Sunday stories…Buzzards!

Time for another Friday Fictioneers story.  Remember, these are 100-word stories based on a photo.  This is my second story for this great group, four years ago.  By the way, welcome to 2017!  (Yes, I know this isn’t a buzzard, but it is fiction!)

copyright Roxann Phillips

Look alive.  Here comes a buzzard.

Basta!!  You see me (looking dramatic in B&W, I think) and I know what you imagine: death, evil, decaying  flesh.

Contemplate for a moment. Where would you sci-fi, futuristic doom-mongers be without me?  Your future always holds darkness, war, and death. Bodies everywhere.  So you need us.  The carrion-birds.  Cleaning up your messes so you don’t die of terrible diseases due to all that rotting flesh.  (Zombie apocalypse people, this means you, too.)  A little gratitude wouldn’t come amiss!

But instead? “Bird brain” is bad enough, but “buzzard breath” and “old buzzard?”  Beyond the pale!  How would you feel?

………………………………

(The title is a saying by Lady Stella Reading.)

Five Photos, Five Stories: Day 4…seventeen syllables on a poppy

It’s Day 4 of the Challenge and today’s entry is a haiku.  I enjoy writing haiku, seeing how much I can say in the 17 syllables I allow myself, a traditional count, but one to which the writer need not always adhere.  I like the discipline though, so I tend to try to stay within those parameters.

Today I’m nominating Naomi at Writing Between the Lines.  The challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to  “post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge”.  Whether she accepts or not, I hope you take a peek at her blog.  Her most recent trip, at least on the blog, was to Turkey.

Friday Fictioneers: Buried alive

What you see in a photo is not always what others see.  In fact, if you’re a Friday Fictioneers author, odds are high that there will be no story like your story, that what you see is not what others see.  We like that, strive for that.  Some stories flow directly from the photo, others take devious routes through the author’s thoughts and experiences before being born.  That’s the fun of it:  100 words creating a bit of flash fiction all your own.

If you’d like to read, write, or both, a click on the blue creature at the end of the post will take you into Wonderland, a place where often you pray that the stories are truly fiction.  But you never know!

copyright Sandra Crook

Buried Alive

Cold. Damp. Smells of earth. I can barely move.
Stretch tentatively from my curled position.
Soil coffin, oppressive darkness.

I’m impelled to try to move.
I push upward…

but which way is up?
What if I’m wrong?

Harsh, cold, packed ground.

Push.
Push.
Don’t stop.
Don’t think.
Attack!

Finally a bit more warmth.
Some give.

I strain, thrust in the tiny space. More give. Friable earth.
One final effort. One last blow.

I’m out! Grey sky overhead.
I rest, exhausted.

I have arrived in spring. Not yet time to bloom, but I can wait. I have more growth to accomplish.

Friday Fictioneers: Wetting the Bed

Hurrah!  It’s good to be back with Friday Fictioneers. I’ve missed you and your fine stories.  I’m enjoying my new part-time job at the tea shop, although I still have a lot to learn.  If any of you ever make it to the Chicago area, we can have a Fictioneers meeting there (on a day when I’m not working.)  But enough with the compliments.  On to the story…and then work.

(For anyone new to Friday Fictioneers, a photo provides the prompt for the week and each person responds by writing a 100 word story.  To access all the stories written, please click on the blue link creature at the end of my story.  Enjoy.)

Copyright Marie Gail Stratford

 Wetting the Bed

They wouldn’t carry the bed upstairs. “Sorry. We’re only paid to deliver inside the door, ma’am” and off they’d gone, leaving everything in the lobby. I bribed some neighbors with cookies and coffee to help me to carry it to the fourth floor apartment: mattress, box springs, heavy, wooden, custom-made frame. I assembled it all myself and made it with my new sheets.

I sat, watching the rain-blurred colors of the changing street and car lights, wetting my new bed with tears shed for the the man I’d hoped to curl up with all the rainy days of my life.

