, she thought, looking at him, there are no stars in heaven.
Strain Main replied with the third trio movement of The Stars and Stripes Forever. It was the only song he knew from her planet to communicate with her. “They’ll come. They’re just over the horizon.”
Boteè’s dark contralto answer made his face shine, “Amen, Amen, Amen.” She sang.
The Stars and Stripes Forever’s first impatient blast sounded. Boteè jumped off her sofa. She got her jacket and grabbed her tiny case. Then she departed her third-floor apartment. She left a note for her best girlfriend, Peggy,
On the road with my friend.
Don’t know how long, but I’ll be back whenever my friend brings me back to earth.
Boteè called him the Strain Man. His shiny metallic skin tone, high cheekbones, and pointed fingers had drawn her to him. He was different from the people on earth, and she liked that about him. She danced down the steps of her apartment building, not wanting to keep him waiting. He promised to take her beyond the clouds to see another part of the universe.
Excited at the opportunity to see him again, Boteè stepped outside. She closed her eyes and hit the Deep C with her contralto voice. It was two octaves down from Middle C of the primary scale. She sang Amen note by note while holding her breath. As she slid up the scale, she accented the rise in a syncopated rhythm until she reached Middle C. She stopped, took a deep breath, and waited for his response.
At their secret spot, Strain Man was surrounded by trees hiding the white, invisible lights of his futuristic jet. He raised the trumpet to his lips and blew the first notes of The Stars and Stripes Forever. He felt the tug of his notes lifting her off the ground to bring her to him. He smiled.
Here is another snippet from LABEL. ME. MAN, a work in progress that will be available for pre-order in June 2025.
Cover by 4WILLS
Blurb:
Born a savant with Autism Spectrum Disorders and labeled as unusually bright, Gioacchino Tarinni lacked any social, emotional, or spiritual graces. The scientific world labeled him a Robot. Peddled between medical offices and laboratories, doctors and scientists examined whether he could be considered human. He has failed in every experiment except for his friendship with his manservant and chauffeur, Ferro. But no one knows how it happened. Sitting in a cafe with Ferro, Gioacchino’s eyes are drawn to a woman working on her tablet. She has a head full of braids, and he attempts to count them. But the woman keeps moving her head, foiling his efforts to get an accurate count. Annoyed, he approaches her table, intending to ask her to be still. However, in a moment of impulsive audacity, he proposes marriage instead.
EXCERPT
Gioacchino took the stairs slowly to their bedroom as he pondered why she’d gone to his office. He entered their bedroom quietly. Even though he’d agreed to her returning home, he didn’t understand why. Her early morning escape from their home had cost him his ability to concentrate on his negotiations. After receiving the text message from Ferro that Jediah had disappeared somewhere in the house, he rescheduled the talks for the next day and gave Ferro strict instructions to keep his eyes open.
The door that led out to the spacious balcony adjoining their bedroom stood open. The venetian blinds were hanging loosely down, with the panels slightly opened, letting through rays of sunlight.
Gioacchino grinned to himself. Jediah’s clothing lay scattered in a pattern on the floor. He picked them up as he reached them, piece by piece, and headed to the closet to hang them up.
Your disorderliness coincides very well with my need to organise and order things.
He looked at the motionless figure lying on her stomach in their bed, and his eyes widened in shock.
He blinked to ensure he was seeing correctly. A series of numbers shaped into a curvaceous body lay on their bed. Until today, he’d seen Jediah as scrap pieces of brown, velvety cloth he couldn’t put together. It astounded him that the outer layer of her skin was comprised of integers.
He stared at the bed, expecting the numbers to disappear; instead, two large, marbled threes looked back at him and laughed silently.
Discombobulated, Gioacchino turned to the closet to dispose of her clothing, shaken by what he saw. He had long calculated the function of picking her clothes up every day, and getting to the closet, variable a, to getting to variable b, which was landing in their bed at night to create order among the velvety brown pieces he assumed were who she was.
“You’re home. No one told me you’d be home early,” Jediah said, not moving.
“I couldn’t think in the office,” he answered, putting her dress on a hanger.
“Why not? I told you I wouldn’t run away again.”
“How are you?” Gio asked, ignoring her response and asking a question of his own.
“Fine. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Just okay?”
“At the moment, just okay,” he repeated, turning toward her, frowning, hoping the numbers hadn’t disappeared.
“Something happened after you brought me home and returned to work.”
“What?” She was still a cluster of numbers but had now transformed into a curvaceous one stretched out on the bed, and that stirred his libido.
