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Dishing Up Pasta
It’s a mac-and-cheese kind of read — comfort food for the literary soul. From beyond the myths of Marco Polo, pasta has traveled the globe in many forms from different cultures. Which came first, the Chinese noodle or the Italian spaghetti? Who knows for certain, but we do know that Thomas Jefferson introduced the colonies to macaroni and cheese, solidifying a future for America’s top pasta.
Writers took to pasta like worker bees, buzzing around the idea of how to dish it up in a story. Like fine dining or a casual dish to pass, these stories will leave you wanting seconds.
The following is based on the September 13, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes pasta.
PART I (10-minute read)
Tradition by Reena Saxena
We love Grandma, and yet are never on the same page where food is concerned. She cannot appreciate the subtle flavors in a pasta or pizza, or the convenience of having carbs, proteins and fats all in a single meal. She is so stuck up in her concept of a traditional Indian thali meal. Who has the time for that kind of luxury eating?
Yet, today, as I celebrate a festival away from home, I miss the unique, delicate flavors of different dishes. I try to put a meal together. I am more Indian at heart than I realized.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta Bee by Floridaborne
She waited for her word, looking down from the stage of her elementary school auditorium. She’d loved sitting at the kitchen table learning to spell while pasta cooked and tomato sauce simmered on her mother’s stove. She didn’t like standing under lights, stared at by 200 people.
“Antonia Giordano, spell…”
Starched ruffles itched at her neck, compliments of the dress her mother sewed from remnants for this occasion. But that didn’t stop her from spelling out a word she’d known since the age of two.
“S-p-a-g-h-e-t-t-i,” she replied.
Maybe next year they’d give her a harder word; like Vermicelli.
🥕🥕🥕
Too Bad It’s True by Susan Sleggs
Dear Diary, They say pasta is a comfort food. I’m choosing to believe that and plan to make a serving every Saturday from here to forever because it seems I end up at one hospital or another on Sunday. A few months ago I sat with my sister while she and her husband decided whether kidney dialysis was worth the extra time on earth for him. Two weeks ago it was my daughter fighting sepsis (she won) and this Sunday it was my son with a smashed shoulder. The wine is gone tonight, the yummy red sauce pasta awaits.
🥕🥕🥕
Remember that Old Elvis Song, In the Ghetti? by Bill Engleson
“So many noodles in the world. Whatdaya think…? You gotta choose, eh!”
Right, buddy. It’s been a long day, All I want is a quiet bus ride home. But that ain’t happening, is it?
There I am, going all silently rhetorical on the fellow sitting next to me. And all he wants to do is chit-chat about pasta.
I try and remember what Emily Post had to say about Public Transportation Etiquette.
Nothing immediately jumps out.
So, I say, noncommittally, “Noodles?”
“Yeah man,” he says, “My mom’s Mac and Cheese. It was the best.”
Yeah, I think…mine was too.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta – Preschool Style by Ritu Bhathal
“Okay, today we are making Mother’s Day gifts for your mummies, grandmas, or aunties.
What I want you to do is take the string in one hand, and pick up a piece of pasta.
Remember, the other day, we painted it?
It’s like a tube, and you can thread the string through it, and make a lovely necklace.
No, David, you can’t eat it.
Penny! Stop strangling Julia with the string!
Peter! Don’t tip the tray upside d-…
Don’t worry Mary, we can pick it all up, stop crying, please…”
The life of a pre-school teacher.
🥕🥕🥕
Elbow Macaroni by TN Kerr
Margarite grinned wildly, stepped off the bus and hurried toward me.
When she got close she dropped her backpack and leapt into my arms.
“Holy smokes, Kiddo,” I pushed her hair back and kissed her, “what are you so excited about today.”
“Art class, Daddy. I made a picture of you.”
“With paints?”
“No.”
“With crayons?”
“No, Daddy. Mixed media,”
“Mixed media? What’s that?”
I put her down. She pulled a paper plate from her backpack and showed me.
Macaroni was glued to the plate. There were pencil lines and hints of orange marker. It looked just like me.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta Pray Tells: What Are We Eating, Exactly? by Peregrine Arc
The little girl grimaced in her seat, staring at her plate of pasta. The garlic bread basket sat in the middle of table, steamy and pleasant. Her parents urged her to try her meal.
The little girl sighed resignedly and tried to eat. The fork and spoon soon fell to her plate with a clatter.
“I can’t do it!” she exclaimed. “Please, don’t make me.”
“Why not, dear?”
“It’s angel’s hair!” the little girl sobbed. “Give it back to them, please!”
🥕🥕🥕
Traditions by Heather Gonzalez
Angela stood on her tiptoes to be able to see over the counter top. Her nonna was mixing the pasta dough with her hands, and she was finally tall enough to watch. Each movement seemed like nonna had choreographed an intricate dance. Fingers and dough intertwining to create the magic of pasta.
After each piece of pasta was perfectly shaped, nonna motioned for Angela to come closer. This was it. She was finally getting a chance to be apart of the magic. Gently she lowered the perfectly crafted dough into the water with pride.
“Al dente. Perfecto.” Nonna smiled.
🥕🥕🥕
A Fish Tale from Lake Country by Liz Husebye Hartmann
It couldn’t be un-seen. It was right there in front of me: the giant spaghetti bowl, the splash of Tante Lianna’s special sauce, meatballs rolling off the table and onto the floor, parmesan spread all over the dining room table, like sleet in a Minnesota mid-June storm.
And the noodles! Seemingly caught in mid-flight from the bowl, they lay heavy as nightcrawlers escaping a flooded sidewalk, the aftermath of the aforementioned storm, turned to punishing rain.
And Uncle Wilford, face down in the middle of it all.
He should have heeded the warning twinge in Tante Lianna’s trick knee.
🥕🥕🥕
Love’s Give and Take by Sascha Darlington
“Pasta Puttanesca? Do I have to perform an intervention?”
“I’m at a crossroads.”
“Something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s not about you. It’s Chloe and that jerk.”
“AKA her husband?”
“He got fired. Wants to be a stay-at-home dad. Do consulting work.”
“Don’t see the problem.”
“You wouldn’t. You’re nothing like him. He’s perpetually lazy, doesn’t know how to use a vacuum or a dustpan. Stove’s foreign as well.
“Why’s this your problem?”
“I promised Mom I’d look after Chloe. I’ve failed.”
“He’s failing. Your pasta smells good.”
“Have some.”
“You didn’t use anchovies?”
“Not when you hate them.”
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by The Dark Netizen
“Is the order for table number ten ready?”
I turned the blaze of the cooking flame down and grasped the pan in my left hand. With my right hand, I expertly arranged the lines of spaghetti on the plate. Reuben walked up to me and winked.
“You know, she’s looking quite fine in her black dress today.”
I peeked outside through the kitchen door window. There she was again, sitting in perfect poise, making my heart beat harder. Reuben whispered.
“Tell her, man!”
I put the final touch on the dish with the red sauce.
“A red heart, sweet!”
🥕🥕🥕
A Visit To The ER by Patrick O’Connor
“Pasta! I want pasta!”
“It must be penne pasta, with meatballs, and marinara.”
The doctor stared at me with a quizzical look.
My wife shook her head and said “That sounds about right. He loves his pasta.”
After the x-rays, CT Scan, and EKG, they worked on getting the blood pressure back up.
“I’m sure your wife will take you to get some pasta once you are released.”
“I’ll make sure of it Doctor.”
Seemed like forever before we got out of the ER.
Got to the restaurant and ordered penne pasta with meatballs and marinara.
“I’m not hungry.”
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Robbie Cheadle
“Would you like some spaghetti bolognaise, Nan?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t eat that foreign food. Nasty, gloopy stuff. You can’t even pick it up on your spoon properly; it slithers right off.”
“Why don’t you just give it a try, Nan? It really is very tasty with David’s sauce.”
“No, thank you. I would rather eat English mashed potatoes. Such a versatile food. Did I ever tell you how we used it to make pastry during the war when we couldn’t get flour?”
“Yes, Nan,” said Julie with a sigh. “You have told me about potato pastry many times.”
🥕🥕🥕
Lunch by oneletterup
“I think I know who she is.”
“What should we do?”
They whisper, but she hears.
Crouching in the hall shadows. Hidden.
Disappearing. Like before.
“Lunch time!” the nice man calls.
The little girl and little boy are at school.
She perches on the edge of her chair.
Her very own place at their table.
“Honey…” the nice lady begins.
“We’re so sorry…”
Looking down.
“You can’t stay here anymore.”
The girl freezes. Stares. Forkful of spaghetti suspended.
Fingers clench into a fist snapping the fork upright.
Steaming tomato sauce spatters.
Drips down her hand.
Red spreading. Staining.
Everywhere.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta for Breakfast by Norah Colvin
Papa Bear pushed back his chair. “Not this muck again.”
Mama Bear stopped mid-ladle. “It’s Baby Bear’s favourite. I— I thought it was yours too.”
Baby Bear’s lip quivered.
“Pfft! Sometimes a bear needs real food.” He grabbed his hat. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Papa!” Baby Bear went after him.
Mama Bear dumped the porridge, pot and all, into the bin, grabbed her hat and followed.
“Where are we going?” asked Baby Bear.
“Somewhere nice for breakfast. It is spring after all.”
Papa Bear paused outside BreakFasta Pasta, then went in.
Mama Bear smiled; pasta was her favourite.
🥕🥕🥕
The Legendary Feud by Anurag Bakhshi
The boy’s great-great-great-grandfather was apparently the one to blame
For he called the pasta sauce of the girl’s great-great-great-Nonna tagliatelle, listless and tame
The echo of that insult had now been felt by these two star-crossed lovers
Who, let’s admit it, were just looking for some good old action between the covers
Their dead bodies were a testament to the folly of pride
A lesson that a family pasta recipe is not something to mock or deride
As the Bard put it so succinctly- For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo
🥕🥕🥕
No Pasta Was Harmed in Making This Story by Anne Goodwin
She snipped off the seal and upended the pack. Closed her eyes as fusilli clattered into the bowl. Paused, shook her head, reached for the rigatoni bag.
An hour later, there was barely room for his coffee cup among the bowls of dried pasta on the kitchen worktop. “Tell me, you’re cooking dinner at six in the morning or you’ve invited a kindergarten class for hands-on play?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m researching sound effects for my radio drama next month.”
“You’ve set it in a restaurant? In Italy?”
“A shack in Madagascar. I’m recreating rain on a corrugated-iron roof.”
🥕🥕🥕
My London Marathon by Kelvin M. Knight
I squinted through the rain. The other competitors looked comically savage – the way their dyed hair dripped down their faces. Nonetheless, these fun runners were out my league. Hugging my bin liner coat, I felt under dressed. I felt under trained. I should have done more. These words were my epitaph.
Still, I eat more than anyone else at the pasta party yesterday evening, so the complex carbohydrates would be on my side, along with this pantomime horse, this huge banana, and this Herculean woman with a refrigerator chained to her back.
Groaning, I waved at the BBC cameraman.
🥕🥕🥕
World’s Worst Poem, Plated by Chelsea Owens
Perdonnez, signora, will you taste my
veritable vermicelli which lost a
Tagliatelle or gnocchi -or was
it tortellini or gemelli?- that cost a
Few dozzina homemade noodles: measured,
mixed, rolled, chopped, shaped, and boiled -hasta
Domani, questa mattina -when nappy
And wriggly rigatoni-head rastas
Dangle candid cannelloni for
colazione (o pranzo o cena o altro) sauced, a
Banchetto of bavett, bucatini,
bigoli, e barbina; which fosta
Amore, our home country joy; precious
mem’ries of mamma o zia o ci, who bossed a
Flourishing, famishing family,
practically-plated with a plethora of pasta.
If that doesn’t bake your noodle, you’ve lost-a.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta by Anita Dawes
What is it good for, not eating.
Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks.
Leave it until it falls off, give it to the kids to play with.
Oh, wait a minute they have already done that.
My granddaughters have used it for school projects
Picture frames you cannot dust…
The Italians love to tell us it has to be Al dente, the bite.
The thought of eating pasta makes me want to run for the hills…
And I know it’s well-loved across the globe
But seriously, why was it ever invented?
Does it grow on trees?
🥕🥕🥕
PART II (5-minute read)
Mangia, Sii Benedetto e Mangia! by JulesPaige
Mama thought a good way to teach us to listen was to keep our mouths full. Mama would serve us bountiful plates of Orecchiette. Sometimes the way Nonna Bella would make It, or she used recipes from Nonna Julia. Northern and Southern Italians cooked a bit differently. But there was always too much food!
Nonna Bella made rich red tangy sauces. While Nonna Julia employed creamy cheeses to dress her pasta.
Today you can get Gluten free pasta. Though Doc’s say a serving is one cup cooked of any shape you choose. And that Isn’t nearly enough, is it?
🥕🥕🥕
Boon or Bane? by Deepa
I was drenched in sweat that soaked the back of my clothes like a scattered map. My fitness tracker blinked up a new record today. It was the best result accomplished for my running record.
Well, don’t I deserve a small treat?
I swiped the pasta mania app in my mobile and selected the double cheese creamy chicken pasta, porcini mushroom, and an orange drink to balance my cheesy treat.
From a fitness tracker to palatable feelings, everything in a swipe at your door service.
Mobile apps, is it a boon or a bane?
🥕🥕🥕
So What’s for Dinner? by Di @ pensitivity101
Tomatoes red,
Tomatoes green,
Hundred of marbles
On vines to be seen.
Pasta is long,
Pasta is thick,
Cheesy or savoury,
It’s simple and quick.
Put them together
A meal in a flash,
Wholesome and nourishing,
Even better than mash.
Add meat and an onion
For spaghetti bolognese,
Or kidney beans and chilli
On somewhat colder days.
Pasta is versatile,
Be it boiled or baked,
One thing I’ve not tried yet
Is a pasta filled cake.
Macaroni is pasta,
Add sugar and UHT
To make a sweet pudding
As afters for tea.
Pasta’s a staple,
For Hubby and me.
🥕🥕🥕
Chester, the Reluctant Dinner Guest by Molly Stevens
“Myra invited us over for pasta tonight,” Ruth said.
“Pasta?” said Chester. “Don’t she mean spaghetti?”
“No, she was clear about it. She said pasta.”
“Well, la-de-da! That’s what she calls it, does she? Was there another fancy name stuck to her highfalutin pasta, like ‘prime-a-veers?’”
“She didn’t say. It’ll be a surprise.”
Harrumph. “I better grab a six-pack of Papst Blue Ribbon. I know she’ll be pourin’ some cheek wine, like chardonnee that will give me heartburn.
“You can always stay at home if you’d like.”
“Nah, I’ll go with along you. Besides, I’m clean out of SpaghettiOs”
🥕🥕🥕
Mother’s Italian Cooking by AbijitRay
“I am going out, shall be back by evening.”
“I am making a new dish Shailaja, don’t go before you try.”
“Mother has become adventurous;” wondered Shailaja, “she is experimenting with non Indian recipes!”
“What’s cooking mother? Am I your only guinea pig?”
“Today I am making Italian noodles.”
“Italian noodles, mother! Its called vermicelli; noodle is Chinese. Spoken in public, this may result in a diplomatic incidence!”
“Stop lecturing, try this out. This is vermicelli cooked Indian way.”
Shailaja found her mother in kitchen juggling a cook book in Hindi along with a host of vegetables and spices.
🥕🥕🥕
Remembering Terra by Saifun Hassam
Down at the SeaQuail Market, by the old Fishermen’s wharf, we feasted on a picnic lunch under blue summer skies.
Jumbo pasta shells overflowing with sautéed shrimp, sun-drenched tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, red and green bell peppers, olives, garlic and onions marinated in olive oil and just that delicate touch of rosemary, fennel and basil.
A generous sprinkling of shredded mozzarella, Gorgonzola and Parmesan cheese.
Espresso coffee and cinnamon ginger fudge.
In a week, Adriana, an astronaut and biochemist, would report for training for her first assignment to Mars. She was my sister. Would we ever see each other again?
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Pete Fanning
David shut the door, shaking his head. Heather smirked. “Who was that?”
“The Pastafarians,” he said with a flourish.
“Welcome to Austin, right?”
“You’d think they’d respect dinner time.”
“What did he say, about the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”
They watched the disciples slink down the driveway, the tallest holding a book with a noodle dangling from the binding. “Do you think they’re serious?”
David shrugged, halfway holding a smile. “No. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the point. We take this stuff too seriously.”
“Careful. You could get struck down talking like that.”
“Wouldn’t that just prove their point?”
🥕🥕🥕
Fettuccini Afraid-O by Susan Shuman
“This menu is amazing…” Shelley feigned enthusiasm.
“Get whatever you want,” Eddie shrugged. “Looks like you could use a good meal.”
“Oh, I can’t decide…”
Eddie wished she’d leave her hair alone. It looked like she was trying to strangle her fingertips with it. “Why are you doing that?”
“Huh?” Shelley let go of her hair. “Oh, bad habit.” Her throat tightened.
The waitress brought a steaming loaf of bread to their table and began rattling off the pasta specials.
That’s what did it.
Shelley stifled a scream and scrambled for the door—
Phagophobia: a legacy from her mother.
🥕🥕🥕
Pasta by Deborah Lee
Jane ambles through the grocery store, pushing a cart and luxuriating in the experience of grocery shopping. Like people who have a food budget, cupboards to store recipe ingredients, a kitchen for melding them into a home-cooked meal, refrigerator for leftovers.
She hesitates in the pasta aisle, torn between the thought of a steak or her mother’s standby, macaroni with tomatoes and cheese melted through. She used to think of pasta as poor-people food – before she became a poor-people. But it will always be comfort food, Jane thinks, tossing three times as much as she needs into her basket.
🥕🥕🥕
September 13: Flash Fiction Challenge
Center ice is dry concrete today, formed into a temporary roller rink with lime-green and hot-pink tape. It’s the final game for the Roller Derby at Dee Stadium, summer’s yin to winter’s coming yang of ice-hockey.
The wooden risers ascend steeply from the concrete below. Painted the color of tomato sauce mixed with cream, I realize I’m hungry for pasta. Spaghetti has been a constant in my marriage — soon to be 31 years next week. Like pasta in my life, much has changed. My daughter and SIL don’t eat pasta (no eggs or gluten), and the Hub’s spaghetti is not something he fixes anymore.
Thus I crave it. Our humanity craves the comfort zones it has known. Spaghetti calls stronger than kale chips.
At the make-shift roller rink, I settle for a vegetarian pasty and a cold Grizzly Pear cider. Suomi, the restaurant serving up their pasties, include a sugar cookie to look like a Finnish flag. Hockey, pasties, and Finns color the Keweenaw Peninsula. But so does pasta — as a mining mecca of copper for more than 150 years, Italians ranked among the many immigrants who settled here for work.