Friday Fictioneers–Sometimes Things Get a Little Hairy

My world is topsy-turvey this morning:  Friday-has-become-Wednesday-has-become-Tuesday!  Instead of a leisurely morning, I find myself tumbling out of bed and scrambling to get a hundred-word story ready for “Friday” Fictioneers.  Not sure if I’ll be able to recover from this and from the thin layer of snow that deposited itself outside overnight (or highs in the low 20’s!!)  I’ll do my best and soldier on.  Perhaps it’s fitting that what came to mind for this photo was…. But no, I won’t give it away.  You’ll have to read it and find out for yourself.  But my inspiration was the interesting-looking trees.  And I’ll look at the bright side–one extra day to read all the other stories.

Copyright John Nixon

 

Sometimes Things Get a Little Hairy

He struggled to find a way through the nightmarish forest of trees coated with a disgusting, viscous substance that seemed to actively impede his progress. Wind and noise buffeted him as he sought the path. Dark, looming trees blocked the light. Sometimes the earth shook, startling him.

He determined to attempt to climb a tree, to catch sight of where he was, to see if it were still day. But as he began, an enormous shape swept down, sending him spinning into sunny space and as the gnat flew away, he heard,
“Dude! Gross! Something was crawling in my Mohawk!”

 

Friday Fictioneers: Time Bids Be Gone

Sometimes the eye sees one thing but the heart feels something else. So it was for me with this week’s Friday Fictioneers story. My eye saw the misspelled word, tried to say “Humor.” My heart felt the word that was supposed to be there and ran with it to a place far from the humor of misspelling, a land where a different kind of trespassing was no longer accepted, a land foreshadowed by both the boarded-up openings and the burgeoning plants.

If stretching makes a person flexible, then I’m doing a back bend of epic proportions with this story. But that’s fine. We Fictioneers are a gymnastic team of unbelievable ability when it comes to flexible interpretation. That’s part of the joy of writing.

Copyright Randy Mazie

 Time Bids Be Gone

I pressed the shirt to my nose, noting with a sharp pang that his smell was fading.  Regretfully, I realized some memories were fading as well. The hurt in my heart had lessened from agony to intermittent sadness.  Almost two years now since Christmas had promised to be the best ever. When he’d…just say it, Francesca…he’d died, I’d wanted no more to do with love.  But now I knew I was ready to move on, to let go, to remember without pain.

After New Years, I’d tell Geoff I was ready to try for a new baby.  It was time.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.  ~William Shakespeare

Here’s the link to the rest of the stories. I know the authors would love to have you stop in.

Friday Fictioneers–Homecoming

Each week I wonder:  Does Friday Fictioneers need an introduction and an explanation?  It’s really rather simple:  riff off the photo prompt with 100 words that make a more-or-less whole tale. Go to Hostess Twinkie Rochelle’s site, link up and start reading like mad to see what everyone else has created.  It’s an addiction, but there are many worse.  So join in or just read, it’s all up to you.  The linky guy can be found after my story.  Grab a cup of your favorite brew, sit back and enjoy the ride.  But be sure to expect the Spanish Inquisition, because nothing in FF is certain except death, lots of death.  Very few taxes, though.

Copyright Sean Fallon

Homecoming

The sirens wailed again as Annabel hurried through the darkness toward the air raid shelter at the children’s school.  Common sense dictated staying in a shelter near work, but she wanted to be with her family.  The harsh sound of the Junkers grew louder.  London glowed with fires, smoke drifting through the bomb-lit air, but the hellish picture was somehow imbued with a strange, terrible beauty.

Reaching the school, she slipped through the doorway with a sigh of relief, moving around people in the semi-dark, heading toward “their spot.”

Overhead, the whine of the bomb grew louder, piercing the air.

……………………………………….

