Category Archives: Prompts

The Last Time

February 7, 2016
Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

Chloe was always doing that—changing plans last minute and expecting him to drop everything. He tossed the mobile onto the console. He had a job. He had deliveries. He still had to get from Ocean Gate to Fareham. Good thing he knew a shortcut down Wickham Road and could bypass the road-works.

Past Fontley Road, his mobile chimed once more: Can you meet me at Europa? Which was out of the question. He’d been in the lorry for six hours straight and she meant for him to drive all the way out to Avon?

He snatched up his mobile and scrawled the answer with one thumb: Why do u always—

That’s when he saw the push-bike. And felt the sickening thud.

—

This has been an edition of Sunday Photo Fiction brought to us by Al Forbes.  To read more flash fiction or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

Author’s note: I recognized generally where this was and wanted to give the proper dose of setting and scene via the appropriate vernacular. But, being American, I’m afraid I overshot in some respects and failed miserably in others. So I think they only thing that could fix this is an all-expense paid trip to Exeter and Portsmouth. Which I am willing to do. In the name of literature and improving my craft. 😉

A Gaelic Prayer, translated

January 17, 2016
Sunday Photo Fiction Prompt

Sunday Photo Fiction Prompt

Oh Caileach Bheur,
that froze the lock
that turns the tumbler
that fires the engine of my use:
release your deathgrip,
hoarbreath,
ice in eyes.
Lift the snowshroud
from the bone howl,
and bring back sweet Beltane.

Or, as other men may say it:

Goddammit car, just start already.

—

This has been an edition of the Sunday Photo Fiction prompt and further evidence why I should not be allowed to write poetry.

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

A Christmas Story

December 20, 2015

My offering for Al Forbe’s Sunday Photo Fiction Prompt is a bit of a cheat. Long in the tooth (by fifty words or more), half-memory and half-fiction (let’s call it fictoir), and not exactly inspired by the prompt–since I’d planned to write it anyway. Today I’m remembering my dear Grandma Mary and the Aunt Patsy I never knew.

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

When Patsy died, the nativity scene had gone to the back of the attic in an unmarked box. But it wasn’t like she’d forget what was in there, or forget what had happened six years ago:

Christmas.

Hospice.

Losing her only daughter to a wicked and racing cancer.

Losing her faith.

“How come you don’t have a Christmas tree, Grandma?”

“We don’t celebrate Christmas here, child.”

“Mama and Daddy do. We have a tree, and stockings for everyone, and lights, and a Santa doll that dances and sings a song.” In an instant, the girl was demonstrating—waggling her hips from side to side to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock.

Patsy was the same way about holidays, always diving headfirst into the festivities, not wasting a moment. Back in better days, she’d hand-painted the nativity scene in the attic. “You’ll have this when I’m grown and gone, Ma,” she’d said. Each year she’d lovingly arranged the pieces, up until the last. She would have been twenty-six now, with children of her own. Like Jimmy’s daughter, the dear little thing, her with her endless appetite for sweets and answers.

“You should celebrate Grandma. It makes you feel good. Don’t you want to feel good?”

And she realized then, she did. She stood. “I’ve got something in the attic. A special thing to share with you. Stay right here and I’ll bring it back.”

“Are we going to celebrate?”

And for the first time since Patsy died, the answer was yes.

Vintage chalkware nativity set

Vintage chalkware nativity set

To read more stories or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button: 

Never Not Unsaved

November 29, 2015
tire in snow

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt 11-29-2015

I was there that day.

That day they still talk about.

They were always lost

That day that woman skidded into the river—her two young boys in back. Everyone stopped–everyone who saw it. Just before Christmas, too. Folks slammed on their brakes and threw open their doors and charged down the banks. More than me plunged in after them, while the rest made hoarse and frantic calls. Red station wagon, in the river. There’s kids in there.

We got them out, though. Pulled her out first and then those boys. All of us hugging on the banks and thanking God. Congratulating ourselves. We saved them.

It wasn’t until later we realized—they were always lost.

—

This story is a work of fiction inspired by true events: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-27-2529961022_x.htm

This has been an edition of Sunday Photo Fiction, hosted by Al Forbes. To read more entries or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button.

Aboard my Sky Bike, Cartwheel

October 25, 2015
Sunday Photo Fiction prompt 10-25-2015

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt 10-25-2015

I think I like imaginary things the best.

Mr. Chocolate, The Threadbare Bear, and how he does his cooking show live from my Easy Bake oven.

Piggles the Flying Piggy Bank and the way he drops the moneybombs on Lego Town.