Before the roller derby game, I had been hiking around the hillside ruins of the Cliff Mine, erected in 1846. The hike, led by Keweenaw National Historical Park Rangers, included the abandoned Protestant cemetery in the land set aside for growing food and grazing. By 1852, the plot was required for burials. Wives and children succumbed to the dangers of motherhood and infancy; husbands and pre-teen boys fell to mining accidents.
Half-way up the ridge midway between Hancock and Copper Harbor, miners dug where copper once littered the ground in native form so pure, a person could forge it into tools and weapons. In fact, indigenous groups had surface mined copper as far back as 6,000 years ago. The Keweenaw is among the first places where humans mined metals.
More recent mining first attracted Cornish miners who brought skilled labor and technology to the Keweenaw. At Cliff Mine, evidence of their technology remains in the rock ruins, buildings shaped to house processes of stamping copper from ore. A rounded foundation hidden among the overgrowth of maple and birch hints at a whim. Many surnames on fading gravemarkers speak of Cornish heritage.
What boomed on the Keweenaw caused prices worldwide to slump. Mines in Cornwall faltered as those along the wild shores of Lake Superior flourished. Cornwall’s contribution to mining was more than technology — it was in skilled labor of men who spread around the globe with their knowledge. These were the “Cousin Jacks.”
One such Cousin Jack worked the Avery Shaft at Cliff Mine. It took miners 45 minutes to crawl up 900 feet of ladders, and the mine Captain asked this Jack if he could replicate a man engine — a Cornish devised platform built to remove miners from the hole. Although history did not record his name, it notes this man’s ability to improvise one, sparing the miners their long commute.
Often, I think of the hardships of these men deep in the rocks tunnels. Then, I gaze at the ore, unable to stop looking. They must have felt a similar pull, compelled to seek out the veins and follow them. Can you imagine finding copper pieces as large as 120 tons? Nowhere on earth is native copper found in such massive quantities. Elsewhere it must be extracted from other minerals.
For perspective, outside of the Keweenaw, the largest native copper nugget weighed in at five pounds.
Thus I live in a town called Hancock (a Cornish surname) where every restaurant serves a pasty. From outside the Dee Stadium windows that line the top of the wall facing Quincy Hill, I can see the outline of a mine, hoist, and railbed. Hancock also has two Italian restaurants and a smattering of Italian surnames.
Like dragonflies and poor-rock ore, Cousin Jacks and Guidos came together on a ridge that runs through us all in Copper Country. Together we gather to watch our sports and share our food.
September 13, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes pasta. It can be spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, or any variety. It can be a meal or a work of art. Go where the prompt leads.
Respond by September 18, 2018. Use the comment section below to share, read and be social. You may leave a link, pingback or story in the comments. Rules & Guidelines.
NOTE: Flash Fiction Challenges go on hiatus September 27 and return November 1 to make way for our 2018 Flash Fiction Contest. It’s free to enter. Five unique contests led by five Rough Writers — Geoff Le Pard, Irene Waters, Sherri Matthews, Norah Colvin, and D. Avery — debut every Wednesday in October. Each contest remains open for a week and has its own take on flash fiction. It’s free to enter, and first place in each Rodeo contest is $25. Catch the 24-hour Free-writes, too (September 19 and 25) to qualify as one of five writers to compete in the TUFFest Ride.
If you want to sponsor the event, check out the different levels of sponsorship.
September 13 Flash Fiction Challenge Entry Form
Fancy Food on the Prairie (from Rock Creek) by Charli Mills
Nancy Jane slurped her plum. “True story, Sarah.”
Sarah bent over the creek, avoiding plum juice her friend didn’t seem to mind. “Why would someone hang dough from the rafters?”
“To dry it.” Nancy Jane tossed the fruit-stone, then rinsed her face.
“But why such long strands?”
Nancy Jane shrugged. “The ones he brought with him in his Conestoga were brittle as bark but cooked soft. We had fresh-churned butter and chives over them. I still think of trying my hand at dried rafter dough.”
“Is that what he called it?”
“No, he called it something silly, like ‘spag-hettie’”
Epic Workplace
Slide down the rabbit hole or step behind the curtain. Here you will find the wonders of an epic workplace. From young entrepreneurs going door-to-door to ranch pals riding the range, there’s a world of epic places to work.
Writers set about their own workplaces to draw upon imagination, stories, or memories to write about the place many of us will spend the majority of our adult lives. It best be epic!
The following are based on the September 6, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an epic workplace.
PART I (10-minute read)
Door-to-door by Bill Engleson
“He’s so young,” I can hear my mother say.
“He’s fourteen,” my father states the obvious.
“That’s what I mean. Delivering papers is one thing. People ask to have the paper delivered. They want kids delivering the news. But this?”
I’ve been delivering the Snuffle River Clarion six days a week for three years. Seventy customers. That’s been my bar. It goes down every so often. People move. A few have died.
But I ain’t a kid any longer.
The future is in door-to-door.
Watkins Products!
Spices!
Vegetable Oil Soap, ‘Pure Enough To Eat!’
Liniment!
I’ll make a fortune.
🥕🥕🥕
Epic by Reena Saxena
“Can I meet one of the seniors before I join?”
“Sure! They are happy to meet prospective employees.”
I find myself opposite the legendary whistle-blower of the topmost bank. I forgot to blink.
“I know, kid! Many people believed that no other firm will offer me employment after that courtroom battle. But this is a company that values integrity. Integrity doesn’t mean just not stealing. It means that your thoughts, words and actions always match.”
Now, this was a tough one. Most of us cannot lay claim to such a lofty value system.
“Actually, I have another offer, Sir…..”
🥕🥕🥕
Retreat by Sarah Whiley
I’d been away for work at a beautiful spot, facilitating a retreat for carers. The aim – respite and pampering, for three days.
I’d worked hard to ensure they’d had everything they needed, and could truly unwind from the demands of looking after the person they cared for.
I opened up a package that had arrived for me in the mail that day.
I held a flat rock with a detailed image of the mountain landscape where we’d been.
“Thank you” the card read, “I’ve found the inspiration to paint again”.
What an epic workplace, I thought, choking back tears.
🥕🥕🥕
Workplace by The Dark Netizen
A new day begins. Can’t wait to get to work!
I love working here. Our work areas are customizable. Today feels like a day for a sky blue theme. Also, I’m thinking a nice ten inch pepperoni pizza for lunch today. Oh! And a nice pitcher of wheat beer to wash it down with. All this on company expense. Sounds like a great day already. The best part about my workplace and job, is my boss. He’s such a fun guy. Speaking of which, need to take his call now.
“Good morning, sir! Righto! On my way, Mr. Santa!”
🥕🥕🥕
My Workplace My Heaven by Deepa
I thought
the kitchen was the best
but aroma disturbed me
then settled to my balcony
but eyes grazed the crowd
I thought
the park would be perfect
but the emotions stirred deep
and saddened me further
finally found a place of peace
uninterrupted and serene
because no one dares me here
when ideas trigger me
I make an excuse
and rush to the hole
I sit on top of it
with my legs dangling
in water cold
I love this place
because ideas don’t just
happen in certain places
they happen at
certain times
in the loo too
🥕🥕🥕
Opportunity by Abhijit Ray
“We are investing big money to set up new research center,” Human Resource manager pointed at the aerial photograph, identifying research center, administrative building, crèche, jogging track, “we are the best paymasters; we arrange relocation and accommodation, we take care of health and welfare of employees and their families. Other routine benefits you can find in your letter.”
The scope of this Epic opportunity impressed him. “This is the right time to move back and contribute,” he reasoned. Afterall, his initial education was the basis of his higher studies and current life. Question was how to convince his family.
🥕🥕🥕
Heaven by Floridaborne
Most people say they want a great view, presidential fringe benefits, or freedom to work anywhere outside an office when asked, “What’s your epic workplace?”
After 40 years of office intrigue, being targeted by the cliques I wouldn’t join, and enduring lighting levels that left me with daily headaches, I’ve finally achieved my idea of heaven.
I’m a sub-contractor working with people I consider family. I have autonomy over a specific job in a corner office with window blinds to control the amount of light inside, a 32” computer screen, and the fluorescent lighting outside my office is off.
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Robbie Cheadle
“Where did you say you worked?”
“I didn’t say but I can work any place and any time. My mobile office is comprehensive. I have two laptops, two cell phones and an ipad.”
“Really, that is interesting. Do you work from home then?”
“As I said, I work from anywhere. Sometimes I work from home, but I also work on planes, trains and when I am a passenger in a car. I work from hotel rooms and while I am at swimming lessons with my children. I even work while they attend music lessons and karate. It is epic.”
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First Day at Work by Anurag Bakhshi
Maria could feel the hills come alive with music as the magnificent scenery unfolded before her. Mother Superior had been right, this WAS an epic workplace.
With renewed confidence, she gazed into the eyes of the handsome but stern-looking man who was standing next to to the seven unruly little ones…her future wards…if she could somehow impress the man, and that dazzling beauty standing next to him.
But before she could say anything, the man spoke up, “Miss Maria, let’s start at the very beginning. This is my wife Snow White, and these are the seven dwarfs.”
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Epic by Ritu Bhathal
The door opened into a room where the atmosphere was teeming with enthusiasm.
Everywhere, industrious individuals attempted to solve their own problems in inventive manners.
There were specific areas for everything, from creative, to constructive, collaborative to computing.
A second door led to a huge outside area, filled with opportunities to stretch ideas.
Turning back into the room, I knew this was it. This was the place I wanted to be, the most epic workplace I’d encountered.
A classroom that put the children’s interests first, that stretched their thinking and allowed them to grow as individuals.
This was it.
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Epic Work by D. Avery
One woman told about her daughter the pilot; she mentioned three children that were pilots and one that worked for NASA.
A man bragged about his son the writer; she enumerated her journalists, artists and published authors.
She shared her pride for her children that served in the military, fire, rescue, and police forces, beamed about those that had become nurses and doctors, spoke warmly of the children that stayed close to home and were good citizens.
Finally someone cried foul.
“You can’t possibly have so many children!”
“As a teacher I’ve made a difference for hundreds of children.”
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Flash Fiction by oneletterup
“I’m doing my works!”
The little girl demonstrates.
Carefully pouring water from cup to bowl.
The silent visitor watches in surprise.
She’s never seen such a grand school.
Small wooden tables and chairs. A low matching sink.
Sun pouring in on many bright, happy faces.
The little boy calls out “Me too. Look at my works!”
Red cubes stacked high.
A place for important work. For all.
Pouring. Sorting. Counting. Writing.
Girls and boys. Older helping younger.
Just like her.
The teacher, sitting on the big rug, smiles.
“Please join us for circle time.”
“Welcome to Greenwood Montessori school.”
🥕🥕🥕
It’s EPIC by Norah Colvin
Roll up! Roll up! Come one, come all. This new attraction will have you enthralled. Bring parents, bring partners, siblings and friends. No one’s excluded. It’s Earth’s latest trend. Your eyes won’t believe. Your ears won’t deceive. It’s a sensory explosion, for all to explore. It’s entertaining, electrifying, edifying too. It’s a universe first, and it happened on Earth. It’s empowering, engrossing. There’s so much to see. With no space left empty, it’s elaborate, exciting, extols energy. With exquisite exhibits and enlightening exposures, it’s the most, enticing, enriching, educational environment, established on Earth. It’s EPIC, the Exceptional Pinterest-Inspired Classroom.
🥕🥕🥕
Devil Boat by TN Kerr
I read that she was called “The Devil Boat” in reference to Revelations Chapter 13. We never called her that. The USS HAWKBILL SSN666 was a highly decorated Sturgeon Class Attack Submarine.
What was most grand about her was the crew.
Every crewman on a submarine stakes his survival on the skills and knowledge of the rest. This creates a bond. It builds pride in self and in others as, daily, you do more than you ever thought possible.
It’s a dangerous and cramped workplace. It’s not for everyone. It sometimes stinks. It frustrates. I’d undoubtedly do it again.
🥕🥕🥕
When You Always Get Your Murds Wuddled by Geoff Le Pard
‘God…’
‘What’s up mate? Looks like you’ve just been told you’re the love child of the Donald and Kim Un Kardashian?’
‘My mum. Given me a right bollocking. Apparently I just called my grandma and told her that I’d just “waxed her high and wide” as promised.’
‘Geez, mate, that’s a bit… saucy.’
‘I taxed her Hyundai. I was trying to help but she’s Mrs Malaprop made flesh.’
‘Poor old thing.’
‘I know. She told dad how pleased she was that my new workplace was epic.’
‘You told me it was manky.’
‘I said, quote, “it’s totally septic, grandma”.’
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Pete Fanning
“Noah, Noah, Noah…”
I broke off my thoughts, elbow deep in the murk of dishwater and some epic plotting. Rhonda stared at me over a haphazard pile of pots and dishes, used napkins, trash and utensils. ‘I swear kid, sometimes I wonder where you go in that head of yours. Anyway, this is the last of the buffet.”
She stalked off to smoke. I turned to the load. A three-gallon pot of Clam chowder with a day’s worth of insulation around the lip. I picked up my scraper and smiled. I had all night to get this chapter right…
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Games Omniverse – Epic Workplace by Kerry E.B. Black
They’re all so much younger than me, but I find their Millenial energy invigorating. I know they look on me as the Grandma of the bunch. They turn eye-rolls when I’ve fouled another computer task and hide their smiles when I say something about “me me’s” instead of saying “memes.”
Yet somehow, I bring something to the group. I’d never be so vain as call it wisdom, and my experiences aren’t always helpful. However, it works. When they need copy, I pound on the keyboard until some small magic occurs, and the Angel in charge nods.
“This’s good. Thanks.”
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Dream Job by D. Avery
“I have had a lot of other jobs, but this is by far the best. I mean, it can be intense, but I enjoy the challenge. In my present work I am able to really use and incorporate all my previous experiences and prior knowledge to advantage. And I have a lot of latitude, a lot of freedom. I often work outside, I can dress how I want, set my own hours… it’s pretty awesome. Dream job. I am really enjoying myself.”
“Uh, Dude, you’re unemployed. You haven’t worked in months.”
“But I have been working at writing! Epic!”
🥕🥕🥕
The Amazing-Magician-From-India-With-Love by papershots
On-the-subway-for-spare-change, “with a white string I can make stand straight and hard, look!” leaps into the intermittent morning waltz of in…and-out, back…and-forth, you…getting-off?. When in the middle of his feat of magic the poor-Bosnian-I-live-in-a-shack with-this-little-girl please-help-me “20 cents to buy milk” gets on and sees the Amazing-Magician-from-India-etc…
The who-drowns-out-who challenge is on! Yeah! No.
“Please,” she starts, “ladies and gent…” then breaks off, gets off, the code of conduct of the beggars who can’t choose which train to ticketless-ly attack. “The white string stands straight and hard, look!” Not much change, though, in the worn-out Kullu cap.
🥕🥕🥕
The Call by Anne Goodwin
Bile stinging her throat, she pressed the green icon.
“Homer here.” His tone gave nothing away.
“Thanks for …” Her whole future in that pause.
“Congratulations!”
Joy of joys! She didn’t need to hear more. But was she up to it? Could she bear to uproot herself and begin again somewhere new? “Sorry, I’ll have to turn it down.”
“Excellent!”
Excellent? They didn’t want her after all? She reran his offer in her head: I’m calling to invite you on the adventure of working with us. Of course: to earn the elixir, an employee must first reject the call.
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PART II (10-minute read)
My Log Cabin by Kelvin M. Knight
Briefcase in hand, I kiss my wife at the patio door. ‘See you tonight.’
‘Have a great day at work, darling.’
A short stride across our lawn and I am here, where everything’s clean and pine fresh. Varnish shines the floor. An uncluttered desk smiles. There are no pictures, no ornaments. This empty space. This creative space.
Free even from books, those to be read and those to be filled – my precious notebooks.
Relaxing in my chair, I open my briefcase, remove my laptop. Tranquility washes over me. Nodding, I let this blank screen write its story upon me.
🥕🥕🥕
Cloud Covers by Chelsea Owens
“How’s it goin’, Nim?” called a breathy voice. He looked up. And up. And to the side. There was Cirrus, waving and smiling.
“Er… it’s a breeze.” He paused. “How ’bout you?”
“Clear skies here.”
“Cool, cool.” Nimbostratus faced forward again, his harness jangling. With utmost care he applied another layer of white. Now just to add a touch of grey…
“I saw Cumulo yesterday,” Cirrus flurried. She never could stay still.
“Mm-hmm.” Dip. Paint.
Cirrus also disliked inattention. She dropped in altitude. “He said: BOOM!”
“AAAH!” Nimbostratus yelled.
…
“Looks a bit greyer than initially predicted,” the weatherman noted.
🥕🥕🥕
Epic Workplace by Ann Edall-Robson
The room is pristine to start, but soon takes on a look somewhat chaotic. Books spread out across open spaces where once there were thoughts of organization and streamlining the hours to make them as productive as possible. Sounds of thunking, banging, clinking as doors open and close revealing needed tools. There are small marred bits of paper, tattered edged recipes, speckled from age and use. No one interrupts in this epic workplace where the tantalizing smells and mouth watering finales meld as one. To do so would jeopardize the anticipation of savouring the memories coming from the kitchen.
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Flash Fiction by Susan Sleggs
If someone asked where I would like to have an epic quilting space, I would answer, on a bluff overlooking the Oregon coast, or high in a sky scraper with lots of windows to admire the scenery day and night, or perhaps on Flathead Lake in Montana to view the mountains and water. But let’s be logical about this; if I’m sewing I’m not looking at a view. I think I’ll keep the 600 square feet in the basement of my current home. Peace resides there and my cats keep me company. Besides I’m usually working in my pajamas.
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Space…the Final Frontier by Kayuk
Words, like hammers, pound into me …again. “Isn’t there ONE SINGLE SPACE in this house I can put my things?”
Tears beg release. Manly things are piled on sofas, beds, tables, and floors in every room. A year after moving in, I’m still an intruder in a man’s sanctuary.
The tirade continues but, through patio doors, a shady table and chair await me. Abutting the grass is a lovely pond, with a serene view of ducklings following mama.
He storms out and, laptop in hand, I sigh and step through the door to a warm breeze and epic workplace.
🥕🥕🥕
Epic Workplace by Frank Hubeny
Eric was a loner. That’s why he liked people. They were rare like deer or bear in the distance. He took a break from thinning paper company land with brush saw holstered on his back and his head lost in his helmet.
He saw the hikers coming. One of them asked him if they were still on the Appalachian Trail. “Yes! Keep going. It’s right over there.” The trail wasn’t easy to see.
Eric wondered why people walked that trail, but he was glad to see them. He was glad he could give someone good directions on their way.
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Green Crater by Saifun Hassam
Jeff, Valerie and Carmen trekked from the rim of Green Crater to Green Crater Lake, formed millennia ago. Wind and water had weathered the extinct volcano’s steep ravines to valleys with gentle slopes. Every year, the rangers visited the Crater area, one of Special Ecological Habitats.
