Friday Fictioneers 12 24 2021

Each Wednesday, the wonderful and majestic Rochelle sends a photo to inspire us to write one-hundred or fewer words that tell a story. Friday Fictioneers is fun. Click on the prompt photo for the access to her special page.

Here is the prompting picture and my fib.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click on the photo to be transported to Rochelle’s blog page.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Title: It Is What Was
Word Count: 100

“This SUV is a time machine that transports mentally, not physically. You can only go back during your lifetime, not forward.

“That mirror shows exact time and place holographically. You go from now to then for about five minutes, then you are back here. You may change any past decision of yours, but rules disallow affecting life or death—kind of a prime directive. Your life will change based on the new decision. Any questions?”

What if I change my mind afterwards?

“We allow one free return trip to reset things. So far, everyone has done that. Ready?”

Not yet.

Look both ways, regret little, love much, and be yourself.
Mind the gaps and SUV, time machine sales staff.

“Finish each day and be done with it.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

 

Click on the time machine module to read other stories.

Sammi’s Weekender #240 (pavonine)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog.

 

An Old Dog Bit Me

My Dog was a big, ugly, fat fucker (BUFF),
boasting an un-pavonine but prominent
forty-eight-foot-tall tail
painted a horrid unreflective tar-black; likewise,
his underside, from empennage guns to radome nose.

Chemical odors inside mixed with piss and puke
fouled the air; noise enough to deafen,
disaster and destruction filled his big ebony belly.

On command, my camouflaged killer would ‘Cry Havoc;’
wreaking horrible death and terror onto the earth below.

Now, we haunt display grounds at air museums across the country.

Look both ways.
What you don’t see can kill.
Mind the gaps and don’t be a target.

Note: Allusion is to “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of Shakespeare’s history play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

 

A B-52D (circa 1975), also known as a tall tail or the “Old Dog.” It was the B-52 model (there were eight) used in the novel “Flight of the Old Dog” by Dale Brown.

A Thursday Rune (walk with me)

’tis Raining Intimacy

Here’s the thing, people think I’m crazy
when they scramble for cover
seeking unrequited protection
from spit and sprinkle.
As my smile betrays my thing for rain.

Well, you see, proud me knows
what they don’t.
I feel something
they flat-out won’t.
Yet I’m not alone.

I dig walkin’ in all the rains—
deluge or drizzle,
mist or mizzle, or
let it pour a storm.

Control Nature? I cannot!
But guess what that
atmospheric effect does for me.
If I could, I’d make it so, and gawd,
you’d see; it would rain a lot.

I dunno, though,
cuz here’s another thing;
what I get is more than wet.
Rain’s just Nature’s grace
poured out on us
says no less than the likes of
John Updike. I get what he meant.

Anyway, it’s more than water,
more than moisture,
rain refreshes me, spiritually
cleanses me, it quenches my thirsty soul.
You know what I mean?

And Jeeze Louise, we always need rain.
It’s a feeling—a cosmic commune—
with what, I’m not so sure, but it,
in fact, flows with cycles of life.

Okay, I get it. No freezing cold.
Likewise,
I’ll pass on thunder and lightning
so close
it makes me mess myself.

Don’t worry though, I dress for temperatures.
On warm days, it’s shorts and old cotton tees;
my warm red rain jacket at colder times.
I eschew ducking under umbrella’s shadow.

I wear wet-able shoes. And I walk alone.
But then again, don’t you know?
I’d never refuse a fellow Pluvio,
and we’d want to dance
to the music and the rhythm of falling rain.

Look both ways.
Feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it, and see the rain;
all that it does, all that it loves.
Mind the gaps, the dips, and the puddles, unless you’re five.
Then, just dive right in.

Friday Fictioneers 12/17/2021

The Mistress of Friday Fictioneers, Rochelle, has posted a photo prompt. I (we) must write a complete story in fewer than 101 words and post it here.

Click the prompt photo for teleportation to Rochelle’s blog where you can get all the rules and join the fun.

Here’s today’s picture and my micro-fiction story (titles and backstories do not count against the 100-word limit).

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields to to to her blog page.

Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Dead Mollys
Word count: 100

They hung them Molly Maguires, Jimmy. That Pinkerton spy said they was murderers.

Jesus, Paddy. They was coal miners and union men, just like us, not Mollys. Pinkertons lie. It’s the coal barons, Paddy. They want us dead. One man was Ukrainian, not Irish, not even Catholic.

Augh, Jimmy. Then the whole feckin’ government’s paid off. What can we do?

All the power’s higher up. If we fight, we die. We got the numbers. We need to make unions work. Let’s talk to that John L. Lewis kid. He’s on our side.

Okay. But let’s fill these growlers. I’m thirsty.

Look both ways, even in the worst of times.
Mind the gaps and find your tribe.

***

Click on Sean Connery to see other stories or to link yours.

Backstories:

The Molly Maguires was an Irish (Catholic) secret society active in northeastern Pennsylvania (circa late 1800s), where I grew up. After a series of often violent conflicts, twenty suspected members of the Molly Maguires were convicted of murder and other crimes and were hanged.

John L. Lewis was president of the Mine Workers Union from 1920 to 1960.

The Molly Maguires is a 1970 historical drama movie (Richard Harris and Sean Connery) based on the 1964 book, Lament for the Molly Maguires by Arthur H. Lewis.

dVerse Quadrille #142 (tinsel)

Thanks to Mish for hosting (and sucking me into this post which I did not plan to do).

