Nancy Brisson
Stories (17/0)
Never Teach Your Concubine to Read
He called her Lotus Flower when his men brought her to him. She was young, only fifteen, but Persian women did not marry late. She wasn’t really scared. An old Auntie had been at court and lived in the harem to wait on the concubines. She had told Spring (now Lotus Flower) many stories about what it was like to be the favorite of the Sultan. She also told her what it was like for the women who were no longer favored by His Highness. Auntie Nessie told her about the intrigues the women engaged in, the jealousies, the plots, all designed either to put a woman back on top in the harem hierarchy or to win back the attentions of the Glorious Leader. Some of the women were mothers of the sultan’s children so he paid them respect, even if he did not still find them desirable. Some women had to share the sultan if his affections happened to overlap. When the old Sultan died all the concubines were sent to other houses and their servants were retired. If the mothers had daughters, their daughters must go with them.
By Nancy Brisson2 years ago in Fiction
The Great Alaskan Baking Show
The Great Alaskan Baking Show Hester Buckland owned a bakery in Anchorage, and she was selected to be one of the presenters on The Great Alaskan Baking Show. They were down to five bakers at the end of yesterday’s show, and this morning she seemed to have lost one of her “chicks.” This was “showstopper” day, and only four bakers were standing by their well-provisioned kitchens, carefully assembled in the Bayshore Clubhouse in Anchorage, a beautiful event space with skylights that let in plenty of natural light. Hester had been disappointed not to see the trademark baking show white tents, but it’s Alaska. Going out to the countryside and building gas hookups and electrical outlets in the wilderness, while possible, was expensive and the weather held more severe possibilities than the gentle rains of England.
By Nancy Brisson2 years ago in Fiction
Work Anxiety
Transitional periods, when new developments change everything about the way people work and live, cause people to experience fear, anxiety, and, even for some who know how to take advantage of changing times, exhilaration. How people work is interesting. Once agriculture was how families made ends meet. When farm machines grew sophisticated enough to free up family members to pursue careers besides farming it was a wrenching adjustment for many. Farms failed and children who thought they would inherit the farm and live the life had to adjust. Working in a factory is very different from working on a farm, although both things are classified as work. Factory work was the next trend especially when Ford gave us the assembly line.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Journal
Work in the Twenty-First Century
Labor Day got me thinking about the world of work in America. So many people are pontificating about how the pandemic will change work in the future. Many of these people are employers trying to decide whether they want employees back in office or if work from home (WFH) will be more common even after COVID. Hybrid models are being tried out in some work environments, models which have employees spending part of the work week on site and the rest of the week spent working from home. There are discussions about 4-day work weeks once again, and shorter work hours. When commuting to work was interrupted, the WFH model, which we did not think we were ready for, became an important way to work, take care of family needs, and stay healthy.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in The Swamp
Labor Day 2021
This week began with Labor Day which always puts my mind on my father. Dad earned the nickname “Brain” because, had he not been born into a poor family just at the edge of the Great Depression, his intelligence might have led to a very different life than the one he lived. He had to drop out of school after eighth grade to go to work in order to help support his mother and father. He found a job at the Easy Washer plant in Syracuse, NY. I know he worked there for at least 15 years, beginning when he was thirteen. Easy Washer made wringer washing machines. I also know that he worked there right through WWII, doing essential war work.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in The Swamp
Texas Abortion Law Not Just About Abortion
Abortion is not the real issue in the pitched battle between the prolife folks and the proabortion contingent. No one is forced to have an abortion. Roe v Wade does not make abortions mandatory. This is a fight about morality. This is an attempt to legislate morality for every woman in a nation that has always professed to be about freedom of religion, separation of church and state. This is also a fight about the role of women in the world.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in The Swamp
Impossible Tech, Part 2
Captain Tom “T-Bone” Thompson and Beauregard “Beau” Jackson had been “transported” to some unknown destination by the force signified by the green light. As they wandered in an orchard of ripe and nearly ripe fruit trees, they attempted to collect data to try to reach some logical conclusions about where on earth they were (Were they still on earth?), what had happened to them, and why that green light was always present when mind-boggling things happened. Had someone discovered a new force that made solids navigable?.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Fiction
The Long Thaw
The Long Thaw Maggie, Charlie, Nat and Max The cattails confidently raised their velvety brown topped stalks above even the tallest grasses as the greens around the pond began to turn into the beiges and ochers of fall foliage. Even the purple loosestrife had shed its spikes of tiny flowers and delivered the seeds that would eventually choke out the cattails. Goldenrod was around, although sparse, and a few Queens Anne’s lace flower heads decorated the edges of the pond.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Fiction
Klara and the Raging Bull
Klara lived weekdays with her mother and weekends with her father. Her mother was a lawyer and she lived on 5th Avenue. Her father had been ‘let go’ and he lived in a co-op in Greenwich Village. Klara loved both people and both places. She didn’t know which one she liked best. Her mother’s apartment was clean, full of soft places to sit and fresh flowers. Light poured in through tall windows.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Fiction
Sophia's Garden
The All-Things-Marigold Nursery was a bright yellow spot on the surface of the planet. It was so yellow you could probably see it from space. Sophia’s family had owned the nursery for three generations and, now that she had lost her mother and her grandmother, she oversaw the entire operation. Summers were long and golden.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Fiction
Brown Paper Packages
Chuck Babcock was not a popular guy. In high school he had been bullied and avoided by practically everyone. He had one friend, Louis Green, but Louis’s family had moved away when they were sophomores. Chuck had some skills though. He was a member of a group of young men who had come to occupy a kind of clichéd niche in modern America. He was now twenty-one and still lived with his mom. His domain was the garage and the basement. The garage was full of tools of all types and the basement was filled with computers and gaming equipment. Chuck’s dad died when he was ten. His mom, Ginny, had given up on Chuck and let him exist in his own domains. For a while she had tried to stay connected with him emotionally by being a ‘nice’ mom, cooking the things he liked to eat, and making sure he had the tools and computer gear he craved, a kind of retail bribery. But Chuck became more and more truculent and sometimes Ginny was scared he would hurt her physically.
By Nancy Brisson3 years ago in Fiction