Many thanks to Rochelle @Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for again distance-herding us through another Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a story based upon a photo prompt, today by Jennifer Pendergast.
My challenge was to write a complete story (beginning, middle, and end) in 100 words or less. The photo prompt led me to the American West. That triggered an old TV show (western genre). I then found some inspiration in songs by Eric Clapton and Willie Nelson.
I added videos at the end in case you want to see what I’m talking about. The complete TV show is there. It’s too long to watch it all, but the intro is informative.
This is my first swing at Rochelle’s 100 (or fewer)-word story challenge based on a photo provided by Na’ama Yehuda. Many thanks to both. If I did anything wrong, someone please tell me. My story:
Genre: Fiction
Word Count: 99 (including title)
Mourning Mystery
She told the turban-clad cabby, “Seventy-second and Central Park West.” As he pulled into airport traffic he asked if she was a fan. She said, “No.” But she claimed to be born on December eighth, nineteen-eighty. He looked and shrugged.
She stepped onto the Dakota driveway and walked slowly to the archway door. Then she walked across to the park. As she stepped onto the Strawberry Fields Memorial, she removed the Carter Arms .38 special from her purse, placed the barrel in her mouth, and pulled the trigger. She heard, let me take you down…nothing is real…forever.
***
Look both ways. Forty years ago from next December 8th, Mark Chapman murdered 40-year-old John Lennon by shooting him four times in the back with a Carter Arms Undercover .38 Special, in the arched entrance to the Dakota Apartments. One can walk across the street into Central Park and view the Strawberry Fields Memorial. Within days of Lennon’s death, several fans committed suicide. While this story is fiction, the emotions are not. Mind the gaps.
***
Click this Inlinkz link for more wonderful stories.
I like beer and I like wine,
I like music, art, women, and raunchy poems
I like puppy dogs and kittens, and
I like friendly horses
and old goats like me.
I like to walk, and I like rain. No.
I love rain. The shattering thunder
of torrential bliss soaking my body
in orgasmo-epic proportions
of precipitating pleasure.
The French like to say, it’s like a pissing cow
as downpours of rain create life,
It’s like Bob Marley said,
“Some people feel the rain,
others just get wet.”
Look both ways and feel the rain, the music, and life.
Mind the gaps between drops. Breathe there.
Day 26 prompt: write a poem using responses to an Almanac Questionnaire of 23 questions as the basis. My 23 responses follow the poem. Additionally, I used the 80s song, Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, for inspiration. A video of the younger Fears for Tears group also follows the poem. I selected this version for the sights as much as the sounds. There are several other good videos, including a late cover by LORDE, which is very (scary) different.
Welcome to my life
What’s done is done forever
Even my dreams are unreal reality
Rain, colors, pennies, and cats
Distant mountains, local culture, answers
With no questions, lovers and indecisions.
Do I want to rule the world?
Dragon music in the distance
Mixed with drums of tribal nuisance
But the path to take, I cannot decide,
Is beauty in the freedom of my pleasure?
I fear the pain that lasts forever.
Do you want to rule the world?
Is there life atop the steeple?
As walls and halls crumble, AC to DC?
Can I answer her questionnaire?
Welcome to mi vida loca, a happy
blessed by sad. Does anybody
Want to rule the world?
Married to my convolutions, may
Her memory Bern my conscience,
The alley of answers to many questions.
Can responsibility, freedom,
Or love rule the world?
The headline news is like this:
A virus. We’re all basically screwed.
But nothing is good or bad, and
Nothing lasts forever. Of this
I am certain: I do not want
To rule the world.
Look both ways to answer questions.
Mind the gaps.
One poem, twenty-three answers.
Almanac Questionnaire
Weather: I prefer rain to hot and dry.
Flora: Color variation is good. Green is a favorite.
Architecture: I like old church architecture, both inside and out.
Customs: I’ve never liked shaking hands, I don’t love everyone, and I hug only favorite people.
Mammals/reptiles/fish: I like dogs. I prefer cats. Both are pets. I respect nature, but it’s not safe.
Childhood dream: Hard to say, but I always thought something was not right. Unlimited candy? Found on the Street: Pennies for luck, treasures no one wants but me.
Export: Wendell Berry prefers local economy. I understand why.
