Bygones
He didn’t marvel at that momentous moment.
After many years, she had become sanctimonious.
It wasn’t the stupendous vision he hoped for. It was horrendous, not tremendous,
seeing her now as portentous.
Look both ways but the past was then, this is now.
Find and mind the gaps for hidden reasons for change.
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.
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.
Family History
Darling Dixie was a bit of a Trixie
Hubby Alexander, a known philanderer
Dixie and Al shared five bambini
More spread within the village
by Al’s wandering weenie angered Dixie.
A passionate protestant, Dixie had revenge,
a small-town version of a hidden tryst or two.
Her secret safe, Al and Dixie raised the fine lad she had.
No wiser for history,
then
came genetic testing to put an end to family mystery.
Look both ways because every saint has a past.
Mind the gaps, but regarding Ancestry, go ahead and ask.
More Time, Please
It was one of those warm and humid days.
When it’s like that in LA, it is
miserably smoggy, but here
it is just moody and gloomy—no rain—
in the mid-seventies, like me.
Drove and hour to Temple, Texas,
for tests (the answers to which I thought I knew)
and to see a new PA-doc
and then to get gas
and drive another hour back home.
It’s boring sitting and waiting,
but since this is a hospital, boring and routine are good.
No, “I’m sorry, Mister Bill, but … ‘oh, no’.”
I saw nicely dressed police or correctional officers escorting
a mildly overweight bald man in an orange jump suit
and fake shoes
with handcuffs in the front,
all making it hard for others to not stare and wonder.
It was not so boring thinking about that.
Got an obit email that morning.
Another high school classmate had died
(they say he passed to be euphemistic
as though he just kept driving).
Patrick Murphy (Murph)
was an artist and philosopher
of Irish descent, and a Vietnam War vet.
His obituary was more interesting than most.
Anyway, I shall not be
characteristically pointing out problems or deficiencies today
because Murph is dead, and I am not. It’s all good, thanks.
So, I’ll just sit here trying to remember him
from art class, I think,
and be happily bored on a gloomy day
in a hospital clinic waiting area
in Temple, fucking, Texas.
Looking both ways at the days of gloom and doom.
Mind the gaps in loose cuffs and I wonder who wipes his butt.
Click the photo of Robin Williams and Matt Damon to watch this scene from the movie, Good Will Hunting.
I found thalassic in Robin Devoe’s Dictionary of the Strange, Curious, & Lovely. I wrote an acrostic insult poem with more rare words from the same book. It’s Monday. I started this Saturday morning. I’m tardy.
***
Tin gods abound worldwide. Practiced prevaricators
Hemipygicly half-assed witlessness,
Adonized avatars in their own lost and low minds,
Lardaceous lickpennies of limicolous living with
Acherontic soulless evil demonic spirits, those
Snollygosters comfortable within any snobocracy,
Slubberdegullions of the lowest order or less,
Imbruted by nature without redemption.
Cacodemons with sycophants.
***
Look both ways when searching for right.
Mind the gaps for the tin gods because they disguise well.
Popularity
Sweatpants and fifteen-dollar
Wally-world slip-ons do the job
when I’m home alone and happy.
A child, I believed them
when they said I’d
run faster and jump higher
In them Keds,
for a tenth of what they pay
for fly higher and faster
Nike Dunks, which tell me
things and give me thoughts
they don’t want to hear or know.
Now you must love me. Ima woke.
I spent a week’s pay for
these kicks. Now kiss them.
I look both ways and wonder, am I the person I think I am?
Or am I a slave to popular marketing?
Mind the gaps before falling into a mentality where popularity trumps all things practical.
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.
This week our magical Mistress Rochelle pulled a mare’s nest from order to muddle my muse and trigger my call to organization.
Texans might say I’ve been feeling puny (ill) for a few days, so I was uninspired until today (Friday – imagine that).
It’s all Rochelle this week as she scattered a photo of her own randomly into the blogosphere. If you think you’d like to push a stormy story of fewer than 101 words, find your way to join the free-for-all by clicking on her photo and seeking order at her purple patterned blog page. Click >here< to read other chaotic stories.
Genre: Therapeutic Fiction
Title: Bollix Minds
Word Count: 100
***
Why did you bring me here?
I wanted you to see this metaphor for your mind.
Ridiculous. I’m neat. I hang-up clothes, organize socks, and straighten art. My OCD would organize this fast.
Bill, you were arrested for tampering with a murder investigation. The judge ordered counseling as part of your plea deal.
I simply organized and cleaned up blood. The detectives got upset.
This chaos is how you see the world. Do you understand?
Not true. I do have leads on jobs.
Tell me more.
Stores want me to follow customers around and straighten things up after they pass.
***
Look both ways for all sorts of metaphors.
Mind the gaps and try to understand, things will never be perfect.
This musical bit (If the youtube will not play for you, try this imbedded link.) brought a chuckle to my mind and almost a bit of relating to the song.
The sweet, delightful, and flashy Mistress of Fiction, Rochelle, has prompted my muse with a bit of rain for the second week in a row. Combining strokes from her purple lane, she has splashed the Friday Fictioneer gang with a Roger Bultot picture of a modern, colorful, children’s playground park, seemingly after some precip.
Feel free to dive into our un-juried pool of players with your own fiction of fewer than 101 words. Avoid any litigiousness by giving Roger’s pic a gaveled tap, which will sentence you to review the brief code of conduct behind the purple bars on Rochelle’s blog page. You may want to get setup to be served weekly with a summons write early each Wednesday morning.
Genre: Shakespearean Fiction
Title: Time for Pettifoggers
Word Count: 100
I took my nephew, Dicky, to the playground after the rain had stopped.
He said, “Everything’s all wet, Uncle Billy.”
“Water keeps the insufferable brats and bullies away. Now, go play.”
“There’s lots to climb on. But why no swings or rides?”
“Lawsuits. The lawyers forced the city to take them all away.”
“What are lawyers?”
“People who profit from the misery of others.”
He ran off to play on the wet climbers and such.
“After this,” he yelled, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
“A noble goal, Lad. You’re a chap after the old bard.”
Look both ways for the future of the young.
Mind the gaps and dangerous traps, but a life without risk can be dry and vapid.
Note: “Let’s kill all the lawyers” is a line said by Dick the Butcher in William (Bill) Shakespeare’s Henry VI (Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2). It is among Shakespeare’s most famous and most controversial lines.
Small Battles: Big Wars
We
would rather f-bomb
or recite angry litanies
of forbidden witchery
than speak the word: cancer.
It’s when few of one’s
trillions of cells run amok,
it’s a war fought with
knives, rads, and poisons.
Look both ways to see your own beginning and end.
Mind the gaps, fight the battle, die with dignity.
John Updike, best known, perhaps, as a novelist, was a poet. This short poem of his is one of my favorites regarding life and death. He died of lung cancer in 2009.
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