For Jeff, the Crater was his epic workplace, one he explored in the winter as well. By late spring the snows had melted. The lake and its marshy shores, attracted deer, egrets, migrant ducks and geese. Last summer, Jeff saw a bobcat. Today, a rattlesnake, basking in the sun on smooth rounded stones.
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In the Cards by D. Avery
The guys had circled their beer coolers for poker night in Ernest’s garage, where it was less humid than the trailer.
“Marge, I can’t believe you quit being shop foreman to work in this two-bit two bay garage. Left the largest dealership around — state of the art equipment, only working on newer vehicles–”
“Yeah”, chimed Lloyd. “Epic.”
“The work here’s actually more interesting, our customers bring us all sorts of mechanical mysteries to be solved. It’s more personal. And I got tired of babysitting.”
“Oooh, personal! Marge and Ernest up in a tree…”
“Like I said…”
“Epic”, Lloyd repeated.
🥕🥕🥕
Upward Mobility (from Miracle of Ducks) by Charli Mills
Mist rose from the pond with the morning coolness of a mountain camp at 7,000 feet. Danni stretched in sun salutations on the sagging porch of her Forest Service cabin while coffee percolated. The aroma grew strong, and she padded back inside on bare feet to pour a cup. The rest she saved for her thermos. As she drove her quad toward the archeological dig, Danni spotted elk, a skittering coyote and a Cooper’s hawk. At the worksite, trenches waited for the volunteers who would follow. She contemplated her epic workplace. At last, Danni would be the lead archeologist.
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A Sign of the Times by Di @ pensitivity101
Scott loved his job at the Living Museum. It was inspired, and different.
Admittance was free, but there were warnings about laser lights and flashing images.
Only fifty people were admitted at any one time, the doors closing behind them.
The room was dark, save for a single spot of light on the far wall.
The music started, loud and upbeat. Lights pulsed to the rhythm, and the magic began.
Holographic figures moved amongst them, through them, so real and yet only a projected image. Patrons felt themselves drawn into a time past, present and future all at once.
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Working on The Unsinkable Ship by Peregrine Arc
“They’re wanting sheets in cabin four, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Yes, miss. I’ll get them right away,” the maid said politely with a curtsy to her matron.
“And be sure you’re minding your place. Just because we’re working in first class doesn’t mean—”
But Elizabeth was already down the hallway, gathering clean linens in the laundry room. Her friend Gayle was there, in the corner where they whispered their secrets and dreams.
“Just think of it, Liz! Us—on the Titanic!”
🥕🥕🥕
Epic Workplace by Anita Dawes
The cleaning job I had in my twenties holds one sad memory.
Springfield Hospital, a building held together by sadness. The people inside, old, forgotten.
A woman of about eighty, taken for her daily bath, left alone in this cold room. Her arms reaching over the bath edge, pleading to be taken out.
Matron caught me, told me to get on with my work, which I found hard to do.
Now a block of posh flats stands where the hospital used to be.
I wonder what kinds of sounds echo around those walls now.
Do they drip with sadness?
🥕🥕🥕
Average Day At Work by Heather Gonzalez
Marcus stepped heavy steel-toed boots into his coveralls. Zipping up with a firm grip, it shielded the majority of his body. Then putting on gloves and safety goggles, he was now ready to start his work day. The odor that permeated the scene had become commonplace for him. Even before he reached the body, he noticed that the decomposition process had already begun. Climbing under the caution tape, Marcus surveyed the environment to make sure that all of the evidence was tagged beforehand. Whoever did this, definitely didn’t think about who would have to clean it up this mess.
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New Beginnings by Kelvin M. Knight
Blades of grass lifted the stones like they were grains of sand – stones bigger than me. Walking over this grass, I felt as though I were walking on springs – those metallic contraptions Father used to create timepieces – despite time measuring being forbidden.
‘Forbidden yet fantastical.’ These words flowed from a forest whose leaves rose into the sky, over and over, like rippling water.
Ignoring them, I sat crosslegged and thought, Hullo, I’m your new apprentice.
‘I know.’ A man appeared before me brandishing two crystal balls.
‘For me?’
‘For yours. For mine.’ Laying them at my feet, he disappeared.
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Virtual Reality by D. Avery
“Jeez, Kid, that post was kinda trippy. Had ta wunder ‘bout Shorty fer a bit there…”
“Trippy? Have ta wunder ‘bout you, Pal.”
“It’s a wunder we git anythin’ done aroun’ here what with all the yackin’. Saddle up, Kid, it’s time ta ride.”
“Pal, do we ride or write? This kin be punny place, I git confused.”
“Reckon, you an’ me, we ride, jist do ranch-like chores.”
“Good, writin’s too much work. I’d ruther be herdin’ strays, tendin’ the stock, ridin’ the range… It’s beautiful here.”
“Yep. We really have an epic workplace, Kid.”
“I imagin’ we do.”
🥕🥕🥕
September 6: Flash Fiction Challenge
It’s not a stairway, but it is a path to Heaven. I’m walking cream-colored pavers, delighting in a profusion of white flowers from sweet alyssum that hugs the path to grand clusters of panicle hydrangea the color of vintage cotton. White daisies with dark centers nod to bumbles and spindly green stalks as tall as my hips explode with blazing white stars. I’m stunned by all the beauty as if the Milky Way took to seed here on earth.
The stairway is lined with books, writing quills, and instruments of science. The stairs themselves are crafted of wrought iron, spelling out the alphabet and hidden words. A fireplace with settee and chairs beckon the reader in us all with promises of tales to unfold. Downstairs more books line the walls, and two antique cubbies form nooks in green velvet. This is not the stairs to Heaven, but to a book-lover, it might as well be.
Appropriately, the stairs to book sub-heaven grace a cluster of buildings called The Fortress, Great Hall, Classroom and Library. In the middle of a square courtyard between castle and brick walls, an iron wizard stabs his staff into the ground and reaches heavenward (actually, Heaven is on a hill behind him).
Yet there be dragons! On the castle turret of the Fortress ringed in lightning rods, a flame-skinned dragon bares teeth and strikes a paw toward Heaven below. Another dragon snarls from a dungeon three stories below. Deep Space lies between, but first one must access a wizard’s alley, Kings Cross, a slide down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland, a trek across a desert and more dragons, including one that protects a hoard of computer hardware.
You might be surprised to learn that my son, Runner, works near Heaven. His workplace is epic — a 950-acre campus of strange, fantastical and out-of-this-world offices, classrooms, and employee space comprising the Epic Systems Corporation Intergalactic Headquarters. It’s a software company to support the healthcare industry and is privately owned by the most successful female IT company founder in the world.
When Runner got the job five months ago, we celebrated his success. Friends in healthcare gushed, “He must be so smart.” Epic has a reputation for hiring the most brilliant, and we always knew Runner was as bright as his sisters. He is a Project Manager, and it’s interesting to hear of his company’s value-based operations. I read them on a bathroom wall (and yes, the bathroom was epic).
Our running joke as Runner gave the family a tour was that everything lives up to the company name, including the wind turbines to power the campus, organic farms to feed the near-10,000 employees, underground parking garages, and an 11,000-seat stadium built five stories underground in a complex called Deep Space. I straddled a rattlesnake, battled dragons, and chased Alice down a slide to Wonderland. I walked down Diagon Alley, but by another name thus not to infringe upon HP copyrights. However, J.K. Rowling is quoted on several walls.
Here’s a drone-eye view of Epic:
You can also learn more about the company through stories and snapshots at Epic’s website.
We took a few photos of our own, although it was hard to break away from simply experiencing the place with Runner as our tour guide. Over the weekend, I saw other proud families grinning and gawking as sons and daughters led the way. My daughter joked that her brother joined a cult. My SIL wanted to join if only to play D&D on campus. He fell for the dragons.
We finished our tour just beyond Heaven at The Farm where cows and sheep lurk in the hallways. After an epic walk across campus, we grabbed Cow Bikes and pedaled back to The Fortress where Runner had parked his brand new Mini Cooper in the Great Abyss. We later enjoyed his mixology talents (he supported himself through college as a bartender), including a rum daiquiri Hemingway used to drink. Because we were in Wisconsin, I ate cheese every day I was there. Heaven!
One final word — as we continue to prepare for the Rodeo in October, 24-Hour Free-write contests to qualify as one of five writers to compete in The TUFFest Ride will post. I’m also looking for some more sponsors if you have a book or blog you might want to advertise. Use the contact form if you are interested.
Carrot Ranch is a literary community to engage and support all writers. If you want to claim Rancher Badges to support your own goals, you can contact me with your request as it is September already. And if you want to read how 99-words can help you get to 50,0000, I recently was asked to write for NaNoWriMo. You can also catch my latest marketing article at BadRedhead Media for Rachel Thompson.
Now, to write!
September 6, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an epic workplace. It can be real or imagined. Go where the prompt leads.
Respond by September 11, 2018. Use the comment section below to share, read and be social. You may leave a link, pingback or story in the comments. Rules & Guidelines.
Upward Mobility (from Miracle of Ducks) by Charli Mills
Mist rose from the pond with the morning coolness of a mountain camp at 7,000 feet. Danni stretched in sun salutations on the sagging porch of her Forest Service cabin while coffee percolated. The aroma grew strong, and she padded back inside on bare feet to pour a cup. The rest she saved for her thermos. As she drove her quad toward the archeological dig, Danni spotted elk, a skittering coyote and a Cooper’s hawk. At the worksite, trenches waited for the volunteers who would follow. She contemplated her epic workplace. At last, Danni would be the lead archeologist.
Bottlenecks
Whether you are slammed in a bottleneck of traffic or sitting on the front porch slamming back bottlenecks of beer, the time such moments lend a person is pause to contemplate. Bottlenecks might slow down processes or create unexpected releases.
Stories about bottlenecks vary in design as much as glasswork. You might feel the urge to wedge a lime into a bottleneck of your own as you read.
The following are based on the August 30, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a bottleneck.
Part I (10-minute read)
Commuting by kate @ aroused
My senses were being assaulted by the cacophony of others preferred listening choices. Our windows were wound down to catch any air. Driving home during peak hour was a drag, concentrating on traffic after intense work.
The main thought that was getting me through was of the sushi I’d picked up and the promise of a long hot shower. Then curling under my sheet with a good book … the kind you held and turned the pages. Electronic reading was not for me.
My wandering mind is brought back with a jolt as the traffic bottlenecked around an accident.
🥕🥕🥕
Bottleneck by FloridaBorne
We waited behind a semi, unable to see what blocked the road ahead. I sneezed at the diesel exhaust and asked my wife, “Found anything yet?”
The truck moved forward a few feet, and then stopped again, cars merged from the left lane as my wife stared at her tablet. “We’ll be out of this bottleneck in another 50 feet.”
“Was there an accident?”
“No,” she sighed. Traffic moved past an area where the left lane was devoid of anything but a lone boot.
That’s all it takes to stop traffic in LA — a shoe in the road.
🥕🥕🥕
Acrostic Bottleneck by TN Kerr
B eneath the dormant wheels
O f this sharp, sleek, motionless luxury automobile
T he motorway lies still, inert and unmoving despite my serious objections. Roll up the windows then,
T he heat is relentless and the malodourous exhaust fumes of a thousand cars
L ingers and mingles languidly with the
E ther that surrounds us.
N eedless to say, we should take the next available
E xit, we should find a relaxing spot to picnic; or a back road we might use as an alternative – a means to
C ircumnavigate this bottleneck, else we won’t be home before
K wanzaa, and it’s not yet Guy Fawkes Night.
🥕🥕🥕
Idiots on the Road (from Miracle of Ducks) by Charli MIlls
Ike passed cars like a Hollywood speed-chase. Danni put her hand on his knee, “Slow down.”
“These idiots on the road are going to cause an accident.”
Danni kept her opinion that Ike was the one driving like an idiot. You’d think he was chasing down Al Qaeda in a Humvee the way he swerved around slower vehicles.
Stands of pines zipped past until traffic ahead came to a bottleneck at Culvers Point. Ike swore smooth as opera. Tourists stopped in the road to snap pictures of a mama moose. Danni reminded Ike, “Remember, we’re in Idaho, not Iraq.”
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Lemons, Limes and Other Mysteries by Norah Colvin
She hit the brakes and thumped the steering wheel.
“Mummy swore.”
“Didn’t.”
“I heard.”
“Why we stopped, Mummy?”
“There’s a traffic jam.”
“Jam? I love stawbrey jam sammich.”
“Not that jam — must be a bottleneck up ahead.” Please be a merge, not an accident.
“We learned ‘bout bottlenecks today.”
“What?”
“Live in the ocean. Maminals, like us. Where’s bottleneck, Mummy?”
“Not bottleneck, Jamie, bottlenose.”
“You said bottleneck.”
“I meant — aargh!”
Finally, they were home.
“You look frazzled, hon.”
She rolled her eyes and took the beer.
“Why lemon is in your bottle neck?” asked Jamie.
“Because it’s not lime.”
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A Lesson in Trust by Susan Sleggs
My grandson’s dentist appointment was after school which meant dealing with rush-hour traffic. While sitting on the overpass waiting for the light so I could turn onto the expressway ramp, I could look down to gauge the usual traffic bottleneck. Bad news. Traffic was completely stopped. I said, “We’re going for a little ride to avoid the expressway.”
“Ok.”
I wound my way around side streets going north and west.
I heard from the backseat, “I have no idea where we are!”
After two more turns he saw familiar buildings. “You weren’t lost after all Grandma? I was worried.”
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Word Jam by Ritu Bhathal
Words.
Snippets.
Stories.
Poems.
Novels.
The ideas were just pouring out of my mind, my heart, my soul, and I didn’t know where to start.
No, that’s not right.
I knew where to start, I just couldn’t work out where to stop, how to organise the thoughts rushing through me.
My fingers danced across the keyboard, letters appearing, filling pages and pages.
Faster and faster they came, until-
They stopped.
I knew there was more to come out, but it was as if the impatience of my ideas had caused a bottleneck in my brain.
Time for the muse…
🥕🥕🥕
Backcountry Bottleneck by Ann Edall-Robson
A body and soul drive along gravel roads riddled with potholes is nothing short of bliss. The gray matter lodged between the ears has no expectations other than to watch for what Mother Nature has to offer. There is no rush in this journey. It is a plethora of whoa, stop, back up moments soaking in the sights on a trek to an unknown destination. Traffic lights do not exist, and the only bottleneck to endure may be a herd of cattle coming at you on the road. There is nothing like the backcountry to rejuvenate the writing mind.
🥕🥕🥕
Empty Bottles All in A Row by Billy Ray Chitwood
Those empty bottles tell a pitiful story of my life, Buckaroos!
Those empty bottles once carried many of those once-held dreams I carried around in my head, all rather noble and fitting for human consumption – for anyone willing to listen to my maudlin cries for do-overs written out on barroom napkins and motel room stationery.
Those empty bottles lit me up like a neon billboard, allowing me to show off my amazing way with the women and with words.
One thing wrong with that pitiful story…
It left me a ‘wimp of a man’!
So, the tombstone says!
🥕🥕🥕
A Grain Of Sand by Patrick O’Connor
A single grain of sand at a time.
One by one, they slip through the bottleneck of the hourglass.
Our lives, measured in time is representative of those grains of sand.
One day at a time, our lives slip through our fingers.
Are we striving to leave a legacy or simply living for the moment?
Meanwhile, another life gasps as the last grain of sand drops.
A sad day for some; a joy for others.
How will people remember us; or will they remember us at all.
Only time will tell – one single grain of sand at a time.
🥕🥕🥕
The Slide by oneletterup
She sees it. Poking out from under the sofa. She reaches down, closing her hand around the smooth green glass.
Just like Gramma’s! When she played the big guitar. Special for her.
“Honey, this is a bottleneck slide. It goes on my finger. Look!”
Then Gramma would smile, wink and whisper…
“This song is just for you.”
Pressing on the strings, she’d slide the glass. And sing. And fill them both up…
”If not for you…I’d be sad and blue if not for you…”
The little girl finds her there.
Holding the green slide. Tight.
“You found it!”
🥕🥕🥕
Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams by JulesPaige
Tammy wondered if it was always this hard to buy your first home. You had to prove you were, have been and would be employed – able to make mortgage payments.
What started out as a simple bottleneck situation turned into a log jam. The red tape became like a thick hungry boa constrictor wanting to squeeze the very life from her with having to fill out form after form after form.
There would be a celebration eventually. Hopefully soon. One where she’d invite her best friends to uncork a bottle of champagne. When she finally held her home’s key.
🥕🥕🥕
The Bottle Opener by Robert Kirkendall
A party goer grabbed a longneck bottle of ale from an ice chest and searched around. “Anyone know where the bottle opener is?”
“I got this,” another party goer said as he picked up another beer bottle. “Now give me yours.”
The first party goer handed him his bottle, then the second party goer held his bottle upside down and placed the edge of its bottlecap against the other bottlecap. “A little trick I learned in college, using one bottle to open another.”
A cap popped off and beer spilled all over his pants.
“Ooops, wrong cap came off.”
🥕🥕🥕
Bottleneck Life by Kayuk
“Ready for the big job interview this afternoon?”
I grin across the table at Sally, “You bet! I’ve been preparing for weeks.”
“Well, you certainly look stunning. The old ivory of the suit sets the perfect tone.”
“Thanks”, I say, draping a napkin across my lap and picking up the fork.
Startled by a crash and yell behind me, I leap from my chair and turn in time to see the waiter’s foot descend on a plastic catsup bottle sliding across the floor. Pressurized contents spew from the bottleneck splashing the front of my perfect suit with garish red.
🥕🥕🥕
Trust Deficit by Abhijit Ray
“Bottleneck is always at the top,” thundered CEO in the townhall meeting, on productivity, he convened for his employees, after attending a conference.
“Tell me is what problems you face? Is it resource allocation, time management or decision making?” senior managers shifted uncomfortably in their seats, as chief goaded his employees for a response.
There was pin drop silence, till an eager beaver junior shuffled in his seat. “Idiot! Not yet confirmed, you are a sitting duck,” whispered his friend, “this is all sham. CEO knows very well, where the bottleneck is. He is trying to identify trouble makers.”
🥕🥕🥕
Quality Control by Liz Huseby Hartmann
“There’s your bottleneck,” Justin nodded at the bleach-blonde woman at the end of the production line. A stack of TMPuregold Widgets sat to her left. Picking one, she held it up, squinting along its length, and nodded.
“Lorna’s a bottleneck?” His uncle chewed the end of his mustache.
“She’s slow.”
Lorna picked up another widget, ran her hand across its end, and crooked her finger at a young brunette. They bent their heads together. The younger brought the piece back to her station, smiling.
“I have lots of streamlining ideas, Uncle.”
“Tell your mother we’re not hiring just now.”
🥕🥕🥕
You Made Your Bed by Sascha Darlington
First a bottleneck on the road and now a bottleneck at the charity event. I see who is causing it and suddenly wish I had a bottleneck in my hand, preferably high-proof.
I try to avoid her, but she’s holding court, her brittle laughter wince-worthy. When her eyes focus on me, her lips tighten.
“Surprised you came.”
