Friday Fictioneers for November 18th, 2022

Rochelle, our dear dancing diva with big black boots and broken toes, has punted a Friday Fictioneers photo from Starsinclayjars to us, twice actually. Her intent is for us to score goals by netting our 100-word (or fewer) stories for mid-November. We are to look and see the picture, big or small, and then write a story from our mused inspiration. Thence, to blog post said fibs for all the world to admire and love.

Be bold and click on the boot by the bush for a fast flash over to Mistress Rochelle’s rockin’ blog to kick up some fun with micro fiction. Post your story in one of the squares thingies and jump in on others to tell them what you think, even if you don’t know who they are.

PHOTO PROMPT © Starsinclayjars

Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Canned English
Word Count: 100

***

The young Englishman intended to stand against the obstinate, award-winning poet, and sardonic senior citizen.

“You must wear the standard green uniform, Sir, or face the boot.”

Peter glared, “Unsatisfactory. I’ve done this vapid work well-enough for twenty-two years. I want the job. Not uniforms.”

“Sir, the National Agribusiness empowered me to inform you that you are suspended. Agree to our terms, the job is still yours.”

Peter watched a bird and sipped his wine, “You’re a callow, grotesquely inadequate twit. I’d rather live in Marfa bloody Texas than work for you jackasses.”

The young man was beet-red, “Where’s Marfan?”

***

Look both ways and be true to your conscience.
Mind the gaps, especially if your day job is on the proverbial line.

English poet Peter Reading and I were born an ocean apart on the same day, 27 July 1946. He was “one of Britan’s most original and controversial poets: angry, uncompromising, gruesomely ironic, hilarious, and heartbreaking. His scathing and grotesque accounts of lives blighted by greed, meanness, ignorance, and cultural impoverishment” captured this Bokowski-lover’s mind, heart, and imagination.

He was fired for refusing to wear a uniform, lived in Marfa, Texas, for a time, and titled the book about that experience Marfan. Peter died about 11 years ago, but his attitude and poetry live on.

Click on Peter enjoying his wine and giving some twit a look. Photo is the cover portrait (by Peter Edwards) of Reading’s Collected Poems (1970-1984), Blookaxe Books Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

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