Reality

Friday Fictioneers: January 21st, 2022

Endurance swimmer, Mistress Rochelle has placed me in the city library children’s section with a limit of one hundred of my own carefully crafted words with which I must contrive a suspenseful story of escape.

Click on the photo provided by Ted Strutz to buzz on over to Rochelle’s page where “Growing older is inevitable. Growing up is optional.” I considered those options when I wrote the photo-inspired story that follows.

Photo provided by Ted Strutz

Genre: Micro-fiction
Title: The Latte Librarian
Word count: 100

***

Passing through the library’s deserted children’s section, I turned toward the noisy coffee shop.

I set my chai latte and backpack on the counter nearest the women’s table, drank half the latte, then slipped the smoke bomb into the cup. From the men’s room, I called in the bomb threat.

When evacuation was announced, I set off the smoke bomb.

I returned to transfer valuables from each handbag or backpack into mine, then left through the side door just as fire trucks and police cars arrived. I removed the disguise in the car, kissed my partner, and we drove off.

Look both ways to be aware of surroundings.
Notice people and their trappings.
Mind the gaps of their absence.

***

Click on Alec Baldwin’s badge (from 2018 movie, “The Public”) for your library card to read other fine stories.

Thursday’s Rune: Poésie de l’escalier

I thought, he’s like Cousin Eddie.
He sat there,
smart in his mind,
middle-aged,
“right” minded,
then he asked me
(innocently enough).

“What do you do,”
he says to me,
“to keep busy?”

Busy?
Suddenly,
I had a moment!,
ya know?

Maybe
it weren’t his fault, but still.
I swallowed hard and
played nice by avoiding
my roar of revenge.
(Fuck you very much
for asking.)

I listened
as he bragged on
for hours
giving testimonial evidence
of his high holy wonderfulness,
and dogged dedication
to his personal
world of work.

I nodded and smiled. Bit my lip,
while slowly bleeding
feigned interest.

What do I do to keep busy?

For God’s sake, Bumpkin.
I waste my few remaining days
listening to friendly folks,
feeding on family fodder;
pleasingly holding my tongue,
and sitting on my hands.
Legs crossed.
I smile

like Hannibal Lecter
pondering…

mon ne pas savoir répliquer
sur le moment.

Look both ways. Dine well.
Choose friends from the menu, accept family from the stars.
Mind you, there are gaps.
Ponder politely the wellsprings of innocent idiocy and the moods of sensitive old lions.

***

Glos: In English, the title means staircase poetry. The last line translates as my not knowing how to reply at the moment. ‘Cousin Eddy’ is a character (Randy Quaid) from the National Lampoon Christmas Vacation movie. As for Hannibal, “Well, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming?”

Friday Fictioneers: January 7th, 2022

For the first time in 2022, our dear and lovely lady, the queen of Friday Fictionalism, Mistress Rochelle has joined forces with Brenda Cox to masterfully tempt me into yet another maddening moment of muse-some, mendacious micro-storytelling.

Click on the next photo for a free taxi ride over to Rochelle’s place where you may want to get smart about writing fibs to a photographer’s photo. My sad story follows the prompt pic.

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox (Click it!)

Genre: Gonzo Journalism
Title: Don’t Be Misunderstood
Word Count: 100

Cold and drunk as I might be, I stumbled into the artists den, desperately needing to pee.

Of a painting man I asked, “Where’s the restroom?” my slurred Texas accent sounded like I asked, boom-boom?

With a mean look he yelled at me, “Number ten. Boocoo dinky-dau drunk, american. Take money!”

Through a white curtain, I entered where several young ladies were sitting around laughing and pointing. One demanded money.

I got out my wallet. Then, I heard a loud crack.

Next thing I woke up, dead as you see me now, with wet pants and an empty wallet.

Look both ways in the house of the rising sun.
Mind the gaps, speak clearly, and reconsider the nearest bush.

Click on Jake or Elwood to check out our literary squares gallery and more magnificently moving micro make-believe.

A bonus, if you dare: —

Sammi’s Weekender #241 (din)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog.

shameful silence

early morning sounds
soft, in silent darkness
distracted by clichéd neon din
imprisoned without art,
terrified by evil’s truth.

Look both ways to see and to say.
Mind the gaps of paranoia while seeking better days.

Inspired by S&G’s hymn to resistance, The Sound of Silence.

Thursday Rune: Arrogant Demerits

I admit it. Sometimes I joke about lesser folk,
about how I am grateful to them
for making me look better than I am.
We called them shit screens,
or wedges that raised everyone else up
the totem as they forced their way into
the bottom of the pile. Isn’t that awful?

I don’t know by what standard I should be judged,
nor how I should think about myself.
I just want hot coffee on cold mornings
and time to think about a full life,
or to worry about people I love,
for no specific reason except I care.

To all those whose tarnished image I have improved
when I wedged my own way down,
or screened out the shit storm on my own,
or played the bug on your windshield,
you’re most welcome,
from the bottom of my sniffy faults.

Look both ways and reflect on things like envy and greed.
Mind the gaps as dysfunction becomes the new normal.

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.

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.

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.