I sigh. “I’m chair.”
She waggles her diamond before darting to my ex-. Robert glances up. Do I see regret? Perhaps the younger, improved model wasn’t as good as the original.
Jake squeezes my hand. “You look beautiful tonight.”
Mine is though.
🥕🥕🥕
Lil’ Ugly by D. Avery
When he drew a bull called Lil’ Ugly the other cowboys laughed.
Bow legged and barrel-chested with a bottle neck and a jug head, he endured a great deal of ribbing. He disappointed his tormentors by walking away. They could tell they angered him but could never get him to throw a punch. In addition to picking on his looks they questioned his manhood.
As he approached the chute the others joked, wondered who was going to be on top.
They didn’t wonder any longer than eight seconds.
They knew now what he did with his bottled up rage.
🥕🥕🥕
Saddleback Sanctuary (from “Diamante”) by Saifun Hassam
Where the valley narrowed, the flagstone path disappeared under boulders and jagged rocks. Landslide from early spring. Diamante surveyed the bottleneck. He weaved carefully around the larger rocks, clambering up and down smaller ones. He paused to rest. A lark flew up into the warm sunny skies. A lizard slithered across the boulder, briefly eyed Diamante, and disappeared. No bottlenecks for lizard or lark.
Another half mile and he was on the flagstone trail again. The ancient abandoned monastery came into view. Near an open broken gate, a giant tortoise slept, its neck well hidden within its saddleback shell.
🥕🥕🥕
Part II (10-minute read)
Bottleneck by Anita Dawes
Something we experience when pushing our way into a new life. A tight space, hard to get out of.
Days when the tension holds on to the back of my neck like giant metal claws.
Other times I feel as if I have been snapped back in time, trapped inside the Trojan horse with a bunch of sweaty human beings, waiting to do battle.
The sun will come back and you can move on with your life. The way ahead is clear, or am I trapped inside someone else’s mind?
Is this the bottleneck that will finally break me?
🥕🥕🥕
Bottleneck by katimac
They say humans of many forms lived a long time ago. Then a natural disaster struck which wiped out nearly all of them. It was most likely the progenitor of the Great Flood stories found in nearly every culture. Geologists can point to physical signs of it all at about the same time, nearly seventy thousand years ago. Anthropologists can point to one at the same time, about seventy thousand years ago, when mankind was reduced to a small bottleneck group on the western coast of Africa. We ain’t none of us lily-white if we go back far enough.
🥕🥕🥕
This Time, This Place by Kelvin M. Knight
Standing in his pulpit, he regarded one bottleneck after another: his overworked PCC; the cavalier making of tea during the service; the choir grumbling behind him; the organ whimpering far far away.
He prayed silently, swiftly. Upon opening his eyes, he spied a congregation transformed. Now they all looked resplendent in starched white collars, whereas he was a shadow, bloated and distorted, and pinched in so many places: from his wallet to his timesharing; from his patience to his love.
Realising he was more guilty than them, he pondered the complexities of daring to share this truth with them.
🥕🥕🥕
Not Exactly an Hour-glass Figure by Di @ pensitivity101
‘You need to go on a diet.’
‘Don’t you start! How can I help it if there’s so much to choose from, I want to try it all?’
‘Somehow seeing you stuck like that is doing you no favours as regards your street cred.’
‘I’ll have you know this colour is very fetching! Brings out the natural blue of my eyes.’
‘At the moment they look a bit bloodshot. You’ve probably cut off your circulation, you’ve gotten so fat.’
‘No need to be nasty. I’ll just make a wish!’
‘But that’s cheating!’
‘Ha! I’m a Genie darling! I’m allowed!’
🥕🥕🥕
Bored Panda by Deepa
Honey, does this look good?
I nod quickly thinking my way to escape.
Is this one better? She asked me.
If I nod again, I fear she’ll say, ‘so what is wrong with the first one?’
Which one do you prefer? This was she again.
Oh, darling! You look equally amazing in both.
Oh, honey! Do you mean to say can I have both?
It is a terror for spouses when it comes to shopping.
A pleasure for sales guys and a reason for more congestion in the roads and malls.
Buy 1, get one free!
🥕🥕🥕
Jessie by Kay Kingsley
It had been 3 weeks and 4 days since Mike and Jessie had broken up and each second that passed was agony for him.
He sat in his usual chair at the bar hoping to be as invisible as he felt, a chameleon basked in neon.
The bar was a loud distraction as he mindlessly stroked the bottle neck, lost in the memory of her smile and the smell of her perfume. Full of regret, his heart ached.
When she touched his shoulder from behind, he looked up and thought it was a dream. They smiled at each other.
🥕🥕🥕
Bottleneck by Frank Hubeny
Some say your real brains are in your gut. Bill knew his wasn’t in his brain. Sharon doubted he had any in his gut either.
That’s when she got pregnant and started worrying.
That’s when they had to move to a smaller apartment.
That’s when it looked like he would lose his job.
That’s also when he didn’t lose his job, but got an indirect promotion.
That’s also when they realized they loved that new apartment.
That’s when he held her and told her he was glad she was pregnant.
That’s when she changed her mind about his brains.
🥕🥕🥕
One Night, Both Ends of Life by Paula Moyer
One Night, Both Ends of Life
6:30: the call. Finally, that night.
“Today’s the day.” Her nephew Max, about his father, Jean’s brother.
“Did he die?”
“Yes.” The wait/weight – done. Alcoholic organ failure – complete.
7:30 p.m.: the text. “My water broke.” A very pregnant woman’s message to Jean, her doula. “But nothing’s happening.” Jean gassed up anyway.
9:30: the call. The husband. “It’s time.”
Jean battled State Fair traffic, road work, bridge closures.
10:10: Raced into the birth center. “Waaa!” On the floor: Chux pads, blood everywhere. On the bed: parents and one angry baby.
11:30: the drive home, joy and grief wedged in together.
🥕🥕🥕
Hillsborough, April 1989 by Anne Goodwin
The match was a sell-out, but progress through the turnstiles deathly slow. To ease the tension outside, they opened the gates and funnelled the supporters directly into the already swollen stand. As the game kicked off, no-one heard the protests of those at the front, the screams forced from crushed lungs. While grown men cried for their mams, kids hadn’t the air to whimper. The first to scale the fence were met with truncheons. Belatedly, the ambulances pulled onto the pitch.
No goals were scored that day. But records were broken in the numbers killed at a sporting event.
🥕🥕🥕
The Happiest Traffic Jam on Earth by Chelsea Owens
“When will we get dere?”
Sigh.
“It’s …uh, your turn to answer him, Dear.”
“Whe-e-e-e-en will we get de-e-e-e-ere?”
“I told you, Honey. We’ll be there soon.”
“Yeah. ‘Soon.’”
“You said that a long time ago!”
“Alvy. Honey-”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him-”
“No! You said we go in duh car!”
“Yes, Sweetheart. Vroom! Vroom! Remember?”
“Not vrooming…”
“You said LITTLE ride in duh car!”
“Well, I meant-”
“You did tell him just a little ride-“
WAAAAAAAAAH!
“Dear, please. That’s not helping to side with him…”
“Are we picking sides?”
“WHEN WILL WE GET DERE?!”
“Your turn.”
Sigh.
🥕🥕🥕
It’s a Boy! by Sarah Whiley
I twisted.
I urged.
Yet still, the cap wouldn’t budge.
I felt so frustrated. This liquid was yearning for release for human consumption and to be enjoyed.
It was a perfect summer’s day for a beer.
Not ready to concede defeat, I kept on trying.
The effort began to hurt my hands.
Damn this thing, I thought.
Then suddenly, I felt it.
A helpful force; working with me from the other side.
Oh joy of joys, the cap began to move!
Finally it was released, and cool liquid amber gushed through the bottle neck.
“It’s a boy!” I smiled.
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Pete Fanning
Music pulsed, matching the thump of my heart in my ears as I leaned in and gave the wine bottle a carefully planned spin. Breath held. The circle tightened. Julie Jennings’ knee touched against mine, the bottleneck now a whir of fate.
Thump. Warmth hit my cheeks as the wand settled on Julia. A nervous laugh. What now? But with a giggle Julie nudged it two more places—miles it seemed!—to the metallic smile of Christina Cash. A small terror in my chest. A gust of strawberries. Julia shrugged, winked, then shoved me off towards her best friend.
🥕🥕🥕
Chester Makes Amends by Molly Stevens
Chester knew he had to dig himself out of a crater after he gave the wrong impression to his wife, Ruth.
He settled on his strategy and said, “I remember the exact moment I knew you was the one. And though it was magic, my decision to ask for your hand in marriage had nothin’ to do with a silly eight ball.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I chose you in the fifth grade.”
“Really?”
“Remember the party at Rosie house? We gathered in a circle, and I spun first. When the bottleneck pointed in your direction, I knew you’d be mine.”
🥕🥕🥕
Bottlenecking by Bill Engleson
I peer into the darkness.
Stella’s driving.
The fog’s thicker than shower steam.
“There’s the turnoff,” I point, bumping my digit against the windshield.
“I see it,” she snaps. “I’m not blind.”
“Sorry…” I apologize, shaking my bent finger.
“Did you hurt your pinkie?” she asks.
“No. Just nerves.”
The offramp quickly turns into a one-lane cow path.
“I can barely see,” she offers.
“It’s a good thing you’re driving,” I confess. “I can’t see squat.”
Suddenly, a tiny wooden bridge appears.
“THAT,” she says, “looks flimsy. I’m turning back.”
“Can’t. Bosses party.”
“And we’re…?”
“Yup. The only guests.”
🥕🥕🥕
The Real Winner by Anurag Bakhshi
I looked down at the battlefield, and my heart filled with pride.
My fellow countryman Leonidas and his small band of 300 Spartans had been pitted against more than a million of the invading army of Xerxes.
But the wily Leonidas had taken a stand at a bottleneck in the pass at Thermopylae, and stopped the Persians dead in their tracks for three days.
And the mighty Persian Army would still be fighting a futile battle if I, Ephialtes, hadn’t told them about the hidden path that would allow them to flank Leonidas and his men, and slaughter them.
🥕🥕🥕
Bottleneck by Reena Saxena
“I will not give my land. The price you offer is not enough to sustain me, and I don’t have any other means to earn a livelihood.”
“Do you understand that this is for a mega-project, which will change the face of the countryside. History will not forgive you for being a bottleneck in progress.”
“History might forgive and glorify you, but goodness will not.” He signed the sale deed.
Three years later, the land purchased by the parliamentarian’s brother was sold at thirty times the price he bought it for. It helps to know about future developmental plans.
🥕🥕🥕
Slow and Steady Kid by D. Avery
“Hey, Pal. Have a beer with me. Ever wonder why bottles is shaped the way they are, with the long neck?”
“Mebbe it’s so it’s easier ta pour. But we got no glass nor class, drinkin’ right outta the bottle.”
“If ya hang onta the bottle neck yer beer doesn’t git all warm.”
“Jist drink it down fast. Gimme anuther Kid.”
“I like coozies, ‘specially handy with so many switchin’ ta cans.”
“Don’t need a coozie, jist drink ‘em right down. ‘Nuther, Kid.”
“You prefer bottles, or cans, Pal? Pal?”
“Uh…”
“That was fast. Pal’s downed from downin’ beer.”
🥕🥕🥕
Magic
What we call magic can be inexplicable — the fantastic, supernatural, universality of experiences beyond the realm of the five senses. Magic can be dark or ethereal. It can be a moment, or, as Elizabeth Gilbert explains, Big Magic is the courage to hunt for the creative life.
Enchanted, or not, writers set out to story-craft tales of magic this week. Like a rabbit pulled from a hat, you’ll be surprised at what emerged.
The following is based on the August 23, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes magic.
PART I (10-minute read)
On the Occasion of the Poet’s Being Challenged (or TGIF) by JulesPaige
Magic for me, starts at dusk
after the sun has retired.
One must wait an entire cycle
for the moonflower to bloom.
Defenceless against the weather,
the desire to grow at night
in shadow is strong.
I find a quality in dusk turning to night
that makes it seem as if the silver river
flows slower over the stones.
The heat of a summer day
makes me tired.
I discover strength in darkness.
Uncover the burdens of night dreaming
and cover myself in moon glow.
Repeat over and over a mantra of freedom.
“It is Friday, it is Friday!”
🥕🥕🥕
Magic Exists by Pamela
Magic exists
In the space between the words
In the ideas left unthought
And in the needs now left unspoken
Magic exists
In the dreams as yet undreamt
In the strangers still unmet
And in the future paths untrod
Magic exists
In your mind and in your soul
And in your heart so cautiously
It exists in you
Look for the magic
Be open to its charms
Bask in the wonders
Of the magic that exists
Look for the magic
Before it is gone
I cannot imagine a world so bereft
That magic was not a part
Of me
🥕🥕🥕
Magic by The Dark Netizen
The old man observed the couple in his crystal ball.
They were standing at the sea face, hand in hand, looking at the setting red orb in the sky.
“You know baby, when we are together, it feels magical.”
She looked into his eyes and smiled in agreement.
The old wizard however had a grim face. He spotted two shadows approaching the oblivious couple. There was no way they could sense the darkness approaching. The old man turned to his assistant.
“Merlyn, we need to move fast. We cannot lose our source of magic. We must protect true love…”
🥕🥕🥕
Adamant Acceptance by JulesPaige
Young Kendra willed magic. Ever since the first time death visited her family. Maybe Azrael possessed some healing powers? The girl wanted to communicate with those who had crossed over. Since the ones who were still
around didn’t really communicate very well.
Didn’t the adults read any of the books that contained rituals for magic? If they had maybe they wouldn’t shout so much or rub salt in old wounds. How could they live with themselves?
Kendra would read all the books, even if they
believed she could not read. She would whisper,
repeat and most of all believe.
🥕🥕🥕
Janice by Saifun Hassam
With eyes closed, Janice traced the delicate raised patterns on her favorite porcelain vase. Dogwood flowers, swallows, leaves on curving branches. The subtle magic of that touch flowed into her mind.
Her left eye was still blind. Her right eye filled with vision, tears. Fear and hope. The tumor had crushed the left optic nerve, destroyed the pituitary gland and sent tendrils into the gray matter.
She savored the taste of cherry chocolate cake Tom had prepared for her. She breathed in the aroma of the coffee. He had gone to work, but he had left her with magic.
🥕🥕🥕
Magic Moment by Sherri Matthews
‘Happy Birthday, hope you like it!’
Colin tore off the wrapping paper revealing a child’s magic set to roars of laughter from his friends.
‘Thanks guys…nice one…you bastards.’
Colin laughed along, but the memory of his family’s teasing when he had put on his first magic show as a kid still stung. Not that his friends knew. It didn’t matter. They only knew that Colin was a media sensation after his win on Britain’s Got Talent.
‘Drinks on me.’
Everybody turned as Simon Cowell arrived holding a magnum of champagne.
Nothing beat the magic of that night for Colin.
🥕🥕🥕
Footloose by D. Avery
Ilene Higginbottom pulled a folding chair from the bed of the El Camino and joined Marge and Ernest where they sat in their camp chairs outside the shop.
“That’s a pretty fancy camp chair, Ilene, dual cup-holders, and look at you, it reclines too!”
“Yeah, I like to put my foot up. This’s the last thing I bought with my ex-boyfriend’s money before letting him go; only thing about him appealed to me was his magic mailbox.”
Ernest squeezed Marge’s hand before going for more beer, told her he’d start dinner.
“Marge,” said Ilene, “What you’ve got is real magic.”
🥕🥕🥕
Reckoning by Kerry E.B. Black
“Where is your wife, Ward?” The magistrate’s robes flapped like a gaping hole.
“She took our son to visit her family.” Thank God she fled.
But what of Nina? Legs twisted like gnarled, unsupportive vines. Defenseless. Her only crime saving his infant’s life.
The magistrate rested a heavy hand upon Ward’s shoulder. It pressed like a stone. “Your wife will be tried. She consorted with a witch to save your son.”
Fire erupted within Ward, but he struggled to keep calm. “She didn’t. I fetched the woman who nursed our son. My wife had nothing to do with it.”
🥕🥕🥕
Magic by Frank Hubeny
On a blue planet people believed in nothing that they couldn’t see. No ghosts. No gods. No angels.
There were natural laws. That magic was powerful. The more it worked, the more they believed. Those who doubted were educated until they believed or in extreme cases there were prisons. In really extreme cases there were nuclear options.
The people on the blue planet made a lot of money except for those who didn’t and so everyone who counted was happy.
Things went very well until the “fay-rees”, as they became known after The Event, had their fill of it.
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Geoff Le Pard
‘Do you believe in magic, Logan?’
‘In what context?’
‘What’s wrong with a yes or no?’
‘If you mean prestidigitation…’
‘Huh?’
‘Slight of hand, deceit, then that’s not magic. If you mean the magic of nature or of birth or first love…’
‘You soppy romantic…’
‘… then yes. There are some things that are truly magical, truly miraculous. They constantly amaze me.’
‘Like my wit and brilliance?’
‘Like the fact that despite you driving me nuts, talking rot, playing the fool, we are still friends.’
‘And my wit and brilliance?’
‘That too.’
‘Give me a hug.’
‘Don’t push it…’
🥕🥕🥕
The Magic of Decision-making by Molly Stevens
Ruth was on a mission to purge. She examined a round, black object she retrieved from the bottom of the trunk.
“Chester, this yours?”
“Yup.”
“Why have you held onto it?
“It means a lot to me. It helped me make some major decisions through the years.”
“Like what?”
“Remember when I was thinkin’ about quittin’ school? Magic eight ball said, ‘My reply is no.’”
What else?”
Chester remained silent.
“Magic eight ball, did Chester consult with you before he proposed to me?
“‘Signs point to yes.”
Chester snatched the prophetic orb and pitched it into the dumpster.
“Traitor!”
🥕🥕🥕
Sleight Fright by Ritu Bhathal
“Think of a name.”
Deanna held her chosen name tightly in her mind and nodded.
“Think of an object related to that name.”
She self-consciously touched her wrist, where her watch was.
Except it wasn’t there.
Where was it? It was the only thing she had left of him.
“I believe you were thinking of Peter, and his black diver’s watch, am I right?”
The magician held out a watch.
Slight of hand or magic, she didn’t know, but Deanna didn’t wait to find out. She rushed to the front, snatched the watch and rushed out of the building.
🥕🥕🥕
The Feather by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer
I finished my gardening chores and wrapped the hose into a coil. There on the ground was a tiny grey feather. I picked it up and placed it under my gloves on the table for safe keeping.
I walked toward the front garden where my daylilies drooped. I held the spray over the plants, and there on the ground was another gray feather!
I hurried to retrieve the first feather, but it was gone. It was then, the magic of the moment struck me. Without a doubt, this feather had wanted me to find it. What could it mean?
