image by darkeyed on pixabay
Ellie tore the vines and grasses from the chest, opened it and dug deep to the bottom,
To pull out a small package, wrapped in a plane leaf, darkly brittle.
Black, the cube of hard pudding.
Yellow, the icing, leached from the marzepane.
Her grandma’s wedding cake, her keepsake.
49 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Keepsake
crispina kemp 
Good one Crispina
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Thank you 🙂
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You’re welcome 😉
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🙂
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I love this, it’s so evocative with wonderful imagery.
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Thank you. It was fun to write. Though I do admit Ellie began as an elf… but it didn’t scan
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I like the rhythm. It reminds me of a song in Les Miserable. Especially the 3rd and 4th line.
Very well done!
And the visuals? Perfect! 👏👏👏👏👏🤗
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Thank you. As ever, finding the graphic was the real challenge
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Yes I know I’ve been looking for one. The one you picked works well. 🙂
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Thanks. It really is worth hunting for just the right thing
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It’s true. I find its hard to focus sometimes. It’s an “OOOOOOOOOOH Look at that! I want it.” kinda thing.
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I have same problem.Thn I say, no, I’ll keep looking. And that one turns out to be the best, but now I can’t find it
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Right. So if I really love it. I go for it! You never know.🙂
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That’s the way 🙂
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I love this, Crispina.
And I actually looked up “plane”, knowing full well I’d find a new use for the word from this day forward.
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That was “plane” as in the tree. But if you think the word “plate” has the same origin, and as does the word “plain” in geological terms, you can’t go wrong
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I know – I checked to confirm 😉
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🙂
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Great descriptions here. I know the tradition of saving wedding cake, but not like this — for so long, to the point where it’s completely inedible. Seems an odd keepsake, but then, no weirder than saving flowers, I suppose.
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The tradition is to save the top teir of the wedding cake, to use at the christening 🙂 But not every marriage produces a child, and not all children live to be christened. Plus there are brides who are widowed within the year
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But then do you *eat* the cake, even if it’s several years old and not refrigerated? The tradition I’m more familiar with is to save the top tier in the freezer, and then married couple shares it on their first anniversary. But even then, it usually tastes awful — something very thematically wrong with that, hmm.
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The tradition comes from a day before freezers. The cake (rich fruit, heavily laced with alcohol) would be wrapped in white tissue paper (to stop the icing going yellow) and then in brown wrapping paper. It then was stored in a cool dry place. I know for certain that in those conditions, the cake remains edible for at least 2 years. Which should see it through to the christening in the days before reliable contraception.
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Ah, it’s fruit cake! Yes, that makes more sense now. Although I can imagine that preserving the frosting is a bit more iffy. Maybe start with yellow frosting. 😉
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It tends to turn yellow because of the marzipan. And the icing, as I remember it, tends to dry out and become almost like powder
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That does not sound tasty at all. I hope the new parents will be forgiven if they scrape the old icing off before the ceremonial eating-of-cake.
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I think probably they do 🙂
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Your words bring the scene and all its meaning to life. nicely done. 🙂
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Thank you. It spills from my head. 🙂
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