Pain

Friday Fictioneers for November 25th, 2022

For Thanksgiving Eve this year, Boss Rochelle, our lovely, multi-talented, family oriented, and artistically gifted literary ladyship guide has gone redux to prompt us all with a pic from the awesome Brit, Sandra Crook. Sandra’s photo has many prompting options, but I was mused into a musical mood.

Click on Sandra’s photographic prompt to jump off into Rochelle’s blog page from where you may climb back up with your own story based upon whatever inspiration you received.

PHOTO PROMPT (redux) © Sandra Crook

Genre: Parodic Musical Fiction
Title: Toy’s Lament
Word Count: 100
***

“Toy! Hey, Toy. What y’all doin’? Where’s that devil woman yer in lust with?”

Toy sang out, “She gone, Mick. Done left me in Spartanburg. Oh, Lawdy, Ima gunna buy a ticket till it run out of track.”

He pulled his guitar up and sang, “Gonna climb that highest mountain. Gonna jump right off. Ain’t nobody gunna know. That woman, Lawdy. What she done to me. Can’t ya see, Mick?”

I said, “Yer too stoned to climb up there. I’m sorry. We told ya she’s a black-hearted woman, man.”

Toy yelled, “Mean ol’ woman’s with Marshall. Never told me goodbye!”

***

Look both ways in love and lust.
Mind the gaps for tips, trips, and occasional slips.

Click on the Lovers Leap pic to find more stories based upon Sandra’s Photo.

My story is based on the early 70’s southern/country rock song lyrics, Can’t You See, by the Marshall Tucker Band, written by Toy Caldwell. Other allusions: Mick (Jones) from the band Foreigner (Cold as Ice) and Black-Hearted Woman by the Allman Brothers Band.

The original song by the original band.

Friday Fictioneers for November 11th, 2022

Yesterday was Election Day, or ED day (snicker), depending on your POV. Tomorrow (Thursday, 10 November) is the USMC birthday, and Friday is Veterans Day.

Our lovely and world-class author, artist, and story-teller-mom, Rochelle, has, yet again, teamed up with the Magical Mistress of Montreal, the fabulous photographer, gifted story-maker in her own right, and social butterfly, Dale Rogerson, to delve deep into our creative minds for flashes of micro fiction miracles.

After seeing Dale’s pic, you only need a monochrome click to be transferred to the bright purple world of Her Nibs blog to clear the dark fog from your mind and create your own story with fewer than 100 words, beginning, middle, and end. If you’ve read this far, what are you waiting for? Click on Dale’s photo for the codes of color.

Dale’s photo has her brand and copyright.

Genre: Gonzo Medical Journalism
Title: Thunderstruck
Word Count: 100

***

 

I wasn’t dreaming. I could see only faint monochrome outlines. Where was I? Was I dead? While conscious and lucid, I felt neither pain nor pleasure. I was weightless, but grounded.

She turned and smiled at me. I recognized her face. She said, “You’re back. I’ve missed you. Shall we dance?” We danced. When we kissed, I was thunderstruck.

I felt the jolt lift me. Then I heard her voice.

“Stop defib. No more shocking him. We have a heartbeat. He’s alive.”

A male voice said, “I thought he was gone for sure. Good job everyone. Welcome back, Mister Bill.”

***

Look both ways and decide your own reality.
Mind the gaps for shots and shocks.
We’ll be glad to see you again.

Click on the OR pick to read more wonderful stories inspired by Dale’s intriguing photo.

 

A twisted, and super-popular, little take on an AC/DC rocker covered by the hillbilly bluegrassers, Steve’n’Seagulls. (Turn the volume up loud and fasten your seatbelt.)

Monday’s Rune: Ardent Courage

 

Cheap, Quick, and Red

Liquor goes down easy
and fast
and way, way too smoothly
and too often takes folks
down ruin’s road.
So why do I?
Since it makes me so queasy.

And nobody loves a drunk
not even another drunk,
okay, maybe sometimes, maybe,
but not after they grow up
or get sober
and we or they make
such an unforgivable mess
and land in such an unrecoverable funk.

It’s best to drink beer—
after eating a full meal,
with dessert and coffee
late at night,
one beer or two might be all right
for you if you’re not
Irish or German,
but then—then what?
It’s gastronomically unclear.

Wine, it seems, might be finely biblical,
if it’s tannins
don’t give you headaches,
hives, or hallucinations and
if it’s warm, cheap, and red,
because white wine
tastes like fermented kerosene,
smells it too,
so we pretend it’s good.
My dearly departed friend,
Jack, held to the standard
that all Dutch courage
must be drinkable.

Good ideas are the worst
when you’re in your cups,
those delusional wonders,
which thankfully rarely occur
except in the tank
or the boot of the hearse.

Look both ways to find the source of the lie.
Mind the growing gaps as they turn memories eternally black.

A little Tom T with his famous beer song, may he rest in peace.

Sammi’s Weekender #284 (rule)

Click this graphic for more words from around the world.

 

Love Matters

You suffer loss
Heart breaks,
My love means
Tears of mourning,
Our common sadness rules
Two lives.

Look both ways.
There is a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to be sad and a time to dance.
Mind the gaps for the lessons of both sorrow and joy.

Monday’s Rune: Weekends

 

Saturday Morning Doctor

Monday or Tuesday is
the time to be sick.
Those same days are best
for having hospital
admitted surgeries.

Weekend emergency rooms can
get crowded and are often
staffed for far fewer sick people
but what are you gunna do?