🥕🥕🥕
The Return Home by Jan Malique
Soft, soft are their feet upon the forest floor
Hear their whispers lift on perfumed breeze
The Crystal Sentinels wait
Offer messages only once
Offer wisdom never seen
Hark, the Fey do come
The Light of Ever Becoming approaches
Issues through sky and earth
Infuses Crystal Sentinels
Weaves magic most powerful
Weaves magic neither light nor dark
Hark, the do Fey come
See the Faerie Queen step forth
Peer at human worlds
Command Otherworld gates be open
See her warriors step forth
Speak words of release
The Crystal Sentinels rise
Step through gates of welcome
Step through worlds incandescent
🥕🥕🥕
A Warning and a Plea by Liz Husebye Hartmann
Lucy’s footsteps echoed pale blue, up and over the far reaches of Karlssen’s Glacier.
She took her time, minding her breath; these tower steps had been built by others taller than her six foot frame. Per her nature, she’d planned for extra effort to reach the peak.
The half-troll girl was on her way. Magnhildr would need another Season to convince her fellows to foster yet another non-jotun, even Sylvi’s child.
She wrapped the message-crow in her hands, whispering a plea, “The child is no longer safe.”
The bird erupted into the northern sky, its cry splitting the night.
🥕🥕🥕
Protected by abhijit ray
“This is magestic,” Sam looked admiringly at the luminous diamond sitting at the feet of deity in dilapidated temple.
“I want it Sid,” said Sam greedily, “it will fetch a fortune.”
“Don’t invite god’s wrath Sam. This stone is under protection of reigning deity of this fort.”
“I don’t believe in power of magic. I did not walk all the way to just have a peek. What good is it here anyway? At least, we shall have good time.”
The leopard was following them for some distance now. As Sam bent down to unseat the stone, the predator pounced.
🥕🥕🥕
Acronym by FloridaBorne
“Dr. Michael Arden?” The young woman with a recorder asked, “Why did you become a scientist?”
Should I remind the world? Why not? “You do realize this is a funeral and we’re standing in front of my mother’s casket?”
“You’re a hard man to corner for an interview.”
“My mother believed in magic, used a cauldron and thought she could talk to fairies.”
Wide eyed, she gasped, “Your mother was a witch?”
“If you could read, you would know why,” I scoffed at her. “Mother was schizophrenic! MAGIC is nothing but an acronym for mentally addled gullible insecure citizen.”
🥕🥕🥕
Shakespeare’s Cheat Sheet by Katimac
Shakespeare scribbled halfway down the page and froze. It was the same rubbish he had written an hour earlier, reworded. He cursed and crumpled the page, tossing it across the room to add to the growing stack of crumpled pages in the corner of the room. He threw himself back in his chair and thought furiously. After a moment, he called for the maid.
“What’s her name again?”
The maid glanced around nervously. “Are you certain, sir?”
Shakespeare swore again. “What was her name, the magic hag?”
The maid whispered the name in fear.
“Bring her here. It’s time.”
🥕🥕🥕
PART II (10-minute read)
First Morning in the New Place by Anne Goodwin
Despite her diligence in tidying away her thoughts on retiring to bed, Matty awakes to a muddle. It is as if a kitten has whiskered its way into a sewing box and woven a cat’s cradle with the thread.
Opening her eyes, it is obvious something larger than a baby cat has caused the chaos. Has a magic carpet whooshed her to China? Or, like Alice, she’s fallen down a rabbit hole to a world where walls move and rooms shrink?
A maid beams at her from the bedpost. “Welcome to Tuke House, Matty! Are you ready for breakfast?”
🥕🥕🥕
The Source of Magic by Anurag Bakhshi
Sue woke up to see Charli staring unblinkingly at a tall tree near their campsite.
“Look at that light emanating from that tree, it’s magical,” Charli said softly.
Sue looked towards the tree, and said dismissively, “It’s just sunlight reflected from a mirror on the tree. You really shouldn’t have had those magic mushrooms last night.”
Charli shrugged her head and looked again. Her friend was right, it was nothing at all.
As Charli left to wash her face to clear her head, Sue looked towards the tree angrily. That magic tree had got to control its yawns better.
🥕🥕🥕
Magic by Kay Kingsley
I don’t believe in magic tricks but I love being sucked into them. The slight of hand, the show, the impossible result… it’s mesmerizing and entertaining and I have zero desire for someone to explain it to me. What fun is that? I want to be entertained and tricked into awe.
And although I don’t believe in magic tricks I do believe in magic. The magic of timing, of bonding, the pure magic of love. Magic felt, magic seen, magic experienced.
The only magician I ever knew was time and the only magic he ever showed me was life.
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Transformed by Reena Saxena
“I have stopped writing,” he appears cold and distant in the darkness.
“Really? Will you survive without it?”
“I spent a lifetime, staining white pages and interlocking fingers with keyboards. It was heaven, it was hell, and I knew of nothing else”, he rambles on, unaware of my presence in the room.
“What do you plan to do now?” I am genuinely concerned about his mental health.
“Whatever I am ordained to do….. I experienced magic today. I saw my thoughts in a physical form.”
I walk out with heavy footsteps, knowing that he does not need me anymore.
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The Magic Pill by Ruchira Khanna
“Dr. Ali, I come to you with hope since I’ve heard that you have cured, many!” Sheela said in an earnest tone as she held her rumbling stomach.
“Yes! I treat all,” he said with confidence as he handed her a box of pills with a blank label.
“Fill out your symptoms!”
She followed his instructions with a puzzled look.
“Take 1 pill twice a day. Visit me after a month.”
A month later, ” I am cured!” she shouted with glee, “You have magic pills.”
“Nah! it’s just the placebo effect, and I’m not even a medical doctor.”
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A 1966 Really Groovy Incident by Bill Engleson
I wasn’t supposed to be home the day that Alan dropped by with Lita and Louise, two Oregonian hitchhikers.
“Picked them up on the freeway,” he said. “They need a place to crash and I…” and he explained…two rooms, one wife and a huge red setter with bladder problems.
“I can see it’d be awkward,” I commiserated, adding, “In any case, we’re a commune. We can always make extra beds magically appear.”
The Oregonians were exceptionally close.
Still, Lita and I quickly found…mutual ground.
Only Louise needed her own bed.
Everyone was good with that.
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Magic Mushrooms by Robbie Cheadle
What happened to her?” Rose asked, horrified at the red spots and broken capillaries that covered her pretty daughter’s face.
“We had to rush her to the hospital and have her stomach pumped,” said her sister.
“She was playing with Sean in the garden and they found a patch of toadstools hidden in the corner under a bush. Sean said she ate one. She wanted to grow big like Alice. She thought they were magic mushrooms.”
“Oh, my goodness, I thought I was doing a good thing when I read Alice in Wonderland to her. More context next time.”
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Childhood – A Magical Time by Susan Sleggs
Now that I’m an old lady I can say my favorite sound is a symphony of night time bug noises. I remember the music lulling me to sleep when I was a little girl and I kept the window by my bed wide open. During the day we built forts in the woods, raided the garden for snacks, and enjoyed getting dirty and tired. I didn’t know enough to worry about being hungry, having money problems, alcoholism, or cancer. Today the bug music takes me back to that magical time so I can clear my mind to fall asleep.
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Seeing Is Believing by D. Avery
“Pal, watcha doin’ way out here all by yersef?”
“Felt like bein’ alone, Kid.”
“The ranch hands is all busy corrallin’ stories ’bout magic Pal.”
“Jist wanted ta git away, lay out here unner the stars. ’Sides, I don’t believe in magic. Since yer here, set still, listen ta the popple leaves whisperin’.”
“The Ranch is out west Pal, call ’em Aspen or cottonwoods.”
“They whisper the same songs, Kid. Now look’t that big orange moon through the silhouetted treetops. Eh? Look ‘t that star strewn night sky. I tell ya Kid, it’s… it’s…”
“Magic?”
“I believe it is.”
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A Magic Sound by Susan Sleggs
“Child, open the window by my bed.”
“Nurse told me not to. Too humid tonight.”
“Don’t have nothin’ to do with hot or cold; has to do with bugs.”
“How’s that?”
“If you open that window like I asked, I can hear them bugs singin’. That sound is magic.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause that’s the first sound I remember. Lulled me to sleep before I knowed what meanness, goin’ without, prejudice, and drinkin’ was. Can still do the same if I can just hear that singin’.”
“Can I leave if I open the window so’s I don’t get blamed?”
“Course.”
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A Sprinkle of This and a Pinch of That by Norah Colvin
“Whatcha doin?”
“Makin’ a spell.”
“What sorta spell?”
“A magic spell.”
“Can I help?”
“Sure.”
“Whadda I do?”
“Put stuff in the pot.”
“What sorta stuff?”
“Gotta read the recipe.”
“What’s it say?”
“Ya gotta read it.”
“I can’t.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll help. Look, it says …”
Mum stopped at the door to the kitchen. “Wha— What are you doing?”
“Nothin’,” mumbled the older.
“Makin’ magic spells,” grinned the younger, covered in flour from head to toe.
“What sort of magic spell?” asked Mum, wishing for her own magic spell.
“Take us to outa space.”
“Can I come too?”
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The Magic of Imagination by TNKerr
Waves of assassins, ninjas, and marauders had already been turned away by the intrepid Timmy McNab. Dead and wounded were piled, like cordwood, against the back fence while weapons of all types lay scattered throughout the garden. When the whistle sounded, our hero held up one finger stopping an attacking pirate who waited; cutlass in his left hand, dagger in the right, pistol tucked into the black sash around his waist.
“Sorry, Cap’n,” That’s Mom. I gotta go, dinner time.”
“No fair, Timmy it’s my turn.” The pirate groused.
“We’ll play again tomorrow, after breakfast. You can go first.”
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Do You Believe in Magic? by Chelsea Owens
Here, he sits. The screen reflects his fat fingers, his glasses, his balding head.
Between lines of numbered reports, his memory sees small hands, perfect sight, full hair. Laughter.
There, she rests. Against the mopped floor rest her orthopedic shoes, her sore cankles, her ample midsection.
Mundane mind-wanderings recall barefoot summers, skinny legs, an inverted belly button. Happiness.
Where, do we stand? Honest bathroom mirrors capture our eye lines, our neck bulges, our long wrinkly faces.
Fleeting cognizance remembers smooth skin, thin necks, unblemished features. Smiles.
Fairy dust? Hardly. Evaporating imagination pulls us ever farther from Never-Neverland.
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Magician by Miriam Hurdle
“Danny, you’re my helper. Get me a chopstick and a cloth napkin.”
Uncle Pat shaped his left hand like a funnel, pushed the center of the napkin into it with the four corners flapping like petals. He poked the thin end of the chopstick into the napkin fiercely to the bottom, then pulled it through and shook the napkin in the air.
“Uncle, you didn’t poke a hole!”
“It’s magic.”
“Do it again.”
“Next time.”
Three days later.
“Hello, sis, how are you doing?”
“Danny poked a hole through three cloth napkins.”
“He’ll be a great magician one day.”
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Up to His Tricks (from Rock Creek) by Charli MIlls
“Wanna see a magic trick?” Hickok splayed a deck of cards to Monroe.
“Pa doesn’t like hands playing cards.” The boy glanced at the barn door expecting Cobb to materialize.
“We’re not gaming. Just magic. Pick a card, any—”
“Monroe, your Ma is asking for you. Said to bring her the hen eggs.” Sarah stood in the door, arms crossed.
Monroe shuffled and then ran out the door. Sarah had to address the new hand before he got on Cobb’s wrong side.
Ready for her scolding, Hickok winked and smiled a boyish grin. “Wanna see a magic trick?”
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Breakfast by oneletterup
Nobody even mentions the comet.
But she saw it! Last night. Out the window.
Would they even believe her?
Nobody believes her. Ever.
The little boy squints at her over his oatmeal.
“Come on…what’s your name?”
She shakes her head. Chews.
The little girl smiles at her.
If only she could stay here forever.
She wishes hard for a magic wand.
Poof! She would belong in this blue house with the swings.
This nice man. This nice lady. This little girl and little boy. And her. Safe.
She would stop remembering.
And she’d never have to go back.
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Crystal Clear by Di @ pensitivity101
The ranks were gathered, thousands staring at the wondrous sight.
Whispers of ‘where did it come from’ and ‘what was it’ filtered through the regimental columns, no-one making any effort to climb the mossy mound to investigate.
Their Leader came to the front and once he had their full attention, announced that it was indeed magic, a Gift from the Gods.
Their prayers had been answered and their diligence rewarded.
This crystal globe contained a never ending source of the water they so badly needed.
He thus called upon his ant armies to carry it and its precious cargo.
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Falling by Patrick O’Connor
There was only one explanation for what happened to me.
No one would have survived such a thing.
I was hanging over the edge of a cliff, clinging to a branch.
My strength gave out and I started falling.
Falling to the rocks below.
Just as I reached the rocks, everything went black.
I awoke on a beach, witnessing a beautiful sunrise.
The only explanation – magic.
I was in the same clothes.
I had all my memories.
But there was something even more extraordinary.
There were two moons in the sky instead of one.
I awoke in the hospital.
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Pal Pays PayPal by D. Avery
“Hey, Kid.”
“What’s up, Pal?”
“I been thinkin’ on all thet Shorty’s doin’; second anthology, the rodeo…”
“Yep. Shore is a worker. Gives so much a hersef ta the Ranch.”
“Well, Kid, I found a magic button thet’ll hep us give ta the Ranch too.”
“Thought ya didn’t believe in magic.”
“Well, I’m beginnin’ ta. Ya jist go up ta the upper left hand corner an’ push some buttons and Kazam! Magically the Ranch is gifted.”
“You ain’t so gifted though. It ain’t magic; ya gotta pay, Pal.”
“So? I’m happy ta pay fer some Ranch magic. It’s priceless.”
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Comet
With trails that stretch across the sky, some comets burn so brightly they appear during the light of day. They burn into our imaginations, sparking questions and prophecies. Some people dance (naked), some despair.
Writers flashed comets this week with tales from around the world and both hemispheres. Take a ride on a comet through the literary art of flash fiction.
The following is based on the August 16, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a comet.
PART I (10-minute read)
The Comet of 1858 by James McCanles (5th-great-grandfather of Charli Mills)
Hail! beautious stranger to our sky,
How bright thy robes appear,
Noiseless thou trends thy paths on high,
And converse with all our stars.
In radiant flame of glowing light
Thy silent orb rolls on,
Through vast eternities of night,
To mortal man unknown.
Thy magnitude thy fiery glow,
Thy towering wake of flames,
But mock our wisest skill to know,
We’ve barely learned thy name.
Through boundless depths of space unknown,
Beyond the realms of days,
In blazing language of thy own,
Thou speaks thy Maker’s praise.
Words beyond time stretch comet-like from 1858,
Oldest flash of 2018.
***
NOTE: last two lines added by C Mills to make poem 99 words.
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Comet by Anita Dawes
When I look at a comet, having been lucky enough to see one, I see a giant snowman, throwing a ball of ice across our night sky, with its tail of dust.
We look upon it with wonder.
Could this giant hand be playing Rounder’s, or maybe Alleygobs with giant marbles? Is there someone on the other side of our dark sky ready to catch them, to hold onto them for too long before we see them again?
Could it be an invisible jockey riding a sky horse or maybe a knight from some forgotten age, looking for Merlin?
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Sibling Games? by JulesPaige
There would be punishment for stealing his marbles. But only if the thief was caught. Which was why she hid them in the hem of her black velvet skirt…
Being the children of the Gods, they still behaved with human attributes. Or was it just that humans had to have excuses for their own failures?
If he wanted them back, he was going to have to look carefully. She took them into the night and with all her might tossed them into the universe. The marbles were pulled by gravity, while gaining speed and left a lingering light trail.
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The Prophecy by Colleen Chesebro ~ The Fairy Whisperer
The comet streaked across the sky dragging a fiery tail against the inky blackness. Dennitsa shivered in the gathering gloom. Her dreams of late had been infiltrated by the ancestors revealing the prophecy this celestial nomad heralded. Time was running out.
The old ways of healing-magic were in danger. Today, the Byzantine priests had instituted a plan to hunt down and kill the fairy witches, thus performing a cleansing upon the land.
Ripples of magic exploded from the woman’s form silhouetted against the night sky.
Her spirit calls out—
the continuum answers,
benevolence found.
The solution came from above.
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Stardust and a Comet by Carol Keefer
According to the J.R.R. Tolkien’s cosmology of elves, the Eldar who lived with Valar in Aman “were also called Calaquendi (Elves of the Light).” The Eldar developed their faith in magic and became magical elements in the tail of a powerful comet. As long as the Eldar drove the comet, the comet would not die. Because they left Aman, these elves did not live in the world of Arda and were subsequently unknown to the inhabitants of Middle Earth. These comet-dwelling Eldar sailed through the universe, developing new weapons and magic until they attracted the attention of an enemy.
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Ilesol (from “Quantanelle: Stranded in Space”) by Saifun Hassam
The King’s Astronomer Ilesol tracked the arc of the great Comet Cygnet across the starry skies. At midnight, he was alone in the Royal Observatory on the high plateau overlooking Port Estrella.
Comet Cygnet was known since ancient times to return to the Terran skies every seventy years.
This would be the first and only time Ilesol would see the Comet.
In that thought and moment, the Comet seemed to beckon him, to venture beyond Port Estrella, the Isle of Ilbaiyat, to travel the Great Terran Oceans, to explore unknown worlds. A brilliant light filled the observatory. Ilesol vanished!
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Comet by The Dark Netizen
“Whoa! What is that?”
Ethan had taken his little sister for camping. He looked at his little sister pointing up at the astronomical expanse. He could see what she was referring to.
“That is a comet.”
“A comet? What are those?”
Ethan adored his little sister. However, the way she asked so many questions about everything annoyed him to no end. He decided to have some fun.
“A comet is an alien flying so fast, that its ass starts burning, and it leaves a trail.”
“So cool!! We spotted an alien.”
*Many miles above*
“How did the earthling know?”
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Comet by Robbie Cheadle
From the small window of the rocket, it looked like an enormous snowball. Comprised of frozen gases, rock and dust, it was the size of a small town. The astronauts realized with horror that there was no escaping it. The rocket lay directly in its path.
As the frozen ball’s orbit brought it closer to the sun, it obliterated the rocket, ending its urgent mission immediately. The comet heated up, releasing dust and gas which formed a glowing head and long trailing tail. The people of Earth rejoiced in its beauty, not realising the loss they had just suffered.
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Origins of Comets (from Rock Creek) by Charli Mills
Sarah spread a quilt on the knoll above Rock Creek to watch the night sky.
“The year before I was born, stars landed.” Yellow Feather pulled a pitted gray stone from his medicine pouch. He passed it to Nancy Jane.
“Feels kinda like lumpy metal.”.
“It’s heavy, too. This is a star?” asked Sarah.
Yellow Feather said, “My grandfather found it where many small stars burned the prairie grass.”
“Look – there’s one,” said Nany Jane.
“I saw it! Did you see Comet Donati last year?”
Yellow Feather laughed. “Comet Donati? That was just First Shaman urinating across the sky.”
