Prickly Pears: Or How to Stay out of Trouble

By Willa van Gent

This has little glimpses of light in a kaleidoscope—a little red triangle here, a green diamond there. Altogether, these short (very short) stories will catch us by surprise while going through the daily grind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728388373

Willa van Gent

Anna Danzinger (born Deissler) 6 November 1912 born in Taschwitz (at the time Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia) to Anton and Anna Deissler (born Riedl) 1914-1915 Anna Deissler, a porcelain painter, dies of pneumonia, leaving behind forester Anton with 2 infant girls. Anita and her sister Gisela are left in Viennese orphanage by widowed father. They are adopted separately. A distant aunt adopts smaller Gisela, “But they are sisters, they are together,” the orphanage says, “No, I can only take care of one girl.” Anita is left behind. Later, a widow with a little girl visits the orphanage, “Mother, take the one with the dark eyes, like that she will look more like my sister,” the little girl says. 1927-1943 Anita studies to become a Modistin. Some of her jobs are with hatmakers. 6 September 1936 Anita marries Franz Danzinger. Shortly before this she is reunited with her sister Gisela. 27 June 1939 Husband Franz joins the army as a male nurse, due to his bad eyesight. April 1945 Anita, 8-months pregnant, is evacuated from Vienna. The Allies bombard their apartment building, she, husband Franz and mother-in-law Maria are homeless. Anita lives and works on a farm in Schaerding (Upper Austria), where the aged farmer couple wishes to trade half a pig for Anita’s first daughter, “You are young, you will be able to bear more children.” 30 May 1945 Anita gives birth to daughter Elfriede Rosalia in Schaerding. First daughter Fridi almost dies a few weeks after birth due to neglect from farm family while mother Anita is hospitalised for breast infection. Fridi had drank some of the infected maternal milk. Both mother and daughter hospitalised. September 1945 Husband Franz discharged from army. 14 October 1946 Anita gives birth to daughter Maria Gisela in Andorf, Upper Austria. 27 December 1946 The family settles in a room and kitchen back in Vienna - Anita, husband Franz, daughters Fridi and Midi and widowed paternal Grandmother Maria Danzinger. 2006 Anita dies in Vienna, age 93.

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Copyright © 2019 Willa van Gent. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/17/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8838-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8837-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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For my

Reading Ladies – Julia W, Karen E, Ali C, Rebecca R, Frances M, Kate R, Karen M, Suzanne P, Marion S

Because talking about books with you was a lifesaver

CONTENTS

Silver Hair

Cowboy Hat

Leaving Him

Finding Mr. Right

Beach Adventure

Lilac Toenails

Memory Collage

Sharp Cuspids

Not The Usual Sunday Monday

Á La Carte or Buffet?

Come With Me!

Not Hannelore

Autumn Heavy Heart

The Rugs of Liberty Miller and Alexander Kutsas

Escape

The 3 Ages of Louis

Love Needs A Small Space

The Essence

La Historia De Los Papelitos

Unyielding – 1

Unyielding – 2

Repeat

Desolate

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Last Round for The Day

License to Lie

Fired on The Spot

Paris Airport Coffee Machine

Appropriating Cool

Teaspoons and Sugar

Showdown in The Office Kitchen

Fuff

Ribbed and Ruched

El Plastiquito

About The Author

SILVER HAIR

Silver, silver, silver. The angel has to have silver hair and silver wings. Why? I wonder, isn’t that a bit vainglorious, why not just grey or steely blue, those colours would be more discreet, silver will shine so. No, the angel has to have silver hair and wings, but I have no silver, have to buy some, art store, have to stop by the art store, not on my way to work, not close to work for lunch break, will have to wait ’til Saturday, that is all week, don’t want to wait all week to finish angel, well, could work on stars and moon or skin of lovers. But silver, the angel has to have silver hair and silver wings, because that is how angels are, they really have silver on them, and a halo, they are light around us.

Now I know how Beatrix Potter’s mice felt when they could not finish the mayor’s wedding coat, for lack of one cherry-coloured silk skein. ‘No more twist,’ they mourned. ‘No more silver paint,’ I fret. ‘No silver, must get some silver.’

31 May 2005

COWBOY HAT

My former colleague Gina was single and not dating at 37. She found most men weak and unattractive. One day she explained her criteria, ‘If I can imagine a man wearing a cowboy hat, then he is OK.’ Most men, to her, did not look good wearing a cowboy hat. In her mind, most men looked like clowns at a costume party when she imagined them in a cowboy hat. ‘But that is such a cliché!’ I argued, ‘you want the Smoking man, and he is just a creation of advertising!’ ‘No, he is out there somewhere,’ Gina believed, ‘my cowboy hat man will come along some day.’ It was a bit difficult,