Friday night I knew. Damn!
Saturday morning I was
off to an urgent care clinic,
a relatively new ubiquitous
phenomenon in the health care business,
because I was not sick enough
for an ER, and no routine
doctor care would be available
until Monday, if then.

The nice, large, waiting room had maybe
five people, not all patients,
queued up as walk-ins,
first come, first served, maybe.

“Have a seat, Mister Bill. Someone
will be with you in about three hours.”
Urgent? Right.

I read, wrote, and people watched.
Moms with kids had long waits too.
A lady using a walker was whining
and moaning, kind of lost.

But she was soon packed off to an ER by EMS.

It was a classic civilian version
of hurry up and wait. Yet,
I confess to enjoying the sights,
people watching, and the quiet reading time.

Three hours later
I was off to pick up a script.

Look both ways on weekends for doctors at the beach.
Mind the gaps when you clean-catch into the cup.

My favorite doctor song.

 

Monday’s Rune: For Sale or Trade

No Quid Pro Quo

I have nothing at all to sell.
Or to trade.
I walk alone because
we must.

It’s just me
with my own thoughts,
maybe music or a book,
as I deal with some pain.
A good thing,
claim my many doctors.
Not the pain—the dealing with it.

I like the thought of it—alone time,
but it’s not. Not really.

The Universe, also not for sale,
is with me. Always with us.
I call it being alone
because it makes me feel good,
but I know

I am never totally on my own,
without a piece of eternity
talking some quid pro quo.

Look both ways when dealing, feeling, or logrolling.
Mind the gaps between your steps and use the poles lest you fall and break your nose.

 

An oldie and a goodie from Mr. Poe.

Monday’s Rune: Speaking of Rude

Touché

Everything
I say and do,
makes me,
according to some
(hope not you),
sexist, racist, communist,
capitalist, atheist, and/or —
something else bad-ist,
or worse,
and so on.

The epithet “snowflake” implies
a melting softness, unlike icicle, and is both
insulting and a grounded gauntlet challenge.

I’m being verbally shoehorned in
by short-sighted, narrow thinking
like an ugly foot that doesn’t fit.

I could well
go off with my own difficult ways,
and face my personal world
for the rest of my days,
and forget to fit
their stereotypical clichés,
which some seem hardened
to claim that I always am.

That would be
such a great blow
to the cause
of human equality.
Since then,
all will see
and we will all be:
collective assholes,
magnificent they and
malevolent me.

Look both ways if you intend to make anything better.
Mind the gaps, saps, and crap chaps and be who you are—the real you.

And something better and deeper.

Monday’s Rune: The Value of Time

 

When Dad’s a Dick

I returned to your place of business, like I said I would.
A clown-man there told two jokes. At first,
I glared at him to the silent end. The other
I interrupted so I could give you my coffee order.
I allowed him to finish. I again stared
before telling him his joke was unfunny and that his
comedic skills were woefully lacking behind his
overflowing obnoxiousness. Was he your father?

You would not take my money. He paid.
I sat quietly, typed my poem, drank the
Americano and chewed the muffin.
Now I wish I hadn’t. You
did not look at me or say another word. Then,
you left.

Sorry. Henceforth, the city library
has much more to offer and
better silence, too. No jokes.
Is Divinely Beautiful your real name?
Tell your father that my low opinion
of him has declined and my vote
is not for sale.

No apology necessary.

Look both ways but think on your feet.
Mind the gaps of silence when the wind passes.

Expect the unexpected, they say. How?

 

Sammi’s Weekender #276 (bandage)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s blog and more bandaged 61-worded wonders.

Keepin’ Safe

‘hello-‘ello! C’mere, lad.
I hope you’ll be keepin’ well.

It happens every year
after a wee bit, a donnybrook
somewhere near here,
sorry now, so
me shillelagh’s swingin,
callin’ fer bacon.

Not well then are ye?
wackin’ the cod,
wi’ narry a nod, nor a bandage
or pad to be had.

T’ank you for feelin’
brave to go, smart to not.

Look both ways on whisky drinkin’ festival days.
Mind the gaps at the tube and lads at the pub.

The annual Donnybrook Fair near Dublin included fiddlers and dancers, but it was best-known for the frequent eruption of whiskey-fueled fighting – often involving heavy clubs known as shillelaghs. “Bacon” is Irish slang for police and “cod’ for fool.

Monday’s Rune: On Labor Day 2022

Let Me Clarify

They were not smart or rich. Some might write. Few to none finished school. In many ways they were all slaves.

The children, the men, and the women were trying to survive, to make it through the night.

No great athletes, not a genius among them. The company was the enemy. The boss.

I think of them on Labor Day. About my dad, the filthy coal miner, who swore I’d never work in the mines.

He was right.

When the mines shut down, he was lucky to find any job. He was a plumber’s helper. He mowed lawns and dug sewer ditches. Finally, as a nurse’s aide for the same pay I got as a teenage knucklehead, for my summer job, as a gardener’s assistant, he worked until it was finished.

Mom was a cleaner of footwear in a shoe factory. She had to take two early morning buses and often walked home. Her hands were always dirty and stained from cleaning factory shoes. Sucky work.

I never did piece work, nor had black lung, but at a young age I knew all about both.

Labor Day! I love it, but the more I think about it, and the more I learn about the labor movement, the more pissed off I get.

Wars and soldiers did not build this country. The rich damn sure didn’t. Cowboys (not the jerks in Dallas) and labor did. Workers built America.

Damn it!

“No gods, no masters.”

Look both ways and try to understand.
All workers and all labor around the world are brothers and sisters.
Mind the gaps and may we treat them well. Welcome to America.