03/05/2024 – tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

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Umabel may have been an Arch Angel, like Michael, who was dropped to earth by Deus in July of 1955. She was supposed to land in Kobenhavn, predestined to be the angelic daughter of Dorthe Schønfeld and her husband, Søren. She was supposed to become a world-renowned campaigner for social justice and a strong champion of women’s rights: an angel of God.

There must have been a strong wind that night because she wound up in Bell’s Ferry, Alabama. She was born to an unknown, unnamed, never-seen-again father and Ms Ember Rough. Ms Rough was a waitress at Morgen Zee, a popular breakfast spot on the north end of Vermillion Bay. There was no fine hospital, doctor, or midwife, only Ember sheltering in an abandoned, squat, low-rise shed in a dark alleyway that branched off South Water Street.

Ember succumbed at a young age, a victim of the unequal gendered economic impacts of the pandemic in the South, and Umabel became a ward of the state. She stayed in Mobile, living at the Grace Home for Orphaned and Wayward Girls in Summerville, educated by the good Sisters of St. Gemma’s School.

Umabel was smart as a whip with strengths in history, mathematics, and statistics. She earned a scholarship to Auburn and majored in Political Science. After attaining her degree, she took a position as a Policy Analyst at a progressive think tank in DC, where she grew into a strong campaigner and organizer for women’s rights and social justice. At the age of thirty-one, Umabel Rough was killed in the notorious Metro Red Line Bombing at Union Station along with 436 other innocent souls.

Earlier this year, there were discussions of canonizing Umabel Rough. It hasn’t happened yet, but there is a strong belief among Vatican insiders that by applying the proper persuasion, maybe next year, or the year after, we will know the name of Saint Umabel, Patron of Women’s Rights & Social Justice.

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This week’s prompts were: