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…The Assignation

If you love to write, but are at a loss for words, Friday Fictioneers is for you.  You only have to find 100 of those words, craft them into a story roughly based on a picture prompt (or maybe barely related), go to Rochelle’s site (she hosts the whole shebang), link your story, then read as many of the other stories as you can or like, preferably commenting on the ones you read.  If that sounds like fun, please feel free to join us every Wednesday for the new prompt (although you may post a story up until the following Tuesday night.)  If the prompt comes out on Wednesday, why is it called “Friday Fictioneers?”  Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story and I only have time to tell one this morning.

This week’s prompt is from Erin Leary.  If you’d enjoy reading other stories, please click on the blue linky critter at the end of my story.  But be sure to check back, as writers will be posting for many days.

Copyright Erin Leary

The Assignation

It was just before dawn when I slipped from the house, checking to be sure no one saw me. She was waiting at our usual spot, half hidden behind a tree. No demonstrative greetings; only time to briefly cup one ample curve. We had to move quickly and quietly.

About fifteen minutes later, we reached a place we’d often used before. Underneath “our” tree, the leaves were soft, with other trees and vegetation nearby for cover. She ran ahead, eager to find just the right spot. I followed, anticipating how many pungent black truffles her snout would unearth this year.

 

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–Grave Choices

It’s finally April.  The sun is beginning to warm the earth.  I can’t wait for the new life of plants to begin adorning the earth and for the excitement of renewal and beginnings.

But life is only one end of the spectrum.  At the other end lies death.

Grave Choices

Beneath the lone, gnarled tree standing sentinel atop the wind-swept hill was the perfect spot for her grave. He didn’t use a backhoe.  Its noise seemed out-of-place at a funeral.  He dug the grave by hand, careful to make it deep enough to frustrate hungry predators. The hard physical work helped assuage his pain, allowing space for memories of the good times they’d shared.

He preserved the wild plants to replace afterward.  The tree would be her headstone; her body would go back to the land.  After all these years, she deserved the best.  His partner…his best friend….his beautiful mare.

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Want to read more?  Click on this little guy to link to any or all of the stories written in response to this prompt.

Friday Fictioneers–Homecoming

“Good morning, Fictioneer.  Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to write a story of  100 words, post it, then read and comment on the stories posted by other agents Fictioneers.          

This mission is not impossible. 

   As always, should you or any of your Fictioneers Force be caught or killed, Secretary Rochelle will disavow any knowledge of your actions and stories.

These instructions will self-destruct in five seconds.    

   Good luck!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission:_Impossible

For the first time, I’ve had a character from a previous story return.  She initially introduced herself last October in the first week Rochelle ascended to  fearless leader. This week she informed me she had more to tell.   If you’d like to read that story, you may do so through the following link, but her current story is meant to stand on its own if you choose not to:

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/friday-fictioneers-needs/

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Picture copyright Lora Mitchell

Homecoming

I’m emotionally mummified by the no-feeling that lies on the far side of unbearable loss, the weariness holding me at the window above the glittering city lights, crude imitations of the innumerable stars in the vastness above my cabin.  I yearn for peace filled only with nature’s sounds, the whispering creek, never-ending vistas, the night’s enveloping darkness, that space where healing begins.

Civilization’s after-death requirements are filed, discarded or buried.  I crave my friends, the cafe, tea and comfort in the corner booth where I’ve so often dispensed it.

I need my homecoming as much as my mother needed hers.

Friday Fictioneers–Relativity

Flirting fairies. Phantasmagorical forays.  Fabulous photos.  Frazzled folks in foggy fields.
Fearsome fellows and fearful filles. Frantic feelings fueling furtive fumblings.  Frenzied freaks.
Friction and fury.  Freezing flesh and phalanges.  Fair friends and foul fiends.  Funky fungus.  Frightening funiculars.
Phony philologists and flippant phantasms.  Frankenstein festival.
Farcical foursomes.  Fossilized fanatics.

Philosophical fracking.

Friday Fictioneers.

Fantabulous!

…..

(I’ll be traveling Thursday but know that I look forward to reading every story when I get off the road.)

Relativity

Dubbed “Flower Power” (he mentally prefaced “flower” with “de”), the car was staged in the garage as if at the drive-in: theater-sized TV, food, plenty of booze, popcorn.  Girls loved it…and he looooooved lovin’ the girls!

Reaching toward tonight’s conquest-in-waiting, he slipped smoothly into his practiced routine. Lust turned to shock when the steering wheel shot out, trapping him, the seat belt snaking around him.  Her kiss left him, literally, speechless.  Starting the car as she climbed out, she cocked an eyebrow and queried, “Ever hear of Morgan le Fay?  Distant relative.”

The garage door rolled inexorably down behind her.

(To read all the stories, click on the little guy above and then on the individual links you’ll find.)

Friday Fictioneers–Exist-tense

The weekly gathering of the Fictioneers has commenced.  Bring out the halt, the lame, the blind, the murderers and aliens, vampires and vamps. Look carefully and you might see a human or two.  Take them all, stir thoroughly, add a dollop of disbelief, a soupçon of silliness. Dip a spoon into the resulting slumgullion:  each recipe meticulously prepared, marvelously rendered, tasty to the tongue.  Your personal recipe is solicited or feel free to simply feast and go away replete; perhaps not always uplifted, but with your brain stimulated.

Thanks to our fearless leader, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, and this week’s photographer, David Stewart.

Copyright David Stewart

                                                          Exist-tense
Dreary, grey, distorted.
     Everything out of kilter, as if I’m in a foreign country.
          Can’t interpret the signs around me anymore.

A statue frozen in an empty plaza, surrounded by a city. Living people move along the periphery, 
     no one willing to come near.

Torn apart. Fragmented.
     Reaching, stretching. No one takes my hand.
          Crying out. No response.

Can’t anyone hear me?  I’m right here.  Why won’t you see me? Don’t you know that I exist?  

Perhaps…

Perhaps I don’t exist.
Perhaps I’m simply trapped. Forever a statue. Living but ignored.

Acknowledge me.  I need that to give me life.

Friday Fictioneers–Enough

Claire–lovely picture, excellent work.  Rochelle–the usual.  Friday Fictioneers–a joy and a privilege.   Read more–click on the cutie at the end.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it– enjoy!  It’s not impossible.

Just FYI, Thursday is a traveling day for me, so if you stop by and read and I don’t return the favor right away, don’t worry.  I will.  I read every story (unless it’s posted on Sunday or Monday and I’ve stopped checking), so I will look forward to reading yours with great anticipation.  And thanks for taking the time to read and comment on mine.  It’s always greatly appreciated.

Enough

It was the book’s fault really—accidentally dropped by her, fortuitously retrieved by him—sparking talk, the discovery of shared tastes.  Days later, a chance encounter at the coffee shop spawned laughter, the joy of shared thoughts, a frisson of attraction, the ease of friendship.

The coffee shop became their haven, a much-anticipated break from the everyday, always as if two halves were joined, the missing puzzle piece slotted into place.

Each time, replete, they went their separate ways, home to loved and loving families, anticipating the next completion. It could never be more, but it would never be less.

Friday Fictioneers–The Informer

Visit. Read. Like. Click. Read more. Participate. Friday Fictioneers. Fun. Addictive. No known cure. Good luck.

The Informer

Cross-legged on the attic floor, contents of her grandmother’s chest spread around her, dust motes dappling the air, she gently opened a yellowed letter which had been roughly torn in half, then taped back together, folded around some pretty, but inexpensive jewelry.

The language was old-style German, the letters beautifully formed. She scanned it curiously, lessons from half-forgotten language classes returning, her brain registering just fragments.

“Ich habe Sie seit jahren gesucht,”*

“Ich war es, die Sie gespitzelt habe.”*

“Ich bete fuer ihren vergebung.”*

Her glance dropped to the signature.

The letter shook.

The ornately written name was her grandfather’s.

*I have searched for you for years.
I was the informer.
I pray you can forgive me.

Friday Fictioneers–Independence Day

Happy New Year!  It’s a brand-new year of fun and frolic with the Friday Fictioneers, writers from all around the world coming together each week to share handcrafted 100-word stories inspired by one picture.  We’re prompted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields and inspired this week by Lora Mitchell’s gorgeous photo.   I know I’m double-posting this morning.  I hope the story is worth it.

Independence Day

There were fireworks…

…when I was born.  (Quite sure my mother shouted, “Ooooh!  Aaaaah!”)

…when I fell and broke my arm.

…on many glorious Fourth-of-July’s, colors blossoming against the night sky.  ( “Ooooh!  Aaaaah!”)

…the day our eyes met across the room and he smiled.

…when we first kissed.  On our wedding night.  The whole of our honeymoon.

…the day our daughter was born.  (“Ooooh!  Aaaaah!”)

…the first day he hit me.  The day I “fell” down the stairs.  When “I’ broke my other arm.

…the night we lost our house, a husband, and a father.

Fire works.

(“Ooooh!  Aaaaah!”)

To read the rest of the stories: