Friday Fictioneers for February 10th, 2023

The Mistress of Friday Fictioneer micro-fiction (and non-fiction), Rochelle, has floated us a Roger Bulot picture with a bench, a bridge, a fence, a river, and a cityscape to inspire us to write our best story in fewer than 101 words. I shoot for a hundred. Some do less. Never more.

Take the risk and click on Roger’s pic to be shipped over to Rochelle’s blog where it all begins.

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Green River Gary
Word Count: 100

***

Gary Ridgway, a middle-aged man, sat on the bench next to her. He asked her name.

“I’m Jane Sue, wanna party? Twenty-five and you get it all.”

He pulled out a Bible and started reading aloud. She rolled her eyes.

Gary said, “Let’s go to Cody’s Camp near the river. We can moonlight dance.”

Jane said, “Dancing’s extra. Time’s money. Let’s go.”

They got in his truck and drove off.

Her real name wasn’t Jane. To this day she is known as one of several Jane Doe’s. Gary sits out his life plea deal. Did he ever reach 100 murders?

***

Look both ways and look again and again.
Mind the gaps, it’s a dangerous world out there.

Note: Gary Leon Ridgway is The Green River Killer. He confessed to the murders of more than 70 women, and it may have been over 90. He is still alive (age 73 now), in prison in Walla Walla, Washington.

Click on the photo of the killer to float over to inlinkz and more thrilling stories.

 

There is more than one Green River, as the CCR band can testify.

dVerse: Quadrille #169 (A Star [Poem] is Born)

The dVerse challenge was to write a poem of precisely 44 words, not counting the title, including some form of the word star. I used the plural form.

Celestial Navigation

Way back,
before cell phones, Google,
moving maps,
and satellite navigation.

At Mather Air Force Base
near Sacramento,
I studied
stars, planets, the moon, and Sun
using a sextant, books, and computations.

The Planetarium was our classroom.
Navigators are no longer taught. It’s sad.

Look both ways looking at the night sky.
Magellan did.
Mind the gaps in the sky as you learn the names of stars, planets, and constellations.

Sammi’s Weekender #297 (key)

Click on graphic to go to Sammi’s blog page where more 71-word poetry or prose are key.

 

 

Whispering Cuts

Lost in a familiar sea of grave reality, my dysfunctional heart not yet surrendered, something of which none are certain. Worry descended like a pall over my will. Sadness has taken control of my soul. Well-intentioned, high-riding key influencers are wheedling me into their delusional corner. Life, lies, and what matters: shut down before I hit the ground. I ponder death, or better, conceivably, never to have been born at all.

Look both ways, but in the end, it is just the end.
Nothing more.
Mind the gaps of life’s traps.
Sometimes it’s your fault. Sometimes it’s not.

Friday Fictioneers for February 3rd, 2023

We’re iced-in over (down) here in Texas, which means it is our bi-annual week of winter.

While Rochelle is recovering from strokin’ too hard, she has rattled our senses with an Alicia Jamtaas photo taken on a lovely romantic day. Our gig now is to write fewer than 101 words telling the stories that our muses whisper to us as we look at Alicia’s pic.

If your muse is tugging at your mind and makin’ you wanna play, click Ms. Jamtaas pic to dance on over to Rochelle’s blog page where you’ll get to read all about it.

PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas

Genre: Dream-dancing Fiction
Title: There She Was
Word Count: 100

***

It was a hot one. I was minding my business, walkin’ down the street, snappin’ my fingers, shufflin’ my feet, feelin’ the beat.

I saw her sitting there. My heart stopped. We waved. It was love. Music played. We danced. We started callin’ out round the world. Everybody was dancing in the street.

If this is a dream, may I never awaken. I called to her, “Baby, let’s make it real.”

We did with all the music playing, we were all singin’ and dancin’ and hot , hot, hot. She yelled, “Carlos, I love you. “I said, “my name’s Bill.”

***

Look both ways but love may be sitting up above on yonder windowsill.
Mind the gaps but (flash mob) dance when you can.

Click on the salsa dancers to flash on over to the inlinkz page for more hot stories.

AND, A little Smooth guitar from the great Carlos Santana to better tell the whole story.

Monday’s Rune: Just for me

Humble Sigh

She said, “I write
just for me,
not for any reader.”
All for her own pleasure.
So she said.
So she thought.

But, oh, oh, oh,
the smile she had
and the glint in her eye
over the magazine
that published her story.

Tell me that again my friend,
that part about the writer
without ego or desire
to please or to be pleased.

Look both ways and take the pat on the back.
Mind the gaps for feeling denied.

Sammi’s Weekender #296 (apathy)

Click on this graphic to see more 40-word wonders of interest.

The League

I’m their biggest threat,
unaffected by effects of deceptive hype,
bored by hyperbole’s clichés,
mine is no mere apathetic pity.

Their heroes hawk pizza, encourage foolishness,
and elect incoherent babblers as leaders,
roles for which mad dogs are better suited.

Look both ways in the entertainment world.
Mind the gaps in celebrity mentality, or the absence thereof.

Friday Fictioneers for January 27th, 2023

For the final full week of January, our guide to telling stories based on a picture, Rochelle, has tossed up a J Hardy Carroll pic to inspire us. It took a while but my muse, obviously an older woman, set my mind to an inappropriate tale, but not an uncommon one.

To find the how-to of this story telling challenge, click on the J Hardy photo and you’ll be shuffled over to Rochelle’s blog where the situation is made clear. Can you tell a complete story in one-hundred or fewer words?

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Genre: Erotic Fiction
Title: Pinch Me, Maggie
Word Count: 100

***

She, much older, married and Julia’s mother. I loved her and suspected she knew. I never expected this.

At her daughter’s birthday party, she told me to meet her in the old abandon building north of the football field. I was to be there about eleven. I was early.

I asked, “Mrs. Robinson, why?”

She smiled, “I can tell what you want. Call me Maggie May here, but Mrs. Robinson in public. If you tell anyone about us, I’ll make your life miserable. It’s your move, young man.”

My heart pounded. I held her. “May I kiss you, Maggie May?”

***

Look both ways because love is ageless and where you find it.
Mind the gaps between May and September.

 

Click on the scene from ‘The Graduate’ movie to read more awesome stories.

And, of course, the story as told by Sir Roderick David Stewart.

 

Monday’s Rune: Just a little poke

Just a little poke

Lying on the Cath Lab table, oxygen
up my nose, needles in my everywhere,
nurses and technicians asking questions.
Technology all around.

It’s like a Federation starship sickbay,
or a Starbase infirmary
with many more actors vying for a role
and space at my table.

There are two main characters. The protagonists are
the Chief Medical Officer and me.
Other smart young wonders,
called residents, watch.

Also, a consulting rep from
the manufacturer of my shiny new transcatheter aortic heart valve,
to be snaked into place and magically,
guided, angiographically trough my veins and arteries,
and into my beating heart, which will soon almost stop,
scaring all except unconscious me,
to replace the defective OEM part.

They all look alike in masks and caps. I’m naked on a procedure table,
surrounded by X-ray machines, big screen monitors,
procedure carts, lights, and computer workstations.

In some other room nearby, more medical miracle role players
wave from behind large windows. I needed a Playbill.

No TV doctor medicine-show drama. Okay, maybe a little,
but two days later I am home and ready to rock.
Ya gotta love modern medical science.

Look both ways and ask lots of questions.
Mind the gaps for diagnoses and prognoses.

Friday Fictioneers for January 20th, 2023

As we slip into the final third of January in the year twenty twenty-three, the queen of Wednesdays’ Rhapsody and Friday Fictioneering, Rochelle, has joined forces with one of New York’s finest writers, Na’ama Yehuda, to challenge my (and your) muse’s imagination.

They say the average speaking pace is about one-hundred words per minute. So…

Therefore, you can do this today in a New York minute by composing your own story of no more than 100 words, but as few as you like. Hang out here, but then scoot on over to Rochelle’s place, just past the pink laundromat, to clean up on all the how’s and whatnots. Just click on Na’ama’s pic and BAM! You’re there.

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

Genre: Bohemian Fiction
Title: Sundown Ecstasy
Word Count: 100

***

There was a secret room hidden behind the clothes hanging in her closet. It’s where she went to do things she would never confess—her happy place, an escape from reality. She hid things there: old toys, memories, and sad things. Some day they would find more in her room.

One day, caught in a landslide, she’d had enough of his abuse.

She told them he had washed his clothes, packed, and then left with his gun and girlfriend in his old pick-up truck.

She was happy to know that he was now in a better place. So was she.

***

Look both ways for thunderbolts and lightning—very, very frightening.
Mind the gaps and ask, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”

Click on Freddy’s pic to read more outstanding Friday Fiction.

 

And if you have not figure it out —- but this is a cute family (The Petersens) with a different vibe.

 

Monday’s Rune: Not looking so good.

 

They called him Tom—not his real name.
This guy was no head-hanging Tom Dooley.
Tom liked to watch. A voyeur. A peeking peeper.
A people watcher of the lowest and riskiest form.
Yet, old Tom was submissive. Not dangerous. But who knew?

Night was his time—windows framed his fantasies.

One day Tom saw something that made him
stop peeping—almost. “Now I’ve seen everything.
My life is complete. And I need to go to confession,
but not with that priest.” Tom, confided in himself.

Then, late one warm summer night, there was a scream.
Someone else yelled.
Dogs barked.
Tom ran.
He heard a gunshot.

Maybe Tom had seen everything. But he never made it
to confession. He died doing what he loved.
What he needed.
And he died running,
just not fast enough. Peeping Tom was no more.
“And another one gone” and
“Another one bites the dust.”

Look both ways.
Exhibitionists and watchers can work together,
each according to his, her, or their wants and needs.