Bubbe’s Tchatchkes

tchatchkes

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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“What’s a tchotchke?” Jessica was the youngest of the cousins exploring Bubbe’s house. The grownups were either in the kitchen or watching the game on TV.

“Just a bunch of junk I think,” answered Michael. He was the oldest and annoyed because his Mom told him to watch the rest of the kids.

“You mean like knick-knacks? Bubbe sure has a lot seashells for someone living in Missouri.” Joel knew just enough Yiddish to “get it,” but his older sister Rachel knew more.

“It’s also a pretty girl,” she said. “Like the one reading the Torah for her bat mitzvah.”

It’s Wednesday and once again time to participate in Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 6 December 2024 edition of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

I had to look up the word tchatchkes (it’s in the image’s filename) which can mean either a bunch of knick-knacks or trinkets or a pretty girl or woman. I could “get” the seashells but what was I to do with the small figure of a girl reading from a Torah scroll?

There seemed only one answer so I took it.

Oh, if you didn’t know, “Bubbe” is Yiddish for “Grandma.”

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.

shoot the devil 3 banner

Promotional image for “Shoot the Devil 3: Militia of Martyrs”

My short story “The Book of Names” is now available in the anthology Shoot the Devil 3: Martyr’s Militia. It’s a collection of tales chronicling the ages old battle of good vs. evil, mainly from a Christian perspective.

My story is a little more circumspect, although it does lean heavily on demonology and how the final utterance of one Name will defeat all evil. I hope some of you pick up a copy and have a read. Thanks.

20 thoughts on “Bubbe’s Tchatchkes”

  2. When applied to a pretty girl, bat mitzvah or no, I believe it is always in the singular form, “tchatchkeh”, meaning an ornament — someone who would adorn the arm of her father, or any young man she might favor.

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