Back in town

tinsel tensing nuts in town
leaders, all bozos

and clowns,

suky tawdry for a.g,
macheath and mackie messer,

for all the world to see

liars swear another judge jackleg

threepenny opera

death was healthy,

good is bad, bloodsuckers’ protagonists,

what do you want now?

Look both ways to tell the good guys from the rest.
Mind the gaps in a saint’s past and the sinner’s future.

Click on my cigar for more wonderful poems.

Sammi’s Weekender #239 (smuggle)

Click the prompt graphic to teleport to Sammi’s blog and other poetry or prose.

Egregiously Absurd

Smugglers
of humans seeking better lives, liberty, to taste
freedom, asking only workman’s wages.

They flee to us with wicked problems,
bringing constantly changing confusion,
due to undefinable inequalities of states.

By coercion or consent, trusting snakeheads,
coyotes, or polleros; at great cost and risk,
begging asylum from worse.

We pick them up, send them back;
our failed fences, blank walls.
WTF is beautiful about that?

Look both ways and “Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too.”
Mind the gaps on the high road of morality.

Friday Fictioneers 12/10/2021

Friday Fictioneers challenges us to write fewer than 101 words mused up by a photograph supplied by one of us and posted as our prompt by the ever-wonderful Rochelle. Click the prompt photo to see her blog page and get clued-in on all the fun.

Here is today’s picture and my story.

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT © by Claire Fullerby for Rochelle’s blog to get all the FF info.

Genre: Crime Fiction
Title: The Payoff
Word count: 100

I was out walking behind the old abandon Morrow Brothers service station, where I had my first job. Hearing voices, I climbed over the mess of old mufflers and tires to see.

I saw Clay Morrow arguing with some guy. Morrow pulled a gun from his toolbox and shot the man.

I saw youthful me—watching.

Then, I watched as Morrow walked over to me, said something, and handed me a paper.

Back home, I called Dr. Kupferberg.

“Doc, I wasn’t dreaming. I remember. I witnessed a murder and told no one. Morrow paid me off. I’m holding the check.”

Look both ways.
You won’t recall repressed memories, until you do.
Mind the gaps in criminal acts, especially if you’re involved.

Click on Clay Morrow’s (Ron Perlman) gun to read other renditions.

 

dVerse Poetics : Passions Stamped on Lifeless Things

Click on the tractor for link to dVerse post by merrildsmith in Poetics.

Old tractors can’t retire with much dignity.
Ours rests over yonder, near the barn.
With winter’s cold, snow, and ice,
or dry poundings of hot summers,
she tries to show well, just a little rust,
peeling paint, heavy worn tires.

Made to plough and cumber a heavy beam,
an ox of steel and rubber, she carried men to work,
sowed seeds, and tilled the soil.

A mammoth farm and ranch hand, she
pushed and pulled cultivators and harrows,
drug fertilizer wagons,
pulled mowers, rakes, and bailers
with tires heavy with water and mud.

I still remember the day I first grabbed ahold
of her wheel learning to drive and work hard.

Thank you, my friend, for teaching me
so much about life, work, sweat, tears,
and the weather. But mostly about how
to age gracefully and with dignity.

Look both ways but history teaches more.
Mind the gaps, find the truth, keep your pride and dignity until a tractor retires.

dVerse—Prosery Monday—Lost/Found/Lost Children (12/06/2021)

From the bar at dVerse, Lisa pitched me the Prosery Monday poem, “When We Sing Of Might,” by Kimberly Blaeser (see it here).

From the poem, Lisa lifted a line for me to fold into a piece of prose of fewer than 145 words of my own making but including the line, “I dress in their stories patterned and purple as night.”

I had to use every word of the entire line. I was allowed to change punctuation and to capitalize words, but I was not permitted to insert words in between parts of the sentence.

But for the Grace of What?

I walked the muddy road through the depressingly disgusting homeless camp. There was nothing but mud everywhere; muddy tents and muddy mad people totally demoralized and pissed off at the world that had put them here. They were angry about being in this place and they refused to come to terms with what they themselves had created, not just a camp, but a metaphor for their lost lives, an intractable bog of stink and decay. The city provided piss pits and shit pots smelled to hell and back. These lost souls were in the grips of unshakable petulance. It was in their eyes, posture, and the way they walked. To report on this homeless debacle, I knew what I had to do. I would be in Rome and do as they did. Briefly, I dress in their stories—patterned and purple as night.

Look both ways to see all that’s there.
Mind the gaps, but spare judgement.
There, but for the good grace of random fortune, go I.

Access other prosery pieces here.

Sammi’s Weekender #238 (familiar)

Click to go to Sammi’s blog and read other literary wonders.

A Poet’s Niche at Night

I sit alone,
here in my nook
surrounded by dark night’s midst,
awakened by who knows what.

It’s not gloomy to me
in my shadowless gray nest,
with familiar walls tinted sepia
by computer screens,

And light from my
black plastic, ergonomic keyboard.

I like it dark without sounds
I couldn’t hear anyway, just midnight feels.
I like them, too.

As I think,
I write
this poem thingy
cuz that’s what poets do,
in the middle of the night.

Look both ways when you sit alone in the darkness.
Mind the gaps,
the things you hear,
the things you feel,
and especially those you don’t.