Graffiti: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Lover: Everyone should have at least one.
Conspiracy: There are some, but everything is not.
Dress: no ties, comfort before culture, some sweatpants are nicer than others.
Hometown memory: The distant Poconos.
Notable person: Mom.
Outside your window, you find: Texas Today’s news headline: The NY Governor is an interesting person. The TX Lt Gov is not.
Scrap from a letter: I wish I still had the letter my father wrote to me.
Animal from a myth: Dragons Story read to children at night: Once upon a time they lived happily ever after and other lies.
You walk three minutes down an alley and you find: the answer to the question.
You walk to the border and hear: music.
What you fear: mean and stupid in the same person.
Picture on your city’s postcard: Coal miners, cactus, and rivers.
Day 15 prompt: write a poem inspired by my favorite kind of music.
I Want a New Song
Boom! Old bods holding young hearts,
hot funk, cool punk, a shimmering light
and the smell of colitas up
from green river, in the age of jive
it’s got the same soul.
Play rock & roll at my memorial
and stand her in the doorway when
I join Buddy, Richie, Patsy,
and Jim. Let me hear Ricky
and John, a new wave dance craze.
By my own device, a prisoner here,
I may check out any time,
but I’ll never leave rock & roll.
Bury me in pair of pink sidewinders,
but first, save the last dance for me.
Dance with me, dream of me, dream on;
Dream On! Sing along with me, let music
take me away when it’s raining
and the players are playing,
but I’m still gunna live forever.
I can feel the rain. I’m Alive!
On a hippie trail, my head like a zombie,
stars fading, but I linger on.
I want a rock & roll song.
But there ain’t no use in pretending.
Look both ways, but music is present in my past.
Mind the gaps,
those spaces between the notes.
See it, good and bad, it’s there
but not silent.
Connections have sounds,
vibrations from nature
give pleasantries, threats, and
danger its voice.
Acoustic waves of sound,
perceived in brains
through resonance with timbre.
We hear the soft breezes and roaring
winds perceived as warning,
we hear gentle rains in nature’s
song, and we know the destruction
of the hard driving, relentless torrent.
Quieter or louder, we feel
the sonic texture before our
brains make sense of thunder
and lightning,
before the train passes,
before volcano eruptions
or earth quakes. We hear.
We welcome the pleasantry
of music to our ears, yet we
know the damage of unprotected
loudness, of sonic torture. We
see with our ears, we determine
location, we find friend or foe.
The gift of hearing stands out
not to be assumed as always
there. If no sound is heard,
it did not exist for us.
Without hearing,
our connection with nature is lost.
And maybe with love.
Listen to the rhythm, hear
and feel the music deep inside
your body—then dance.
Dance.
Hear the sounds but see
them mindfully taking mental
shapes—the arts—the senses—
never to be assumed,
never ignored, to be both
cherished and used. Sense all
of life: the sights, sounds,
the tastes and the smells.
Feel the touches of it all
and welcome it until only
the sound of silence
remains.
And a lover’s voice,
listen, hear, love that sound.
Listen, listen, listen; hush.
Look both ways and listen to the sounds.
Hear the drop of rain fall into the distant gap.
On break, having coffee,
at a walk-to place from work.
Age came up.
Larry could always make me laugh,
a raised brow or expression,
his subtlety with humor,
the ability to play it straight
with a sincerity of stupidity.
We volunteered numbers,
all 40-somethings.
Larry looked serious.
“I just have one question.”
He’d set the bait. I knew better,
but one must play along.
I took the hook,
lest all fun be spoiled.
He looked straight at me,
and patiently awaited my response.
He was from the Buckeye State.
We met as underage roommates.
Both junior Air Force enlisted. Later
each married Texas gals
both opted for university:
Larry to UT, I to A&M.
As roommates, Larry thought me loud,
badly behaved, and unworthy of him.
He was classical. I was rock ‘n roll.
Incompatible, but no harm done.
Twenty years later
while wrapping up military careers
as Air Force officers,
he was a chopper pilot who served in Nam,
I was a B-52 crew dog.
When our paths again crossed,
we were distant friends, no more.
I asked, what’s your question, Colonel? He asked, “If you are younger than I am, why
do you look so much older?”
I’m older than Larry now. Rest in peace, my funny friend.
