Author: Bill

Friday Fictioneers for February 25th, 2022

Our own Wednesday morning moonbeam, Rochelle, in conjunction with Roger Bulot has set the street carnival stage for the final February Friday Fictioneers frolic with ethnic food, fun, and dancing in the street. Click on Roger’s contributed picture for a magic carpet ride over to play where growing older does not require growing up and purple is plentiful.

My mundane mindless myth meanders about the crowd in the 100 worried words below the prompt photo.

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot for a taxi over to Rochelle’s page.

 

Genre: Bazaar Fiction
Title: American Men
Word Count: 100

***

“There. Blue baseball cap, Ray-Bans, running shoes. Passing the Greek Jewish food. Go!”

She approached. “Hello, mark. Remember me?”

He lowered his shades and made eye contact, then noticing her cleavage, “Ah, I’m afraid I, um, ah…”

She touched his bare arm. “I’m, Chloé. Last June in Paris?”

Embarrassed, he felt blood and sense drop from his brain to his groin. He felt a nudge from behind. He turned to look. When he turned back, she was gone, as was his wallet, watch, and even his sunglasses.

He thought, I should have known at the lower-case mark. My name’s Bill.

Look both ways on crowded streets.
Mind the gaps of décolletage and keep your eye on the ball.

Click anywhere you like to find the other wonderful worldly contributions to read and comment.

Sammi’s Weekender #249 (recipe)

Click on Recipe to check out other’s writings on Sammi’s menu page.

 

Make it So

Kitchen? check!
Hot oven? check.
fixin’s? double-check.
recipes, bowls?

Got ‘em to go.

bakin’ pans
yeah boss!!
ready to roll!
gots crunchie munchies.

pack a bowl, pizza’s comin’.
“Hey, you gunna bogart
that stash all night?”

Look both ways when you pass the bong.
Mind the gaps and lower the lights.

Friday Fictioneers for February 18th, 2022

Yet again, two of our favorite jolies femmes have teamed up to conspire with a cat, to inspire me to find fewer than 101 words of micro-fiction for Friday Fictioneers. Dale delights us with her cute and clever bookshelf cat photo. Rochelle, Madame cat herder extraordinaire, challenges us and guides our stories. I thank them both.

Click on Dale’s cat-that-reads photo to prance on over to Rochelle’s page for all the latest ‘nip.

Genre: Feline Fiction
Title: The Prints of Paws
Word Count: 100

I’m telling you, Francesco, we’re the greatest predators, evah. We can kill them. Everything becomes ours. Look around. Cameras, computers, food, catnip galore. All ours.

Gabriella, stop. If she finds out you’ve been peeing on her books, she’ll blame me. What if she tosses us outside? I know how you love the cold. And that’s not ‘nip. It’s pot. Let’s hold off until Spring.

I can pee wherever, my chicken-feline-friend. How many cat books do you see? None. Let’s get into her account and order cat books.

Here she comes. Look cute. She’s got her camera. Stardom beckons.

Look both ways if you love animals, especially cats.
No shelf is too high, no corner too dark.

Inspired by I could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano (and other cat books soon to be showing up on Dale’s account and TBRs).

Click on the sweet le félin to read more stories inspired by the cat on a shelf.

Sammi’s Weekender #248 (capricious)

Click the graphic for your taxi to Sammi’s blog and other poems and prose.

What Am I, Popeye?

An assemblage of contradictions
unified with random masses of cosmic protoplasm,
launched unwilling into life,
pretentiously posing upon past
protoplanetary disks.

I am a self-contradictory collection of word gestures,
influences, and impulses dancing to dialectically
distracting, consistent capriciousness, and
categorically confused morphing emotions.

Wish for sameness but anticipate reality.
I’m muddled by me without constraint.

Look both ways into the reflection of lefts and rights,
ups and downs, love and loss.
Mind the gaps of unshakeable faith and wander through Sagan’s Cosmos.

***

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” …. “Extinction is the rule.” (Carl Sagan, 1934-1996)

Gloss:  A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star.

Thursday’s Rune: The Intern

I really don’t understand this retirement gig. I never worked this damn hard when I was (over) paid for what I did.

I know. All those years of experience, knowing and rarely telling where the bodies were buried. They paid me with hush money and free coffee.

Now I work for the worst slave driver of my life: relentless me. And I am not giving myself a good review or a raise.

Too many goals I’ve missed by miles, shabby work posted for the world to see. No pay, no benefits, but staff meetings are mercifully short. Praise social programs and media.

Art supplies going dry. Travel bennies unused. Zoom training ignored in favor of you tubes and naps in the afternoon.

The sexual harassment policy, while mild is embarrassing, even though nobody knows how it all goes. Breaks lead to fun honey-dos I often prefer.

Don’t get me wrong. I love retirement. The highlight of some days is wasting time in erotically creative ways. I love to say that tired cliché, “been there and done that.” Experience never gets old.

