Category Archives: Friday Fictioneers

A Lot Can Happen

May 24, 2017

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Bitta and I walked by the old school yesterday. In another life, she’d be starting first grade this week.

She stood on the sidewalk, kicking at the weeds that split the cracks, and counting the broken windows. “Where will I go to school, Mama?”

What could I say? We didn’t have the vouchers. Well, we had the vouchers once, but we traded them for the Right to Work slips.

We can homeschool, we thought. All this will pass, we told ourselves. By the time she’s old enough, it will all be over.

A lot can happen in four years.

—

99 words

This has been an edition of Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff Fields for hosting this party, and thanks to J Hardy Carroll for the devastatingly awesome photo this week. To read more stories inspired by the prompt or to submit your own, click the blue button.

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The Day We Took Mom to Shady Rest

May 10, 2017

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“I’m fine. Don’t be silly,” Mom said.

Paul shot a skeptical look over her head. He’d been after me for months to come out and see how she was doing.

“What did you have to eat today?” I asked.

“Oh, the usual. Yogurt and some strawberries from the garden.”

I gave Paul a triumphant look.

“Say, can you get Mom’s walker?” he said, emphasizing the word walker like an indictment.

“Where is it, Mom?”

“It’s in my trunk, dear.”

I walked through her tidy kitchen and into the garage. Which was when I saw her crumpled car. And the blood.

—

100 words

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the talented and generous Rochelle Wisoff Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Rochelle-and I hope everyone’s okay!

To read more stories inspired by the prompt or to submit your own, click here.

After doing Pegman for awhile, I got used to the luxury of more than 100 words. This was a challenge!

Jiminy

March 11, 2017

PHOTO PROMPT © Shaktiki Sharma

Even now, he still heard the voice. He’d be somewhere—say at a party—having a wicked-good time and it would come, saying things like “The wrong things seem right at the time” or “Say you’re sorry, but you’ve got to go.”

Damn voice. He should have exterminated that thing long ago. What was the point in living large—being real—if you had to answer to a conscience?

He pressed a hand around the woman’s waist and urged her off his lap. “I need to take care of something,” he said.

He lifted the fly swatter and headed outside.

—

100 words

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the kind and generous Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Shaktiki Sharma.

To read more stories inspired by the prompt or to submit your own 100-word story, click the blue button:

 

get the InLinkz code

Just One Word

February 22, 2017
PHOTO PROMPT © Sarah Potter

PHOTO PROMPT © Sarah Potter

She pulled her cardigan close, leaned out the door, and stared down the block to where the snow-haloed streetlights vanished into the night.

“I’ll be home before the storm even starts, Mom,” he’d said on their call the day before. Then he’d gone on about the lousy campus food and his second term classes, and the red-headed girl in Philosophy 101.

She pulled the door closed, shook the snow from her hair and checked her phone. He hadn’t answered. Which was good, because she’d always told him not to text and drive. But tonight, she needed a word.

—

100 words

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the gracious and talented Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Sarah Potter.

To read more flash fiction inspired by the prompt, or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

get the InLinkz code

Glad to join in the prompt this week! I usually refrain when life is hectic and I know I won’t be able to read and respond to the other stories. Hoping I am able to this week. Look forward to reading your tales!

He Could No Longer Trust the Mailman

February 6, 2017
Photo Prompt © Roger Bultot

Photo Prompt © Roger Bultot

 

There were only three people Clem trusted: the mailman, the kid from the pharmacy who delivered his meds and the lady in 3B.

He was so close to cracking it—the whole thing. Very much near uncovering the underlying conspiracy behind all of it.

From the window, he looked back over his shoulder and tried to decide if one could see it from the street: Clem’s careful collage of post-its, news clippings and abandoned receipts. Because just now he’d caught the mailman LOOKING UP.

Clem turned back: their eyes met. Some knowing passed.

He could no longer trust the mailman.

—

100 words

This has been an edition of Friday Fictioneer, hosted by the wonderful Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo prompt courtesy Roger Bultot.

