For International Women’s Day, Rochelle has invited us to receive inspiration from a yummy photo by Jennifer Pendergast. To save your seat at the FF table, click on Jennifer’s inviting dinner pic for a savory trip over to Rochelle’ place for writer’s just desserts. Be sure to thoroughly peruse all the menu has to offer.
For the record, today is also National Organize Your Home Office Day. Since I kind of stay organized, today I will begin changing my office décor. I could probably finish in one day, but Amazon delivers the goods tomorrow. Today is undo. Tomorrow is do-over.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Talk To Me
Word Count: 100
***
My invitation to the séance arrived via overnight delivery. It was addressed only to Reynolds. My street address had obviously been added by a different hand. I decided to go. My first.
I arrived before the appointed time of 5:00 AM. The door was ajar, so I walked in. The table had only a crystal ball and twelve empty chairs.
I waited. I double checked the invitation. I had the date right, October 7th. But the year said 1849.
As I waited longer, I felt a chill. Then I heard his voice, “Reynolds, Reynolds, Reynolds. Lord. Help my poor soul.”
***
Look both ways when reading Poe.
Mind the gaps for an elusive truth in his biographical history.
Give Edgar a click to mosey on over to where all the other stories are neatly linked up.
Click here for Sammi’s blog page where you can participate and/or read other 47-word wonders.
ICR
Why do clowns frown?
They’re funny being sullen and glum.
I like Eeyore. His dark humor and
saturnine persona are both spot-on.
His anti-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
attitude, taken too literally, can be sad,
but why be so literal? He’s not Russian,
not a nihilist. He’s just an old jackass.
Look both ways for the humor in the ridiculousness of life.
Mind the gaps, but not too closely, they can be downers, too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I first posted a story on Friday Fictioneers on 8/14/2020. That was less than three years ago.
So, when Mistress Rochelle slips in an old photo prompt (four years ago, in this case) [Correction. Roger’s pic is new. Rochelle’s story is a rerun.] as she did today with a Roger Bultot photo redux, it’s new to me. Since our maven of end of week mystery has pressed go for 2023, I’ve carved my new story into the blogosphere granite.
If you’re interested, just click on Roger’s pic to take the trip on over to Rochelle’s blog page where we all begin this challenge each week.
Genre: Fiction
Title: Deadly Staircase
Word Count: 100
The stairs down to the underground apartment were blocked by a locked gate. It was a trash bin for whatever was blowing. Daily, people walked past the infamous flat, still haunted by ghosts of the many women who were tortured, raped, and murdered inside.
She said, “Babe, we’ve got to go down there. We need pictures for literary inspiration.”
I replied, “How can you consider breaking in? It’s morbid. Sick. You’re out of your mind.”
She jimmied the lock, walked down to the door, and disappeared inside.
“Honestly officer. That was the last time I saw Rochelle—five hours ago.”
Look both ways to solve mysteries and puzzles.
Mind the gaps. They’re traps for fear to some but inspiration to others.
Click on the police tape to read more great stories.
To welcome official northern hemisphere Winter and to punctuate the solstice, Mistress of Fictioneering, Rochelle, has teamed up with the wonderful winter scene photographer, Dale Rogerson, to inspire us to create, write, and to post stories of fewer than 101 words.
While a click on Dale’s pic gets you a sleigh ride over to Rochelle’s blog where all the fun begins, I can tell you that this is a challenging writing experience. So is going to the page of squares (inlinkz) where reading and commenting begets us the same. Do that by clicking on the below photo of Jackie O and her bane paparazzo, Ron G.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Ambivalent Vanity
Word Count: 100
***
“Ron, that’s her private property across the creek. You’re obsessed with this woman. No wonder everyone hates all paparazzi.”
While looking through his telephoto viewfinder, “People love my photos and rags pay us big bucks, Billy-boy. Celebs want it both ways — fame and fortune with pictures but hate me for taking them. Hand me my waders.”
I stayed back while he walked toward the house.
Ron came running back to the crack of gun shots. He fell into the freezing water. Then he got up, and we ran to the car. He laughed and said, “Ain’t this job fun, Billy-boy?”
***
Look both ways for a paparazzo hiding behind a bush.
These days, everyone has a camera.
Mind the gaps or just surrender to the inevitable cha-ching of notoriety.
The facts: Ron Galella, the freelance photographer who relentlessly pursued Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis until a judge barred him from taking her picture, who pestered Marlon Brando until Brando broke his jaw and detached five teeth, and who for better or worse helped define today’s boundary-challenged culture of celebrity, died on Saturday, April 30, 2022, at his home in Montville, N.J. He was 91.
Click on the photo of Jackie Onassis and photographer Ron Galella to read more excellent stories inspired by Dale’s photo. (1971 in NYC. Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
Kicking off the twelfth month of twenty-twenty-two, artist, businesswoman, swimmer, writer, mother, wife, sister, (I could go on), and our friend and fictioneer leader, Rochelle, has provided us with a peek out from Roger Bultot’s window with his inspiring photo as a bridge to creativity.
It goes like this. We look at the picture and write whatever story (beginning, middle, & end) we want. Easy, right? It’s doesn’t even have to be pure fiction. But we must prove our micro (or flash) – (non-)fiction bone fides by trimming our stories to any number of words under 101. Try it!
The directions are simple and available on Rochelle’s blog page, reachable with a simple tap, click, or press on Roger’s picture, like it was a detonator.
Genre: Espionage Fiction
Title: Truncated Bridge
Word Count: 100
***
Looking out the window, I felt stress. Ignorance fed by fear. After this job, I’d comfortably retire. To what? Sad.
The morning sunrise lacked hope. It was threatening. A foreboding bloody sky in a randomly meaningless universe. I didn’t care. It was time.
I lit what I promised myself was my last cigarette and sat by the window as I’d done hundreds of times before. When I saw the target on the bridge, I pressed the detonator button and watched the explosion. I always hated all the collateral damage. The news would blame the old bridge. Everyone lies. Everyone dies.
***
Look both ways to find happy endings.
Mind the gaps because that’s where the bridges collapse.
Click on Tom Hanks in the Bridge of Spies movie to read more stories based on Roger’s photo.
And for the music lovers among us, I present the Eagles singing “Seven Bridges Road.” If it works. I suppose I took the bridges thing a bit too far.
Our Literary Journey 