When I look both ways, seeing more past than future, it’s telling.
I mind the gaps as best I can, and I still hope for a happy ending to my wildly romantic life.

***

I shall allow Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. (as old Ben) show me the way.

Friday Fictioneers for February 11, 2022

Lover of all things purple (except maybe prose); historian and keeper of dark truths; maven of watercolor and drawings of life; sultry mistress with dominion over her tribe of scribes and Friday littérateurs of fantastic fiction; Madam Rochelle Wisoff-Fields has honored her humble servant by promotion to the elite order of photo contributors.

To wit, I must now contrive some presentable intrigue in fewer than 101 words, discounting this introduction, the preface (title, wordcount, and genre), and my additional postscript.

Click on “old blue” (or green) for a smooth ride on over to Rochelle’s place to glean other rules of literary engagement.

Photo by Bill Reynolds. Click on the truck for a ride on over to Rochelle’s place.

Genre: Texas Gothic
Title: Organic Disposal
Word Count: 100

***

I met her on the front porch. “Hi Furie, where’s Fenix?”

“She’s inside reading. I’m going to sit on that old rusty truck and write some Texas Gothic. It inspires me.”

“I noticed they moved it and put in a hog pen.”

I could see her wheels turning. “Right, Opa. You know, pigs and hogs are a great way to get rid of physical crime evidence. They’ll eat anything organic, including flesh and bone. And they can be trained to make life difficult for the Sheriff or some dingbat country cop.”

She smiled and waved as the Sheriff pulled up.

Look both ways for fact or fiction.
Mind the gaps and plot twists of creative teenage minds.

***

Click on “the girls” to discover more Friday Fictioneer stories.

Sammi’s Weekender #247 (flummox)

Click on this graphic for Sammi’s blog to participate and to read other 42-word wonders.

 

Taboo to Torched

Frightened by arrogant kens against freedom,
shocked by hubris karens of hyperbole,
flummoxed by fiddling fascist Boards,
saddened as lone librarians dodge discovery,
humbled by youth’s perseverance;
I ponder and cry, with my personal pride,
I stand wondering why, ready to satirize.

 

Look both ways as you war against the lunacy of banned books.
Mind the gaps and detest book burning and the dark side of religious fanaticism.

 

Friday Fictioneers for February 4th, 2022

The lovelies, Rochelle and Na’ama, teamed up to tempt my darker, speculative, micro-fiction side. It’s 100 words. Fewer is fine, but more is too many. My story follows Na’ama’s enticing photo. Click on it to bat fly over to Rochelle’s place for rest of the tantalizing story.

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda to see what Rochelle is up to today.

 

Genre: Erotic Spec-Fic
Title: Leave the Light On
Word Count: 100

***

Drunk at midnight. The doorbell. Instant love.

She said, “I saw your light. Would you like to donate blood? Invite me in. Vodka Collins, please.”

“Yes. Come in. I’ll get your drink.”

Her phone. “Party at David’s. Sunrise. I’m getting bloody marys now. Maybe a sperm bank donation too. Cute guy, but older.”

I handed her the Collins. “I thought y’all bit us on the neck.”

“Too messy. We’re high tech now. Like Red Cross. Instant disease tests and all. Join our frequent donor, blood-bag club.”

“Really? No more biting?”

“Nope. But I give a hell of a hickey.”

***

Look both ways for erotic vampires.
Mind the gaps and floss daily.

***

Click on your “Interview With The Vampire” soul mate to sky on over to the squares and read more exciting stories. It’s fun. Trust me.

Sammi’s Weekender #246 (saunter)

Give a little click on ‘saunter’ to fly on over to Sammi’s blog and read more words of wonder.

Now Dance

I can almost see in my memory
when mother was proud of me
for those first sobering steps,
my cheerful run. Later,
I saw and heard mine;
Billy, then Steven, finally
Julie taking first frantic steps of life,
another charge without
casual saunter. We learn
to run, then we slow down.

Look both ways as we walk, run, or saunter through life.
Mind the gaps, do the best you can, and have fun.
It’s a one-way ticket.

***

And now, a 1980s fun rock as Dire Straits teaches us about the “Walk Of Life.” (Hilarious)

Thursday’s Rune: There is no…

New Day Travel Ban

It can be a bit pejorative
to say about a person
that she or he wakes up
in a new world every day.

Not woke
like in social awareness,
but more like unaware
of reality and conditions where
lessons learned are lost or useless.

But don’t we all want that?
Who wants it the same old way?
That was cynical Groundhog Day.
Let’s go and see

what today’s new world has
to offer, to challenge, to feel,
and to be. Not because
someday we won’t, but

let’s jump into every day
like it’s something new
giving us one more
breath, another love, another chance to…

Let’s look both ways as we wake to different days.
Mind the gaps for a trip or two,
just don’t fall for whatever normal is supposed to be.