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How The Stars Aligned by Geoff Le Pard
‘There’s a comet passing tonight, Morgan.’
‘Huh? So?’
‘No, come on. Even you must see how extraordinary these things are.’
‘They’re a bunch of rocks and ice, Logan. You may think watching space grit is fascinating but I’ll stick to the footie.’
‘These are nature’s warnings. They portend the great events of history. The Battle of Hastings, Genghis Khan’s attack on Europe.’
‘Rubbish. Your average Russian isn’t interested in Hastings.’
‘You know what significant event occurred when Halley’s last appeared? It changed the world as we know it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We started school together and you stole my banana.’
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What do YOU Wish For? by Chelsea Owens
“I wish to be a famous dancer!”
“I wanna be a millionaire!”
“I want to build the world’s first robotic house!”
They all turned to their silent friend.
“What do you wish for, Chelsea?”
“I can’t tell.”
Shrugging, they watched the comet pass, carrying their wishes. It would return in ten years’ time, granting them what they had asked.
Carly would be a dancer.
Tanner would be rich.
Edward would be building robots.
And Chelsea? She didn’t know. How could the comet possibly turn her into a cosmic fairy able to soar through the night sky as it did?
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Comet Hale Bopp by Miriam Hurdle
“What a crispy night to look at the stars.”
“Yes, it is. A good crowd here. I’m Tim.”
“Hi, Tim. I’m Eric, this is my wife Jan. Jan Hale and Eric Bopp.”
“Hale-Bopp, like the comet?”
“You know it? My dad saw it in New Mexico.” Sparks jump out from Jan’s eyes.
“My dad saw it too in Arizona.”
“My dad saw it first.”
“Your dad emailed the astronomical discoveries. My dad sent a telegram. They got the email faster than the telegram.”
“Who sent a telegram in 1995?”
“Your dad was only a hyphen faster than my dad.”
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Once in my Lifetime by TNKerr
I was twenty-four the last time it came, that periodic star that causes ships to ground. She was twenty-six. We drove to the desert’s edge and climbed Blue Mesa in the dark; leaving behind the city lights, the traffic sounds, and the sounds of club music that floated incessantly through the downtown streets. In the stillness we spread our blanket and made love waiting for and watching Edmund Halley’s dirty snowball with it’s retrograde orbit and curved tail. She speculated that lovers had done the same for thousands of years before and will continue to until the comet dies.
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Scope by Floridaborne
“Mira,” Frank said, pointing up at the sky. “A comet!”
She looked through her telescope. “Nope.”
“Why do you always disagree with me?”
She chuckled at him, an act that served only to fuel his umbrage. “Peer through the scope. What do you see?”
“I don’t need that thing to recognize a comet!”
“Are you afraid I might be right?” Mira asked, cocking her head to the side like a puzzled parrot.
“Women!” Frank cursed. Through the telescope, a 3-fingered, grey being waved at him. “God almighty!”
“I told you so, Frank,” she said, waving up at the light.
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Bequest by Liz Huseby Hartmann
It started as a tone, growing in volume and pitch as it resolved itself into a bright streak, slicing silver blue through an opaque night sky. The tone grew to harmonies as dark stars broke free and distributed themselves across the horizon.
“By all rights, we shouldn’t be able to see anything.”
“Magic tops meteorology!”
“Ha! You just made a pun.”
The first one rolled its eyes as the other two giggled. The dark star slowed, resolving to a single, sweet contralto. It landed in the clearing with a fragrant whump of meadow grasses, rolling, unfolding, and standing tall.
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Believe Me by Reena Saxena
I don’t know why the Comet chose privacy, when it struck me. The media remained oblivious of change.
I am transformed. I am blessed with supernatural powers. I can see and hear things other mortals cannot. They do not believe that I am going to outlive them. The idiots have locked me up in a cell in the mental asylum.
I do not seek revenge. I seek enlightenment for all. I pray for another comet to strike them, so that they see and believe what I say. We are all made of stardust.
But, I am the chosen one.
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Heaven’s Gate Away Team by Anne Goodwin
I stared and stared, praying for God to reward me. To grant me a glimpse of that celestial spaceship carried in the comet’s tail. But Marshall’s vision was sharper than mine. And his faith.
When the time came, we swallowed the elixir, pocketed the interplanetary toll. We lay on our bunks, veiled in purple cloths. We waited.
The pain was my soul struggling to escape the bonds of my body. The moans were angels serenading us to the sky. Paralysis signalled I was becoming transhuman. And yet.
What if Hale-Bopp were simply a comet? What if Marshall were wrong?
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The Idiot by Anurag Bakhshi
They’re right, I AM an idiot.
Moreover, I had to demonstrate my stupidity to the entire world, with my doomsday predictions of comets, and meteors, and asteroids.
I’d even set a date for the collision, yesterdays.
But they laughed at me, while I hid with my family in the bunker that I’d constructed for us.
I should go out and admit to my failure now. Maybe I can just blame it on my tiny brain.
Their brains are much larger. That’s why the dinosaurs have ruled over us for ages, and we cockroaches will soon die out, I’m sure.
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PART II (10-minute read)
Perseid Meteor Shower 2018 by katimac
I lay in bed, drifting to sleep in a window filled with falling stars.
A cool breeze wafted across my nose, and stardust drifted in my eyes.
A cat shadow crept along the window sill. She sniffed the screen and sneezed stars.
“Gedsunheit,” I whispered. Her eyes glowed disdainfully down at me, starlight reflected in them.
Meteors competed with the moon as they exploded overhead, casting noon-bright shadows on the side of the barn outside my window. Horses stood in the paddock in silent awe, watching the spectacle with equine aplomb.
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Hair! Up in the Sky by Bill Engleson
“There!” I point skyward.
She looks up sharply, asks, “Where?”
“It’s gone.”
I, of course, hang my head and repeat, “gone.”
“That fast?”
“You gotta be quick,” I tease. “Don’t call them comets for nothing.”
“So, smart guy…what else do you know?”
This poses a challenge. I’m never quick to put on my thinking cap.
She knows this. Oh, I’m good for a slick rib poke but actual knowledge…that’s a puzzler.
“You got me,” I confess, adding “Halley’s Comet.”
“What about it?”
“Well, I know I’ll be 114 when it rolls around again.”
“Good luck with that,” she laughs.
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Pamela Comet by Ruchira Khanna
1990
High School Reunion
Pamela, the brunette at the age of 23, was huffing and puffing about her new husband to her friends.
“Then, what do you?” inquired one of them.
“I raise my voice. I argue. I fight until he bows thee!” she said with a wink and triumphant smile.
2015
Pamela meets her old friends who inquire about her life. She blushed at first then pushed the stray grey hair behind her ear, ” I was like a comet, bright at the head, but years changed my perception allowing me to tail away from the headstrong attitude.
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Winning at Charades by Molly Stevens
Rosie was excited about an evening of charades with her women friends.
She glanced at her word and said, “This will be tough.” But having once yearned for a career in the theater she knew she was up to the task.
She pointed to the sky and mimicked staring through a telescope.
“Star! Constellation! Astronomy!”
Rosie shook her head no. Then she stretched her arms in a dramatic upward sweeping motion and assumed an awestruck expression.
With no answer forthcoming, she kneeled on her hands and knees. Pretending to sprinkle something onto the floor, she started scrubbing.
“Comet!”
“Yes!”
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Comet by Jack Schuyler
Janet scrubbed with all her might, but the brown ring remained. As she did every day, leaning over the toilet bowl, she found herself hating her job. The same stains, the same sore arms, and the same cleaning solutions.
She had studied astronomy in school, but apparently there was no more need for people who looked up at the stars. Now she only found herself looking down.
She dumped more Comet into the toilet and scrubbed with irritated vigor. Comet, The irony of the name stung. There was one shooting start that would never make her dreams come true.
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Impeding Doom by Susan Sleggs
“Who cares if I don’t know the difference between a meteor and a comet?”
“I care, as a science professor, you embarrass me.”
“Well la-dee-da Mr. Education. Is it true a comet warns of impending doom?”
“That’s all myth. Science has advanced enough that we know better.”
“Perhaps this one is warning of our doom.”
“It’s not going to hurt us.”
“You give me no credit. I was thinking of how doomed our marriage is.”
“You may have a point.”
“Maybe I could catch a ride on its tail to a happier galaxy.”
“They don’t leave our galaxy. Sorry.”
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Comet’s Tail by Abhijit Ray
Rahul was alone on the terrace in this moonless night. A comet appeared on the night sky with its long tail following luminous body.
“Kind of like our life would you not agree” observed Heena softly, “a promising career, a high profile marriage, followed by a trail of scandals and a messy divorce.”
Internally, Rahul accepted his failed career compounded his drinking and philandering habits, culminating in divorce from Heena. He simply did not want to hear about his weakness from Heena.
He did not want to extend comet’s tail any farther by strangling her.
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Close Call by Patrick O’Connor
“You never know what you’ll see ‘round these parts.”
Stanley spoke to Bert on the carpool drive to work. 4:30am rise time.
Hit the road by 5:15am in order to make it to the factory on time.
“Yup. Sure don’t.” said Bert.
Suddenly, in the sky in front of them, a huge ball of fire, complete with a sonic boom.
“Jiminy Cricket!” shouted Stanley, Startling Bert.
“Woah! That’s big.”
“Look there! It’s gonna hit!”
Across the sky, the ball of flame got closer.
Suddenly, there was a flash and the comet (meteor) burned out.
“Whew! That was close.”
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You Should Have Listened to Me by Robert Kirkendall
“I see a dark omen ahead for you,” the sorceress warned.
“Well that’s a bummer,” the man said nonchalantly.
“Heed my words!” the sorceress reiterated. “When a comet appears that is aligned with one of the planets, it will spell your doom!”
“How does a comet align with a planet?” the man said dismissively. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Doubt me at your own peril!”
“Planets move in orbits, comets go in a straight line,” the man explained condescendingly. “Crazy old bat,” the man chuckled and left.
He crossed the street and was struck by an old Mercury Comet.
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Comet by Deborah Lee
“They say our origins dictate our path in life, our fate,” Henry says. He looks at the homeless tent city around them. “The son of a teacher and a CPA, upright churchgoers, shouldn’t end up without an old-age pot to piss in, wouldn’t you think?”
Jane laughs ruefully. “I was conceived on a hot summer night, in the blaze of forbidden teenage passion, in the backseat of a ‘64 Mercury Comet,” she tells him. “Shouldn’t that make for a charmed life?”
Henry tops her wine cup, his grin brilliant. “Maybe, maybe not. I’d love to have that car, though.”
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The Signifier by Margaret G. Hanna
A hot summer night.
Two friends, friends since high school, different in backgrounds but united by their uniqueness. Friends through husbands, children, divorces.
They sat together on a park bench by the river walkway, watched couples stroll by hand in hand, a canoe slide down the river. Heard a whippoorwill call. Felt a gentle breeze. Contemplated the white slash of the comet against the ink-black sky.
“Medieval people believed a comet signified the end of the world.”
A glance exchanged. A wry smile shared.
“They were wrong. It’s the beginning of a new world.”
They clasped hands. Embraced. Kissed.
🥕🥕🥕
Elgin: Our Cross-County Rival by Nancy Brady
In the early sixties, it became common for smaller schools to consolidate into larger schools. My county was no different with several schools opting to consolidate. Not my school, however; our district chose otherwise!
Elgin became one of those county schools; it was supposedly named by combining the three schools that made up the new school: LaRue, Green Camp, and New Bloomington. Elgin even named their mascot based upon America’s new obsession of space.
Elgin was our biggest football rival, and often, the conference championship hinged on the last game, us against them, with the Comets streaking to victory.
🥕🥕🥕
An Imperfect Proposal by Norah Colvin
“What the…?”
He scrambled through bushes, slipping and sliding on twigs and gravel in haste to his love. When he reached her, she was doubled over holding her belly.
“What happened?”
She shook her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought…” Her body shook.
“What?” he soothed, wiping away tears.
“Snake… I thought…” She pointed.
On the bed lay the strap of his telescope bag coiled neatly.
“You’re laughing?”
She nodded.
——
Camping became their family tradition, but their children’s favourite story was of the “snake” that frightened Mum, not of the comet that graced the sky the night that he proposed.
🥕🥕🥕
Speed Demon by Ann Edall-Robson
Crouched by the fence she watched, reminiscing, smiling at her childhood partner in crime. They had been a formidable team. Each day they had forged rivers, hid in canyons and chased foe. Together, their teamwork had conquered imaginary obstacles. No chore was too tough for them. Sometimes reckless, but always sure-footed, and with mane and tail flying in the wind. She laughed, remembering their nickname, Speed Demon. Those days were gone now. Slowly he came toward her, head high, ears at attention, looking for a treat. Standing, she called her trusted friend, the one she had named Comet.
🥕🥕🥕
Comet by Frank Hubeny
There are stars out, but that doesn’t mean anyone notices. However, the comet was special. People pointed it out proving how smart they were being able to see what others told them about.
Charles didn’t care. He looked at Anne’s eyes.
Sure, they were told about the comet, the rare comet that comes once in a million years. “You better look while you have the chance!” “You may never see something like that again!” “Don’t miss it!”
They looked, but they were not sure they saw anything particularly remarkable out there. They were more interested in each other’s eyes.
🥕🥕🥕
Goodnight by Di @ pensitivity101
Emily was sitting up and looking out of the window, fascinated by the bright star in the night sky.
She turned to her Dad who had just finished reading her a bedtime story.
‘Do you think she can see us Daddy?’
He felt a lump in his throat and tears fill his eyes. It had been only two months since
Nancy had been taken so cruelly from them.
‘I think so Sweetie.’
Emily waved at the comet and snuggled under the sheets, then looked across at the empty bed where her twin used to sleep.
‘Night, sis.’ she said softly.
🥕🥕🥕
Make a Wish! by Deepa
as a child
I always thought
airplanes were stars
that carried
wishes and requests
from
one country
to another
my heart pains
because
every time
I try
catching
the fireflies
I thought
they were
shooting stars
‘Hey! shooting star
make a wish!’
I heard me say
even though
astronomy teaches
not to expect
anything out of
something that occurs
once in 75 years
today
I wish upon
Halley’s Comet
to show my son
who I lost
to terminated pregnancy
several years back
for unknown reasons
🥕🥕🥕
A Thousand Wishes by Kay Kingsley
The sunset fades into dusk. Bright pinks and reds slowly change to burnt shades of orange and purple. The horizon glow dims as the blanket of night covers all.
The rising hum of crickets and frogs fill the summer night and a warm breeze welcomes us to settle in like the flashing of lights before a performance begins.
Time to take your seat. The show is about to begin.
With excitement the event begins as the first comet streaks the sky.
Tonight is a night of a thousand wishes and with all of mine I wish you were here.
🥕🥕🥕
Comet by oneletterup
The screen door slams behind them.
She rushes past the little boy. Runs upstairs.
The little girl stays behind.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I think she’s scared,” the little girl answers, eyes wide.
“Someone was spying on us from the woods!”
They like this new silent mysterious guest.
She stays upstairs. They let her be.
Day becomes night.
She crawls from under the bed.
Peeks out the window, eyes scanning left and right.
Nobody out there.
Transfixed by the starry night, she sees it.
A blazing white streak across the sky.
Like from the book.
A comet!
She remembers.
🥕🥕🥕
Billy & The Comet by Grae:)
“The ‘Comet’ is coming!” hollered little Billy Ollerenshaw, at the top of his voice. “The ‘Comet!’ Billy passed by nos. 17 and 19 Combination Street heading towards the town centre.
“Do you think he’d be so happy if he knew that it was a rogue comet that is going to destroy the Earth, rather than that old steam train that he so loves? He has a picture of it on his wall.”
Mrs. Ekkerslike was a placid lady, the far side of sixty, and resigned to her fate.
“Best to let him think of a steam train.” said Mrs. Wensleydale, sighing.
🥕🥕🥕
Heavenly Calling by Ritu Bhathal
It was 1910. She was ten. She’d often sit on her windowsill, legs dangling, staring out at the stars. That night, she’d seen something different, a ball of light travelling through the sky.
Haley’s Comet.
She never expected to see that in her lifetime again, and yet here she was, in 1986, eyes trained on the stars, with her ten-year-old granddaughter for company.
A ball of light flashed through the sky. Doris smiled and sat back.
“I saw it! Did you see it? Gramma!! Did you see it?” Rosie turned to her grandma.
Gramma sat, eyes closed, at peace.
🥕🥕🥕
Are You Ready to Rodeo?
To a buckaroo community, the annual rodeo was a chance to show off skills of the trade: reining a cow-horse, throwing a loop and dallying a rope, wrestling a steer to the ground, and tying a goat. Yours truly was the Goat Tying Champion of a long-forgotten rodeo.
I still remember the smell of horse apples condensed in the stalls where all the ranchers and buckaroos boarded their horses during the three-day event. My red hair sported gold yarn bows at the end of each braid, and I had a brand-new felt hat the color of a chocolate lab.
I’d been practicing with the migrant children down at the barn. We could all toss a goat with the same ease our fathers and uncles could take a steer to the ground — it was all about mastering leverage. After practice, we’d eat pinto beans and tortillas. Someone would pass around a homemade jar of pickled jalapenos. The cowboys all laughed as we kids tried to act tough.
My grandmother grew and pickled jalapenos every summer so by the age of six I didn’t even wince.
Practice and peppers prepared me for what happened that rodeo. I drew last and waited my turn to ride my horse as fast as he’d run from one end of the arena to where the goat was tied to a stake. I had my length of rope in one hand and reins in the other. I was fired up and ready!
Then, the contestant before me rode his horse over the goat, injuring it. No one had thought to have a backup goat, so the event temporarily paused as one was located. I don’t know where they found this goat, but he was bigger than any I had tossed. He was triple the size of the goat all the other kids had tied.
And I was the youngest and smallest.
With a click of the tongue, a shout of “Haw!” and giving my horse his head we flew across that clumpy arena sod to the Big Billy. I jumped off my horse, and the chase was on. I grabbed the rope, held mine in my teeth and grabbed my way to the goat. I wrestled and tried every leverage move I had learned. He broke free and butted me with his horns. I grabbed the rope again. And again. And Again.
Finally, I tied that goat and received the worst time that rodeo. That wasn’t the year I won the trophy, but it was the year I won the respect of my buckaroo community. I had grit. I had tenacity.
Writers have to have the grit of a buckaroo who carries his saddle between rodeos. Writers have to have the tenacity to not quit the longest ride they’ll ever have chasing publication the way bull-riders chase those perfect 8-seconds. Writers have to be willing to take down the big goats.
That’s why we rodeo at Carrot Ranch. All year we practice the literary art form of flash fiction in 99 words, no more, no less. So once a year we put those skills and safe writes to the test. We rodeo.
A rodeo is a contest in which writers show their skills with the flash fiction form. It’s an exciting break from the weekly challenges and an opportunity to compete. Like a cowboy rodeo, this event includes different contest categories to show off a variety of skills. The 2018 Flash Fiction Rodeo runs October 1-31.