And my Sky Bike, Cartwheel, and the way we soar above the clouds, higher than the yelling. Singing songs at family pictures. And we fly all the way around the world. And when we get back, Mommy isn’t hurt or crying. And Daddy isn’t at the bar. And the rent is paid.

And we all love each other. Again.

—

This has been another edition of the Sunday Photo Fiction Prompted, hosted by the Al Forbes. To read more or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

That kid was special

October 18, 2015

Jolie wasn’t like other kids. Not since that time.

No, maybe not ever.

She’d spend hours out back in the thicket of woods, sometimes just staring up for glimpses of sky; sometimes running her hands along the tree bark with her eyes closed, whispering. Once she pulled apart the carpet of pine needles and laid them flat in a path all through the grove. She made it magic, she did.

I tried to show Harlan but he couldn’t see. “That one ain’t right in the head.” As he left the glade, his boots scuffed all through her pine mosaic.

She was always giving us things too. Once she wove Jilly a purse from hawk feathers and then there was the bow she made Jobe out a some leavings from the downed chestnut.

Then Ricket died.

And God, that kid loved that dog more than all the rest of us combined. For days after, Jolie’d come home covered from head to toe in Virginia mud. Finally, she asked us to see it. That statue she’d made: a perfect likeness of her beloved dog, crafted from nothing but twigs and earth.

Even Harlan could see it then: that kid was special.

dog statue

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

This has been an edition of the Sunday Photo Fiction prompt, courtesy Al Forbes. To read more 100-200 word flash fiction inspired by the photo, or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

 

Long Term Parking

October 14, 2015
Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

If she loved me, she might have said, “Don’t go.”

She might have talked about the dangers they paraded across the news feed every night: The bombs. The terrorists. The kidnappings.

She might have pointed out there were a hundred other alternatives to that particular assignment.

She might have said there’s no shame in being a local correspondent, or that the money didn’t matter.

If she loved me…

 

If she loved me—just a little—she would have given me a ride.

The kid at the booth slid the window to one side. “Which lot are you looking for?”

—

NOTE: I botched the POV in the initial version because everyone thought it was the woman’s POV. I switched “me” for “him” and hopefully it makes it clearer.

This has been another edition of the fabulous Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the talented Rochelle Wisoff Fields. This week’s photo prompt courtesy Rochelle. (Very inspiring, Rochelle!)

To read more 100-word flash fiction based on the prompt or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

Big Top Tony

October 7, 2015
carousel-ted-strutz

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

“I know my rights!”

The kid was still yelling even as the cop tucked his head into the squad car. Tony took a long draw of his cigar and shook his head.

There was one of them at every stop, getting the other carnies all riled up. They’d go all union when they looked at their paycheck and saw the surcharges: meals, uniforms, lodging fees.  But they’d signed the contract

He crushed the cigar stub under a boot heel and walked away. In Barstow, he was getting illegals. Most of them couldn’t even read the checks, let alone cash them.

—

This has been another edition of the fabulous Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the amazing Rochelle Wisoff Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Ted Strutz. To read more or to submit your own, click the froggy button:

 

Last Thanksgiving

October 4, 2015
Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

Sunday Photo Fiction prompt

The rain had pinned the last of October’s skittering leaves to the curb, where they lay rotting.

Last year she was soccer mom, wearing a rut in the road from Daisytowne to Oak Park.

Last year, Thanksgiving was a bother, tacked on the end of the choral follies, with Steve’s mom staying for more than a week. Last year she was putting away Em’s princess costume and stewing because no manufacturer could actually make a coat to last a kid from one winter to the next. Last year, she was making apple pies for the fundraiser, swatting at the powder of flour on Emily’s nose, saying things that started with when you grow up.

Last year– —

she had had Thanksgiving but was not grateful.

This year, there would be neither.

—

This has been flash fiction inspired by Al Forbes’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt. To read more or submit your own, click the blue froggy button:

Do the right thing

September 30, 2015
PHOTO PROMPT – © Marie Gail Stratford

PHOTO PROMPT – © Marie Gail Stratford

In the margins of a college-ruled composition book, Bryn calculated the odds whether she’d get caught. People always got caught—or that was what they wanted you to think. But when it got right down to it, you only ever heard about the ones who got caught. Cause if you didn’t, you didn’t exactly walk around bragging Hey dude I hacked into Bloomberg Bank and transferred 500 million dollars into a dummy donor account that funneled the money to charities around the world.

I mean you’d want to brag, but…

The good deed was enough. She reached for the mouse.

—

This has been an edition of the fabulous Friday Fictioneers brought to you by the generous and talented Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo prompt courtesy Marie Gail Stratford

To read more or to submit your own click the blue froggy button:

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