“I went to write in your office and didn’t think to tell Ferro. I was so happy to find a hiding place where I could write without people watching me that I didn’t think about telling him or anyone else where I was,” Jediah said, gazing at him. “I didn’t mean to upset you after what I experienced with you in the car on the way home this morning. Does that make sense to you?”
“So it wasn’t intentional?”
“No, although I’m sure Ferro thinks it was.”
The frown on Gioacchino’s face faded. The harshness in his voice vanished, and he addressed her softly in a soft, deep whisper.
“Stop worrying. Ferro told me he didn’t think you meant to cause a furore. But he was concerned because no one knew where you were.”
Would you ever accept a dinner invitation to meet a stranger who never spoke one word to you during your time together? Would you accept that you could not even sit at the same table with them? How about, you don’t even know their name and you continue this “game” for months? Meet Della Cartwright. A superstar at what she does professionally, but when the tall, mysterious, Italian stranger, Alessio Terracina, enters her world, she begins to question her judgment and everything about her. In this short story which takes place over the course of one day, this otherwise savvy businesswoman is led into making decisions that could jeopardize her professional life and maybe even cost her her freedom. But the greatest danger…just might be to her fragile heart.
Excerpt
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For you are with me. Psalm 23:4 (NKJV)
Della Cartwright sat in Macey Bergstein’s office in Frankfurt, Germany. She balled her hands into fists, flexing them, waiting for Macey, her boss, to express her opinion about the unexplained money transfers in Della’s private bank account. A plane flew over their building, and Della’s eyes followed its path as she gazed out of the window behind Macey. How she could have gotten involved with a man in a counter-terrorist group was puzzling. Downright despicable. Until now, she had made a name for herself as the Foreign Exchange Settlements department’s queen. Everyone in the department acknowledged her magical abilities. Her intuitiveness and her strong sense of discernment had caught errors and even settled deals, which would have cost dealers their jobs if she had not noticed the mistakes. Yet, she had managed to let a man whose name she didn’t even know wrap her in his web.
I woke up this morning with expectancy. Usually, I only look at my iPhone to see the messages and emails I receive after eleven, but this morning was particular, and I did. I have taken a small step in my writing and publishing career. My first paperback, THE POWER OF TOUCH, came out as a paperback and is on Amazon Worldwide.
I read the announcement I received from Amazon, telling me it was up, and I wept tears of joy and spoke soft words of thankfulness. No one knows how difficult it was for me to overcome the fears within me except those close to me and the ONE who watches over me night and day.
The RRBC’s Annual Writers’ Conference & Book Expo starts today, and I invite you to visit my booth and the booths of the other authors. The event is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.
Each author’s booth has prizes, so please leave a comment as you visit. You might be a winner of one, two, or maybe even three Amazon gift cards or 4WILLS gift cards.
Step into our reading lounge, where you can listen to authors reading short excerpts from their books. If you’re looking to add to your reading collection, we have a wide range of books for sale, including eBooks, paperbacks, and hardbound editions.
All of yours truly books (That’s Me) are being featured in my booth, Pat Garcia, and are available as eBooks. My newest release, THE POWER OF TOUCH, which is also now available as an eBook, will be available in Paperback over Amazon on August 30th.
If you love to read a good romance book, that is Multicultural, Interracial, and Realistic, please check out:
TURN THE LIGHT ON – Meet Della Cartwright. A superstar at what she does professionally, but when the tall, mysterious, Italian stranger, Alessio Terracina, enters her world, she begins to question her judgment and everything about her.
LET HIS BANNER OVER ME BE LOVE – It didn’t take Chance Mancini long to accept that she had allowed herself to fall in love with Gavino Mancini, a man much younger than she. To make matters worse, after their marriage, he’d led her into a lifestyle that she did not know of, but she had come to love. He was her, Sir.
CONTEMPLATIONS OF A WOMAN TURNING SIXTY-FIVE – Moving toward her Sixty-fifth birthday, Tessie Blount contemplates the next stage of her life. Not married and with no purpose, she questions the validity of living further until love is offered to her most unexpectedly. But will she accept it?
JANIE B. – This is a contemporary multicultural romance about a woman who encounters a sexually starved necrophiliac as she walks up a mountainside. As she yearns for death, a stranger bursts into the cabin and saves her, and becomes the love of her life.
LATE BLOOMER– This delightful short story is a comical yet earnest tale of a woman who thought her life dream would never come true.
THE POWER OF TOUCH – At a train station, he is waiting for a train to come to end it all and is so involved in what he is about to carry out that he doesn’t see the woman running toward him who is about to change the trajectory of his destiny, forever.
We are all waiting for you, and especially me, my friends. The RRBC’s Writers’ Conference and Book Expo is open 24/7 so grab your favorite drink and click the link below.