Contestants will get to wrangle tight word constraints, tell emotive, compelling and surprising stories, and write across genres and audiences. Some contests will call for specific craft skills, like using dialog to carry a story. Other contests will add twists to the prompts.
The following Rodeo Leaders return to stimulate your writing this October: Geoff Le Pard, Irene Waters, Sherri Matthews, Norah Colvin, and D. Avery. Over the next five weeks, each leader will introduce you to their contest, judges, and tips for competing. Each contest comes with a top prize for the winner: $25.
Unfortunately, it was too big of a billy goat for me to get a digital book together from all the entrants last year. We had more words than I anticipated and much editing was needed to include all the stories. I do an anthology once a year, too and I was unable to edit two big projects. Having learned from my first flash fiction rodeo, I will post a full collection of each contest up to a manageable word count.
That means I’ll be picking the most polished and accurate. After all, it is a contest, so here are a few tips for winning or getting selected to be in the collection:
- Be exact in word count (use Word Press or a word counter tool).
- Read the directions, complete the response, and re-read the directions again. Revise.
- Set your first draft aside for at least a day. You’ll edit better fresh.
- Read your entry out loud. You’ll catch word omissions or clunky phrasing.
- Take time to polish your most important words — verbs. Use active voice.
We will be simplifying rules and focusing on 99 words. Each contest will offer a week for contestants to respond. Contests will post every Tuesday at 12:09 a.m. EST (set your clock to New York City). Contests will close the following Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. EST. We’ll be using the forms for submission. If you’ve been practicing the weekly challenges, this will all be familiar to you.
Now to add a bite of jalapenos to this rodeo!
How tough do you think you are as a writer? Got grit? Got tenacity? Got skill? Then you might be willing to try the TUFFest Ride. Now, pay attention because this contest is not simple and it begins in September. I’m looking for the Fab Five (yes, I have the Fab Five Leaders, but I also want five fabulously tenacious writers with skills).
The TUFFest Ride. Here’s how it’ll go:
- In September, writers will have five chances to enter a 24-hour free-write (September 1, 7, 13, 19, 25). You only have to enter once to qualify. Free-write will be 297 words (that’s three 99-word flash fictions).
- October 1: Writers tune into a live video posted at Carrot Ranch Facebook Page for the announcement of who will be selected the Fab Five from the September entries. These five writers will have five days to do a new free-write.
- October 8: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 99-word challenge to rewrite their free-write. They will have five days to write.
- October 15: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 59-word challenge to rewrite their 99-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 22: The Fab Five tune into a live video for a twist to a 9-word challenge to rewrite their 59-word story. They will have five days to write.
- October 29: The Fab Five tune into a live video to find out which three advance. The remaining three contestants will have 24 hours to write a final 495-word story from their TUFF exhibition.
- November 2: First, second and third place announced. All five contestants will win a prize (yet to be determined, based on sponsors).
The TUFFest Ride is a big billy goat commitment and a true test of flash fiction writing skills. Our leaders are eligible to enter, as are any judges. Leaders and judges won’t enter contests they lead or judge.
My TUFF judges are two of my grittiest Copper Country friends — Cynthia Drake, who some of you might recognize from my posts about the landslide that hit her Ripley home in June. She is living in our RV and beginning the long hard process to rebuild. Laura Smythe is our mutual friend, a New York City-educated poet and fellow instructor at Finlandia University. She’s also a publisher and book designer. By fun coincidence, she designed one of the books of a Rough Writer! They are both up to the challenge with me. And I hope you are, too!
Tips to strategize TUFF:
- Breathe. Control your breath, and you control your mind.
- Enter as many of the 24-hour September free-writes as you want.
- Or focus on one date and be prepared for the revealed prompt.
- Remember, initially, it’s a free-write. Don’t think, write. Be outlandish, surprise yourself. This is what “follow the prompt” prepares you for in writing creatively.
- Be willing to commit to the October write-offs if you win a Fab Five slot.
Next Tuesday, join Geoff Le Pard as he offers tips for his October 3 Flash Fiction Rodeo Contest.
Carrot Ranch Weekly Flash Fiction Challenges will go on hiatus after the September 20 challenge. It returns November 1. If you are not interested in contests, you can play as a challenger. Or check out the expanded Advanced Flash Fiction Challenges to do on your own.
August 16: Flash Fiction Challenge
The sun dips late, casting its copper hue over Lake Superior. The lower it sinks, the redder it grows and forms a brilliant pink path from horizon to shore. The sky takes forever to darken in the Northern Hemisphere even after summer solstice. Sparkling planets and stars pop like diamond studs across a jeweler’s midnight blue velvet.
This is the season of the Perseid meteor showers. Time to wish upon shooting stars.
JulesPaige reminded me about the connection of comets to my WIP, Rock Creek. In 1858, before Cobb McCanles left Watauga County, North Carolina with his one-time mistress, Sarah Shull, a comet had featured in the October sky and slowly faded by the time the two left in February 1859.
Cobb’s Father James McCanless, known as The Poet, marked the occasion of Comet Donati:
THE COMET OF 1858
Hail! beautious stranger to our sky,
How bright thy robes appear,
Noiseless thou treds thy paths on high,
And converse with all our stars.In radiant flame of glowing light
Thy silent orb rolls on,
Through vast eternities of night,
To mortal man unknown.Thy magnitude thy fiery glow,
Thy towering wake of flames,
But mock our wisest skill to know,
We’ve barely learned thy name.Through boundless depths of space unknown,
Beyond the realms of days,
In blazing language of thy own,
Thou speaks thy Maker’s praise.
This week, I’m sharing a different kind of post, a longer scene that features the Comet Donati. I shared this in 2014 when I wrote the first draft of Rock Creek. Although my novel has evolved from this early writing, including my later decision to give Cobb two bs to his name, this scene holds an essential piece of the later tragedy that unfolds for the McCanles family who had hoped to escape the coming war.
Perhaps the comet was not the glorious sign James thought it to be. It turned out to be a natural phenomenon occurring before an unnaturally violent war between families and neighbors. Unfortunately, human contempt is not as uncommon as a visible comet.
Excerpt From Rock Creek:
“Truthfully, it grows fainter as it passes us by. Comet Donati,” said James.
“That’s a pretty name.” The cider was sweet and warm as Sarah drank.
“It’s named after the Italian astronomer who first sighted it last summer.”
“Is it an omen?”
James leaned against the oak tree and looked skyward. “Omens are for old ladies.”
“What do the old ladies say? It’s not as if any speak to me.”
“They say that such terrible lights burn for killed kings and slain heroes. They say a bloodbath is coming.”
Sarah shuddered. “And what do you say?”
James raised his upturned hand to the comet. “Thou speaks thy Maker’s praise.”
A clomping of hooves sounded from the snow-covered road. Cob was walking Captain and leading another horse.
“Evening, Da, Sarah. Are you ready, lass?” Cob swung down from Captain and stood eye-to-eye with his father.
“Might I dissuade you son?”
“You may not. What it done, is done and now I must flee. Leroy will follow with his family and mine in the spring.” He grabbed Sarah’s bundle and began to tie it to the saddle of the second horse. Sarah wondered if she would have to walk.
“I cannot imagine a more beautiful place than Watauga, this lovely vale. I brought my children here to make a home. And now my children leave. My grandchildren, too.”
“Da, come out with Leroy. Get out of here before the war.”
“Bah! These traitors who talk of succession are just blustering. A new President. We have a Constitutional Unionist on the ticket…”
“Enough of politics.The west is were we can prosper.”
“Yes, and I hear that Mormons can have many wives.” James looked pointedly at Sarah.
“Leave her be, Da. Mary knows I’m getting her out of this place so she can have a fresh start, too.”
“Do not be leading your family to a cruel fate, David Colbert.”
The two men grasped arms until James pulled Cob to him. “May angles guard over your journey. Your mother and I shall weep in our old age, not seeing the single smokestack of any of our offspring.”
“Come with Leroy, Da. At least go to Tennessee. It’s safer at Duggers Ferry and you’ll have two daughters to spoil you in old dotage.”
“Ach, I’m not leaving my native land. How could I stray from the Watauga River? Who would fish her silver ribbons the way I do?”
“Then mind yourself angling and take care of mother. Fare thee well, Da.”
To Sarah’s surprise, Cob reached for her and slung her up into the saddle as easily as he had tossed her bundle. He swung up behind her and seated her sideways on his lap. He nudged Captain and the horse responded with a spirited trot.
Sarah heard James call, “Farewell.” His voice sounded choked with tears, yet she couldn’t deny her joy at leaving this place. She would be a free woman.
It was hard not to fidget and the night grew even colder. Sarah watched the comet as they rode up the mountains, cresting the ridge and breaking through drifts of snow. Occasionally they would pass a cabin or farm, a coon dog barking in the distance, but no other signs of life.
“Where are we going, exactly,” asked Sarah. West seemed like a grand place, but she had no idea where west or how long it would take.
“We’ll catch the train at Johnson’s Tank.” His voice rumbled in the cold silence of the mountains.
Johnson’s Tank was a start. Sarah had never seen a train and now she would get to ride on one. Somehow she failed to summon the earlier excitement and she glanced at the comet, hoping it meant nothing at all. Yet, it had to mean something. It was no coincidence that it appeared in her darkest hour of despair or that it was still present the night she escaped the damnation of her family’s punishment. It had to be a sign for good. Her lucky star.
Sarah must have dozed off because she awoke, startled to see the light of dawn shining from behind them. They had ridden out of the the mountains and the land before them was rolling with woods and fields.
“You awake?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I have to stop.” Cob reined in Captain. “Slide down,” he told her.
Sarah did and hopped to the ground that was wet with dew and free of snow. Cob dismounted and handed her the reins. He stepped a few paces and with his back to her, she heard him urinating. Her face grew flush and she realized she needed to do the same, but how could she?
“Do you have to go?”
“No.” She stood uncomfortably aware that she had to go even more now that she had denied it.
“Just go.” He took the reins from her.
“Here?”
“Pick a clump of grass and sprinkle it with dew. How about that clump there?” Cob pointed to a small bent row of grass in front of Captain.
Sarah looked each direction and finally walked around to the other side of the horses. Lifting her skirts and spreading her knickers she squatted with her back to the horses feeling somewhat shielded. Her stream sounded like a roaring river in her ears. Rearranging her underclothes and skirts, she turned around to see Cob leaning against Captain staring at her with a big boyish grin. “I knew you had to go.”
“Do not watch me!” Sarah turned away, feeling the flush rise from her neck to her scalp.
“It’s natural.” He chuckled.
“For men, perhaps.” She turned back around and glared.
“Oh? And women politely pass on pissing? What happens when you have to…”
“That’s enough!”
“Time to mount up, my damsel in distress.” Cob bowed as if he were a gallant.
“Rogue.”
###
Thank you for indulging my historical fiction as a post this week. For those of you who’ve kindly expressed interest in my veteran saga, we are still in a holding pattern, waiting for news on whether or not the Hub will “get a bed” in Minneapolis. His therapist is now pushing to help that cause, as well.
On the Keweenaw homefront, we have the urgent sense of savoring every last ray of summer sunshine. Winter is coming. And for our writing prompt this week, so are comets.
August 16, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a comet. You can consider how it features into a story, influences a character, or creates a mood. Go where the prompt leads.
Respond by August 21, 2018. Use the comment section below to share, read and be social. You may leave a link, pingback or story in the comments.
Origins of Comets (from Rock Creek) by Charli Mills
Sarah spread a quilt on the knoll above Rock Creek to watch the night sky.
“The year before I was born, stars landed.” Yellow Feather pulled a pitted gray stone from his medicine pouch. He passed it to Nancy Jane.
“Feels kinda like lumpy metal.”.
“It’s heavy, too. This is a star?” asked Sarah.
Yellow Feather said, “My grandfather found it where many small stars burned the prairie grass.”
“Look – there’s one,” said Nany Jane.
“I saw it! Did you see Comet Donati last year?”
Yellow Feather laughed. “Comet Donati? That was just First Shaman urinating across the sky.”
Peering From the Woods
Peering from the woods, we feel the watcher. Friendly? Curious? Dangerous? The woods around the world can be jungle, bush, forest, a backyard. It’s a tangle of shadows, a spot to hide.
Writers contemplate the watcher’s next move. They craft the place and people involved. Peering from the woods, stories emerge. (Photo Credit: J. Madland)
August 9, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes an act of “peering from the woods.”
PART I (10-minutes)
Ed in the Woods by Charli Mills
Ed was peering at me again. I could feel his gaze crawl across my shoulders. Let me finish the chapter, Ed. The Legendary Leaphorn is in the arroyo. The tickle continues. I persevere, finish the chapter and set down Tony Hillerman’s latest southwest detective book.
Snagging a sip from my gin, tonic, and blueberries, I grab a fresh-husked corn.
Ed still peers at me from the edge of the woods. His ears twist like radar. Slowly I raise my offering. He hesitates, leans in and nibbles from my hand. The deer dashes off, leaving me to read in peace.
🥕🥕🥕
Into the Forest by Jack Schuyler
I peered into the woods and the woods peered back.
“Enter into my respite.” Said the woods. It spoke in tongues of wind and beckoned me with all the rhythms of the earth. “Walk beneath my shade, swim in my streams, eat of my harvest.”
“But mother told me no.” I replied, “She says beasts of night roam your shadows and sweet poisons wait beneath your trees.”
“All true,” growled the forest, “and you would do well to heed her advice. But if you stay in the shelter of the village, do not expect to share in my treasures.”
🥕🥕🥕
Mountain Lion by Heather Gonzalez
“Aren’t there mountain lions in these woods?” Samantha shivered as she pulled her sleeping back closer to her body.
“Stop worrying so much and just enjoy it.” Jack turned off the lantern and settled in.
Noises kept coming from beyond the clearing. Jack had fallen asleep and no amount of whispering for help would wake him. Samantha slowly unzipped the tent to peer out upon her fate. She saw the eyes peering from the woods and froze in fear. There was nowhere to run.
A soft meow came from behind the bushes.
“Some mountain lion you are.” she laughed.
🥕🥕🥕
Luminesce (from “Lynx Valley Biohabitat”) by Saifun Hassam
Valerie and Carmen tracked Luminesce to a tumbled mass of boulders and ledges. The bobcat’s den was hidden by tangled vines and woody shrubs.
Lynx Valley Biohabitat was a mix of woodlands and open scrub land. Tall grass grew along the Lissoire River. From the Rover, Valerie caught the glint of eyes peering from the woods.
Luminesce stole into the tall grass. A panicked rabbit shot out. Near the river, the red deer froze. With powerful strides, the bobcat pounced ferociously on the deer. She dragged it through the tall grass, to her waiting cubs at the woods’ edge.
🥕🥕🥕
Sad Cat Diary: Wildlife Edition by Robert Kirkendall
The mountain lion came up to the forest’s edge drawn by the scent of food. She peered from the woods at a flock of livestock in a nearby pasture.
One of those sheep could feed me and my little ones for a week, the mountain lion thought as she longed for the forbidden sustenance, but if I take one, the humans will come after me and kill me! I only want one, the lion moped, and they have so many, it isn’t fair.
The dejected feline slouched in defeat. Why must the humans be so cruel? she wondered piteously.
🥕🥕🥕
Lone Ranger by Nancy Brady
Going crazy, our cat saw something in the dark that she felt shouldn’t be in her territory. At first, I couldn’t see anything, but her night vision is better. But then I noticed the glint of dark eyes staring at us from the wildflower garden. A tangle of weeds and flowers blossom on the edge of the property, allowing for fauna hiding within, and on this night, the masked bandit was hiding inside.
Why the raccoon was there wasn’t apparent until the next day when we discovered our sweet corn was decimated, a tasty snack for a midnight marauder.
🥕🥕🥕
Watching Out for the Birdwatcher by Anne Goodwin
Birdseed on the fence post again. My heart skips. Who would dare feed animals when people starve? An ornithologist, that’s who. Another forbidden word.
Scrambling over the layers of barbed wire, I pick my way through a soggy carpet of mashed leaves into the shelter of the trees. Birds flit from branch to branch, their sweet song sweeping all worries from my mind. Then I hear it, smell it: someone’s stopped at the fence.
Peering from the woods, I must be dreaming. Whacko has a gentle side? Something to use against him the next time he brandishes his cane.
🥕🥕🥕
Possum by kate @ aroused
Polly swung through the forest
of large macadamia trees
drawn by the scent of ripened fruit
She spied a woolly alpaca herd
grazing contentedly with a horse
Buster watched on from a distance
But Polly was blinded by the sun soaked
fields as she was accustomed to the dark
yet the orchard beckoned heavy with fruit
She would have to wait until dark
to scamper across those open fields
to gorge on a gluttonous banquet
Alpacas and horse would by asleep
but Buster might be on alert
so she would need a sprinting spurt!
Polly’s long peep was fruitful!
🥕🥕🥕
Flash Fiction by Di @ pensitivity101
Here’s Looking at You.
Did you hear it? That gentle rustling in the leaves.
Did you see it? A quick flash of a white flagged rump.
Did you catch it? Yes, but only on film.
Did it see you? Most definitely, it was looking right at me.
I often wonder what animals think of us humans when they see us intruding on their domain. I am certain there are more creatures looking at us than we realise.
The woods are alive with insects, snakes, animals and birds.
It is their world, and we abuse it. In fact, we’re killing it with our pollution.
🥕🥕🥕
The Heat of the Day by Carol Keefer
The clearing in the forest was so bright, filled to the rim with hot sunlight suddenly free of trees to beam down and touch the earth with its heat. I had had enough of the sun’s heat and wanted only to observe this quiet, serene oasis from a point in the shade of trees so I peered from the woods. Suddenly, a black grizzly and a doe sprang from the trees on the other side. What could be pursuing them? They were running together. It was only a few minutes later when I smelled the smoke wafting towards me.
🥕🥕🥕
Fox Cub by JulesPaige
Seeming to be always at as well as on edge;
creeping closer just to see if it was safe. Like
her namesake, senses on high alert – always.
They had left her to fend for herself. Was there
a lesson to be learned? Distant from community,
yet wanting to be a part – included, but always
to some extent excluded.
They made up excuses for her lack of cooperation. Dim-witted, ignorant, lame; would limping be her way of life.
The forest had felt safer when the sun was out.
But there were predators everywhere. Perhaps
that was the lesson They taught?
🥕🥕🥕
The Fawn by Rosemary Carlson
She watched him when he was a fawn. Come summer, he grew spikes. A young buck. He was unafraid of her. He grew accustomed to her apples. He came to the porch and snatched the food from her hand. She grew to love him that winter. She was alone.
The next summer, he was a four-point buck. He came to the porch. She tried to make him go away, fearful he was too accustomed to people.
It’s been ten years. An old buck comes to the porch. He takes the apples. She knows by his eyes that it’s him.
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Peering Through by Peregrine Arc
Mary stood in her bedroom, staring closely into the antique mirror hung on the peeling wallpaper. Music crackled on the radio from across the hallway.