The London blitz was a terrible time, but Londoners stood resolute against everything Hitler threw at them (or dropped on them).  The worst single incident was the bombing of a school being used as a shelter, where 450 were killed.  An episode of “Foyle’s War”, one of the best programs on television, called “The Funk Hole”, shows through a heart-rending story, a tiny bit of what that time was like and when I watched it again for the ??-th time, I knew I had to use that idea in a FF story and the photo of the mannikin in parts brought this scenario inexorably to mind.  My attempt is but feeble compared to reality, but then 100 words can be somewhat limiting.  🙂  A bit of description of the Blitz  can be found here: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitz.htm and I urge you to look up “Foyle’s War” at the library or Netflix or wherever and watch every episode you can.

Friday Fictioneers–Free at last

I’m pulling my mind away from unpacking boxes and deciding where to store the contents when the old, familiar storage spots aren’t always available any more, to the more pleasurable task for crafting one hundred words to riff off a photo prompt. Yes, it’s Friday Fictioneers time once again (or in this case, Wednesday Writers). At the end of my story is a link which, if clicked, will lead you into other worlds of other writers. Take a minute to let me know, for better or worse, what you think of my story, then take a bit more time to explore some of the offerings for a variety of talented flash fiction writers.

This week’s prompt is courtesy of Jan Wayne Fields and copyright to him.

Free At Last

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” danced in my head as I watched Jimmy sleep.  He, and our life, weren’t going to improve.   His symptoms grew worse daily. No money for experimental treatments, no close relatives, no opportunity for me to make friends, all made life harder.  Even working from home was difficult.

The newly-installed medical board decreed him “not a high priority.”  He was to me.  I loved him.

As I slipped the needle into his arm, my tears began to fall.

“Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God, we’re free at last.”

Weren’t we?

…………………………………….

How did I get here from this photo?  Something about the combination of open water and the Statue of Liberty said freedom to me, but not the freedom we normally associate with the Statue.  There are however, many types of freedom, illusory or real.

Friday Fictioneers–Hold me closer, tiny dancer

Taking a break from vacation photos, today I’m focusing on the weekly photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers.  One hundred words create a complete piece of flash fiction, one that hopefully evokes emotion and reaction.  Other writers have different takes and you can read their writings by clicking on the blue creature at the end of my story.  Enjoy.  And come back tomorrow for more of the vacation saga.  Your place, on the porch or on horseback, is waiting.

To my fellow Fictioneers…I’m on vacation, in the mountains, with a slow internet connection and lots to do (especially relaxing.)  Although I always read every story every week, I may not get that accomplished this week.  If not, I apologize.  But at 7,000′, surrounded by family, horses and mountains, things take on a different perspective and priority.  Thanks for your understanding and if you’d like to see where I am and what’s going on, check recent and soon-to-come posts and relax with me.

copyright Renee Heath

Hold me closer, tiny dancer

 Sitting on the porch, that day plays again for the thousandth time…

Charlotte’s joyful chatter on the drive to her first performance,
the squeal of brakes,
the pickup flying through the red light,
terrible sounds followed by silence that gradually resolved itself into hospital noise,
the pain of body and mind.

They told me she died instantly.  Grateful for the small mercy, I still wished it had been me.

Rolling my wheelchair to the table, I wind the music box and watch the ballerina twirl, remembering Charlotte’s excitement that birthday morning and her hug as she cried, “Grandpa, it’s perfect.”

Friday Fictioneers–Between or Among?

Time once again to seek inspiration from a photo and choose 100 words to tell your story.
The place to participate is https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/.
If you prefer to read, like, and comment, after reading my story, click on the blue link critter.
That will bring you to all the current stories.  Check back often to find more.

copyright danny bowman

Between or Among?

In the end, no one knew how it began because nobody passed it on.

It stayed “just between the two of us.”
“I only told one person.”
“Between you and me…”
“I know you won’t tell anyone, so…”

The death of a marriage,
the rift in a friendship,
the unspeakable hurt to a child,
the accidental ruin of a life,
all inexplicable.

Everyone wondered who had told.
He knew he hadn’t.
She’d only mentioned it to ____.

Mathematically,  1x1x1 = 1.
Gossip doesn’t work that way.
No one understood how “between” became “among.”

They’d all forgotten the game of “Telephone.”