To read more flash fiction inspired by the prompt or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button.

get the InLinkz code

I post this rather sheepishly, because the last fictioneer piece I posted, I did not get around to commenting/replying/reading as I would’ve like. Thanks for reading. I aim to do better this go-around.

The Rewards of Perfectionism

January 26, 2017
PHOTO PROMPT © Al Forbes

PHOTO PROMPT © Al Forbes

As kids we hated going there. Mary once shattered a Wedgewood vase and you should’ve heard Uncle wail. Everything had to be perfect. When we were old enough, we’d always find an excuse not to go, ‘cause what kid wants to spend a month of summer wearing white and sitting hands-on-lap. and watch the old man take tea from the sterling service? I couldn’t remember the last time I went. Which was why it surprised me.

Augustus swept one arm at ceremoniously at the Rambler and handed me the key with the other.  “It’s yours now, sir.”

It was perfect.

—

100 words

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the gracious and talented Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo prompt courtesy the gracious and talented Al Forbes of Sunday Photo Fiction fame 🙂

To read more flash fiction or to submit your own click the blue froggy button.

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As a side-note–I recall this picture from last February but I can’t locate it on my blog so I’m not sure if I posted a story or not. I vaguely remember writing one but sometimes they don’t make it to the blog.

 

The Miller’s Turn

January 4, 2017
PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

They say he milled diamonds from stone, but I never saw it. The river had run dry for an age by the time I came upon the mill.

The old woman stood in the doorway, one gnarled hand blooming atop her cane. She nodded at the thing. “It’s yours now.”

I moved closer, ran one hand along the beam, the wood worn to a sinew of grain, the stone beneath it polished smooth. I looked back at her. “I can’t see getting a diamond from that.”

She laughed, crackling and smoky. “And you won’t, son. Not unless you turn.”

—

99 words

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the gracious and talented Rochelle. This week’s photo courtesy the amazing Sandra Crook. To read more flash fiction inspired by the prompt, or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

get the InLinkz code

What Would You Change About Me?

December 21, 2016
PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

“That’s not how the game is played. You have to answer the question.” She sat back and clattered her freshly manicured nails on the Formica table.

He shifted on the seat and instead watched the steam rise from his coffee. “I don’t want to play.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

He looked up. Her lipstick was smeared and the wrong color for her, she was wearing his shirt again. She’d ruined his favorite last week. Her side of the table was littered with torn sugar packets and a mosaic of  leftover breakfast.

“Okay fine. I’d change everything about you.”

—

This has been an addition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the kind and generous Rochelle. To read more flash fiction or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button.

Thanks to all who stop by, and a big special thanks to Rochelle for all the writers who participated in the What Pegman Saw Google Maps prompt this week. There’ll be a new one posting at midnight Friday.

Just a Skiff

August 25, 2016

 

PHOTO PROMPT © Georgia Koch

PHOTO PROMPT © Georgia Koch

 

He learned to crab before he learned to walk. Always told that story: him and his dad coming all the way back from Green Turtle in full gale on that skiff—him only ten and his pop drunk as a lobsterman’s payday.

Today the air was sinking fast, dropping clouds low on eastern skies.

“I’ll be home by high tide,” he’d said. But tide had come and gone, leaving a line of seagrass high on the beach dotted with strange-eyed fish.

“I was born on the water,” he always said.

He was going to die on it too, she realized.

—

This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff Fields. To read more stories or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

Katrina and the Ann Street Players’ Last Gig

July 27, 2016
shopping cart in a parking lot lake

PHOTO PROMPT © Janet Webb

 

Last time I saw JT he was heading south on Dorgenois, with a case of beer on one shoulder.

“Where you headed?” I asked him.

“Me and some guys gonna ride it out down on Ann Street.”

“At Big Chief’s?”

He nodded. I could picture it: JT, Albert, Shorty…Big Chief on bass. All them guys, jamming louder than any hurricane. “You oughtta join us,” he said.

But Gran Marnier was all alone up in Goodbee, so’s I was headed up to board her windows and hit the grocery.

Never saw any a them again. Sometimes, I wish I’d stayed.

—

This has been an edition of Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Janet Webb.

To read more takes on the prompt, or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

get the InLinkz code