An oil painting hung behind Mary of a lake and cabin scene at dusk. A man was smoking a glowing pipe patiently, peering from the woods. She could smell the smoke.
But every night, after Mary finally turned away from the mirror, the man vanished. The painting returned to normal, barren of any figures.
But the light was left on in the cabin tonight. And its front door was left open, quiet and inviting.
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The Connection by D. Avery
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What? The research? The constant camping it requires? Or…us?”
“All of it. I’m just done.”
“Ok. I’m sorry if this crazy venture made our relationship impossible. I’ll hike out with you. I’ve given up on ever finding Sasquatch. I’m done too.”
It wasn’t just his obsession with his work. She’d never felt a strong connection with him. She knew now that she could have more.
While he packed up the equipment, she hid the tufts of hair she’d found under a stone, brushed over a footprint.
Sasquatch peered from the woods, relieved and sad.
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Knowing by D. Avery
They trudged to the logging road together, loaded the equipment into his truck, rode in silence to the general store where her car was parked.
“I guess he doesn’t exist”, he said to her as goodbye.
“I guess not”, she replied, and went into the store as he drove away.
Resupplied, she returned to where she had seen the signs and had felt Sasquatch’s presence. She was learning that finding Sasquatch doesn’t require any electronic equipment, only being fearless and open-hearted.
She smiled to find wildflowers left for her on a log, smiled that he’d known she’d be back.
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Surprise! by Norah Colvin
She parked her car beside his and grabbed her bag. As she locked the car, she looked around. Where was he? He said he’d be watching for her. Cicadas buzzed louder than her footsteps crunched the gravel. A bird startled as it squawked and flapped overhead. Where was he? He must know she’d arrived. Even with the fairy lights, it was darker than she liked. Peering from the bushes, he willed her to be brave, to open the tent, to find what he’d made for her. Finally, tentatively, she pushed aside the flap. Her screams silenced the night chorus.
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Feral Natives by Chelsea Owens
The small natives, unkempt and unruly, peer from a shadowed arch. They stop, keenly watching an inert female creature just ahead.
The first whispers, “What’s she doin’?”
His companion checks. “Nuffin’. Sleepin’, most like.”
Urrrrhaghaaah! She moans. They scamper back to shadow’s safety.
“Did she see ya?” The younger sucks a finger.
A quick peek. “Nah. I think she’s fakin’.”
One second later: “Now what’s she doin’?”
He looks again. “Rolled over.” He scowls. “-Wait! I saw a light. She’s got her phone!”
“She’s awake!” Excited, the younger boy grips his brother’s arm.
Drat, she says.
“Let’s get ‘er!”
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Becoming Wild by Paula Moyer
February, 1966: Jean’s family did a suburbs-to-small-town move. Home was a two-bedroom rental at the edge of town. Behind the house, a woodsy spot. Jean was 13, Sam 11, Donny 9.
When summer came, that spot grew dark with leaves. Sam and Donny disappeared into it every morning after breakfast. They would grab lunch and vanish again. Jean ignored them, practiced the piano.
“Jean, go get the boys,” Mom called from the kitchen. “It’s supper time.”
Sounded easy. Jean stood at the trees’ edge. “Guys, supper!”
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A Taste of Wisdom by Molly Stevens
Mary tapped a forbidden cylinder from the box. She couldn’t believe her good fortune, having found half a pack beside the road. She peered through the woods at her home, struck a match, and took her first drag.
I didn’t even cough. I knew I’d be good at this.
Later she shuffled home, wondering how to conceal her headache and nausea.
At the sound of the screen door, her mother said, “What have you been doing?”
“Does God give you what you want to teach you stuff?”
Her mother smelled cigarette smoke, observed her daughter’s pale countenance, and smiled.
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Peering by Floridaborne
“You say you’ve never been camping before?” He asked, with a twinkle in his eye that I didn’t like.
I looked down at two sleeping bags thrown on top of ferns and bristled. “We don’t belong here.”
“Don’t worry about that rusty, no trespassing sign,” he scoffed.
“She told me we’ll die here tonight,” I replied, pointing at a deer peering out at me from the bush. “We’ll be thrown into a mass grave.”
He threw his sleeping bags into the back seat and we drove to the paved road in silence. Yet another relationship ruined by my gift.
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Caught In The Act by Ritu Bhathal
“Well Annie, that was fun! We should make these meetings of ours interesting more often.”
Petey unzipped the front flap of his yellow tent, allowing for a slice of light to cut through the darkness of the forest.
He stepped out and stretched, post-coitally, opening his eyes to the beauty of nature.
And stopped.
What was that?
Peering from the woods, he swore he saw the face of his wife, Susan, eyes open wide in horror.
A rustling sound followed.
“Come back Petey honey, we’ve still got time.” Annie’s voice brought him back.
Petey feared his time was up.
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Ready by The Dark Netizen
Cadet Billy peered from the woods.
Perseus’ bullet had missed. Medusa had spotted them. Things were not going well. This was his first field mission, and he already felt that he was out of place. These were not mere humans. What chance did he have of contributing at all? He could see Medusa approaching, almost gliding towards them. He began to feel numb. Was he turning into stone? No. This was fear. He watched as Perseus drew his heavy pistol drawn. Keynes caught Billy’s eye, and nodded at him. Billy could not let his mentor down.
Billy was ready.
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PART II (10-minutes)
Devastation by Diana Nagai
Night fell over the property. A leather lead dangled useless in his hand. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and he looked up. The firefighter shook her head. So, his horse had not been found.
“It’s time to evacuate.” She paused, then added, “Please.”
His heart constricted and he wiped a tear.
As he turned to the flames engulfing the barn and beyond, he could have sworn he saw eyes peering from the woods behind the fire line. God, he hoped so. He screamed a silent prayer. Run! The eyes disappeared. He never saw Diamond again.
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Fawn Within Fawn by Late Night Girl
“Oh deer! No headlights this time; Just eye to eye”, I thought to myself when I encountered this beautiful beast unsuccessfully trying to camouflage as a tree. Its two-leaf ears gave it away! My green coat may have equally looked like food, too, but I actually was looking for some game, yet couldn’t bring myself to break it to the fawn, gun in hand!
What now?! We could both pretend neither is here or just hop on to the next best eatable opportunity down the food chain.
I leave it to the reader to decide what happened next.
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Imagination – Another Strange Meeting by Gordon Le Pard
“Then they looked out of the wood – and saw dinosaurs!”
The novelist put the papers down. “A good way of ending the episode?”
The palaeontologist nodded, “Wonderful, what an imagination you have.”
“You too must have imagination, to create lost worlds out of fragments of bone.”
“But not like you.”
As he left he thought of the bones in his workshop. His imagination had created something very special, the Missing Link, but no one would realise it wasn’t real for many years, if ever.
His friend was just a great writer, however he was the greatest scientific hoaxer ever.
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Dashing by Miriam Hurdle
Peering from the wood, something got its attention. It dashed across the road.
Thump, thump, thud!
“Oh, no. I didn’t see it coming.” Sid and Cindy jumped out of the car.
“The impact was forceful. It crushed the front of the car.”
“Is the deer okay?” Cindy looked at its head.
“Let’s wait. It’s trying to get up…”
“It’s limping across the road.”
“It went across okay… No, it flopped and lied still.”
“Do we want to go camping?”
“The engine suffered the impact. Let’s go home.”
* * *
“Our car took the last breath getting us home.”
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Flash Fiction by Geoff Le Pard
‘You can’t see the woods for the trees, eh?’
‘That’s another stupid expression. All I was saying was I saw something in there.’
‘Ghost? Phantasm?’
‘Seriously, it was alive.’
‘Ent? Tree-sprite?’
‘It could be that weirdo.’
‘Any specific weirdo?’
‘I’m going home.’
‘Don’t be a wuss, Morgan. Probably a deer.’
‘Or a lion.’
‘In Surrey?’
‘You know they say a tree makes no sound if there’s no one to hear it when it falls. Do you think you can see a lion if you’re not there when it appears?’
‘You’re a moron as well as a coward, Morgan.’
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The Deadly Hunt by Anurag Bakhshi
Travis looked at the cute, round-as-buttons eyes peering at him through the woods, and smiled.
He had spent half his life searching for the Ringa-Tinga-Ling, the mythical oldest animal species in the world. Today, he and his cameraman had finally found him.
Still smiling, Travis raised his rifle, and took careful aim. His cameraman saw what he was doing, and shouted, “What the…” But before he could finish, Travis had fired.
And even before the cameraman had hit the ground, Travis took out his handgun, and shot himself.
The Ringa-Tinga-Ling looked on with his cute, round-as-button eyes, and smiled.
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Flash Fiction by Robbie Cheadle
Going on a picnic was a treat for the family. Dad carefully cleared a circular patch in the undergrowth while the children collected rocks. Dad packed the rocks around the cleared patch to ensure that the fire he was building was well contained. Everyone was busy preparing for the fun of cooking their lunch sausages on sticks over the open fire.
“Where’s Hayley,” Mom asked.
She was nowhere to be seen. She must have slipped away while they were all working.
Sheila smiled with relief when she saw her peering from the small copse of trees nearby. Thank goodness.
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Who’s Watching Julie by Oneta Hayes
Four-year-old Julie, intent on filling her basket with flowers, wandered from camp, unaware that eyes were peering from the woods. She walked deeper and deeper into the brush and trees. Julie – as sweet and innocent as Little Red Riding Hood going to her grandmother’s house.
Fortunately Julie’s Grandmother was not sick in bed; she was in the camp. Where’s Julie? She sounded the alarm and campers began the search. Aha! It wasn’t long before Grandmother herself found Julie. Neither was aware of the Wolf who slunk away without a sound except for the hungry growling of his stomach.
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Pee(r)ing Through the Woods by Deborah Lee
Jane hunkers down in the foliage. Her knees already ache from the awkward stance. She checks her pants and shoes; both should be out of the splash zone.
Just as she relaxes her muscles, feels the stream start beneath her, of course that’s when she hears voices.
She’s been here for hours, hoping for someone who might buy a paper. Naturally, it’s not until she can’t hold it anymore, with the nearest public restroom an hour away, that anybody comes along.
Jane narrows her eyes, peering through the bushes. If she can’t see them, they can’t see her…right?
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Flash Fiction by a story forms my mind
Startled. Her eyes snap open. The right side of her face and mouth pressed into wet pine needles. Above her the sky, barely visible through the dark canopy of spruce.
Her arm aches and somehow her dress has been torn. She unfurls herself from the forest floor, searches for her phone, her bag, anything that will explain why she is here.
Nothing.
The only sound, the creaking of trees as they move in a wind she cannot feel. She sees eyes peering brightly from the trees and hears the roar of traffic from the highway.
Then nothing but cold.
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Those Two by Reena Saxena
All the persuasion by his friends failed to make him participate in a jungle picnic. He looked petrified, and his wife insisted that he be left alone. The friends decided to take him to a counsellor later.
Nobody realized that he was consumed by guilt. It was a crime committed in the first flush of youth. He finished college, found a job and married a beautiful girl.
But, those two eyes never stopped peering at him from the woods. Those two eyes spewed fire, and swore revenge. He did not know if those two eyes were dead or alive.
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Silhouettes by Bill Engleson
At that time, the lake was more a swamp.
Stumps rose like rogue cannons, wooden effigies of flooded farmland.
We hiked the deer path that edged the water.
Eventually, we found a grassy knoll that afforded a cushion of comfort and privacy.
Our adolescent fumblings did not betray us.
Soft sun bathed my lover’s skin.
Still, something, real, imagined, concerned her.
“Are you sure we’re alone?” she whispered.
I was sure of very little then.
“Why?” I asked, looking into the nearby bush.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels creepy.”
That did it.
We hightailed outta there.
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Cache Only Memory Access by Deepa
I could feel Thomas hands intertwined in mine. I could hear him. He was telling me about the memories of our adventures. I am not sure how long I had been lying in the coma.
Thomas gently caressed my hands and peered into my eyes, “the auburn color of your hair reminded me of the woods, and now it shines like the snow. You ask me why I didn’t seek adventure over the years.”
How could I do it without you? We are partners in crime.
Thomas was an adventure freak. Tears trickled from my eyes.
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Sanctuary by abhiray59
Deer calf was peering through the bush. It was looking curiously at the movement of humans down the trail. Other members of its family and friends were nearby having their daily feed of green grass. This calf was curious.
Sam raised his rifle to aim at the deer. “Don’t shoot. This is a sanctuary. Wild animals are expected to be safe here”, said Sid, a fellow hiker.
A leopard pounced on the calf. Curious calf was enamored with humans. It forgot about other lurking dangers in the sanctuary. After all, it was a sanctuary for the leopard too.
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The Hollow by Kati MacArthur
It was a dim, dark forest. I stood on the edge, looking in at a large green fern, solitary in the darkened clearing, spotlighted by a single dusty beam of filtered verdant light. No crickets here, no birds. Just sunlight and darkness: cool, green, quiet.
I see these things when my serenity is threatened. They are images from the hollow where my friend goes to mourn her horse.
In times of strife, I remember this: melancholy sunshine with cool, green quiet a few steps away. Two separate worlds, one before me, one behind me. Which way do I turn?
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From the Woods by Allison Maruska
I crawl through Darkness, the ever-present being, one I can’t touch but knows me completely.
Darkness wants to keep me here, in these woods, surrounded, lost. If I have no hope of escape, Darkness gets her wish. But if I find the way out, Darkness is powerless to stop me.
So I crawl, unsure of direction. I could be heading farther into her depths. But then, I see it: a light. It’s a pinpoint at first, but it gives me direction. And so I crawl.
Finally, I find Darkness’s edge, and peering out from the woods, I see hope.
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Flash Fiction by Anita Dawes
About an hour into the woods, I thought I heard a sound. Just ahead of me, peering through the trees I could see 12 standing stones with a large stone table in the middle. I had never seen these before so I took dozens of photographs.
The air seemed to whisper with strange sounds, almost words I could not hear.
I reached home and downloaded them. My breath was taken by the sight of King Arthur and his knights. There had been no one there. Had my imagination imprinted these images, or was it my desire to be there?
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Silence by oneletterup
She likes it here. How the breeze blows her hair as she swings. Back and forth.
The soft sweat pants protect the scabs on her legs.
“What’s your name?” the little boy keeps asking.
But she keeps shaking her head. Silent.
The little girl asks “Ya wanna swing with me?”
She smiles and nods.
In mid swing she sees it.
A flash of red. Movement.
In woods across the street.
Foot down scraping grass.
Swing slows. Jumps off. Stares hard.
Fists clench.
Someone is peering at her from under a tree.
Turning around, she runs.
The little girl follows.
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Unwelcome Guests by Susan Sleggs
“My Dad told me the new people in the fenced mansion belong to the Mob,” Rock said.
“I heard it was some rich old guy with a sexy young wife,” Dude answered.
Crazy, always needing excitement, suggested, “Let’s sneak through the woods to see what we can see by their pool.”
Shortly the rowdies peered around dense manicured bushes at scantily clad young beauties.
A body guard turned their direction saying loudly, “I can feel eyes on us.” He reached behind his back bringing a gun forward and fired a shot above their heads. “Next time I won’t miss!”
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Fred’s Confession by Sherri Matthews
Fred peered out from behind the garden shed into the steely-eyed glare of Ethel through the kitchen window. He froze.
‘Hello my sweet, you look lovely today,’ Fred squirmed.
‘Get yer hairy arse back inside, now!’
Fred padded gingerly into the kitchen and gulped. ‘Ethel, me and Mavis…’ He caught his reflection in the mirror, distracting him from his confession. Funny, the dentist hadn’t mentioned how long and sharp his teeth had grown. And his hair, so grey…
‘Shut up yer gormless twit,’ Ethel fumed, ‘Mavis is a slut, but you…you’re a bleedin’ werewolf and it’s full moon tonight.’
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The Lewis and Rebman Expedition by TN Kerr
Lewis increased his pace to catch up and have a word with Rebman, “I expect our way will be blocked when we round the next bend. Have you seen them?”
“Seen whom?” Rebman asked. He glanced about, now noticing flashes of bright crimson and deep indigo between the dense trees. He asked, “Who are they?”
“The locals here are autochthonous,” Lewis advised. “They claim to be descended from Lellages, the purported elder son of Belabub. Who, in turn was a Philistine god. The Hebrews called him Beelzebub, the Christians, called him Satan.”
“Dangerous?”
“I believe so, Rebman? I believe so.”
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The Target by Patrick O’Connor
Breathe in, Breathe out.
Breathe in, Breathe out.
Better focus.
Small adjustment.
Breathe in, Breathe out.
The wind is negligible.
No one would be able to see me from this perch as I peer from the forest.
I am a good mile away anyway.
Looking through the scope again.
Breathe in, Breathe out.
Don’t move at all.
Last check. I’m ready.
Big inhale. Slow exhale.
Squeezing the trigger until…
BAM!
Three, Two, One.
Looking through the scope again.
Right on target.
That guy won’t be a problem anymore.
Lone Wolf to command.
Mission accomplished.
On to the next target.
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Outlast by Kerry E.B. Black
We’ve always lived in the woods. Of course, back in the day, woods stretched for acres. Now they’re confined to a small patch surrounded by manicured lawns and asphalt.
Few venture here. They linger along the outskirts and peer into the cool depths beneath the leafy canopy, as though they fear once they enter, they’ll never return to their civilization.
They’re right.
We wait here, sneering at their brash attempts to confine us. We bide our time.
Soon, they’ll become negligent groundskeepers, and with quiet tenacity, we’ll reclaim land, break through turf, swallow structures.
We will outlast, as always.
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So They Say So by D. Avery
“Hey, Aussie!”
“G’day Pal. Where’s Kid?”
“Hmmph. I ain’t too sure. Still tentin’ I reckon. Complained last week about yeller tents and then takes off fer the woods totin’ one.”
“Look here, Pal, a note. It says, ‘See ya later Pal. Shorty says I am to appear in the woods.’ Seems Kid has misread the prompt again.”
“’Appears so Aussie. Dang!”
“What’s wrong, Pal? Kid does just fine in the woods.”
“Normally, yeah, but who knows what these ranch hands is gonna put inta the woods with this prompt. Why, they even say there’s a Bigfoot out and about.”
**********
“Oh, I hope Kid doesn’t come across Bigfoot!”
“Me too, Aussie, poor Bigfoot doesn’t deserve that. Hey, do you feel like we’re bein’ watched or somethin’?”
“Yes, I do, Pal. Why, who is that peering from the woods there? Kid!”
“Aussie! Pal! I’m back.”
“We kin see that. Where ya bin?”
“I been appearin’ in woods all over. Went west. It was wild. Saw fossils an’ artsy facts an’ muse-icians.”
“You call that campin’?”
“Call it vacationin’. Guess who I spied peerin’ from the woods when I was tentin’?”
“Bigfoot?!”
“Frannie Hooe. Least they say it was her.”
“Phooey!”
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