Day: February 4, 2018

Sunday Photo Fiction — A Loose End

Fandango21 Comments

img_0610All Zack needed to earn some money was his late father’s wheelbarrow and to hire himself out. He posted hand-printed signs on trees and poles throughout the town advertising his wheelbarrow hauling service. “Will haul anything for anybody” his flyers said. The townsfolk responded, hiring him for all kinds of hauling jobs.

He was happy to have a job at all. It wasn’t a very pleasant job. It was a backbreaking job, a thankless job. But a job nonetheless. And that made Zack about as happy as someone who made a living hauling all kinds of shit in a wheelbarrow could be.

One day a somewhat shady-looking guy told Zack he need to have something hauled. He told Zack to follow him, which Zack readily did. The man pointed to a large, heavy, oblong sack and assisted Zack loading it into the wheelbarrow. Then he told Zack where to take it, which happened to be a large hole dug into the ground deep into the woods. He instructed Zack to dump the sack into the hole, which Zack did.

Then the man pointed a pistol at Zack, saying, “Sorry, pal, but you’re a loose end.”

(195 words)

Witten for today’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt. Image credit: Dawn M. Miller.

Mysterious Scaled Creatures

Fandango10 Comments

img_0614So when I saw today’s one-word prompt, “creature,” I thought about the 1954 horror movie, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

It was about a group of scientists who discover the remains of a mysterious animal in a remote South American jungle and are determine if the find is an anomaly or evidence of an undiscovered beast. It is during their journey that they come across a scaled swamp creature.

The movie was a horror movie and I was still a bit too young to see it when it first came out. But it was shown with some regularity on television in the late Fifties and Sixties.

There’s a new, highly acclaimed movie out now, “The Shape of Water,” that’s been nominated for thirteen Acadamy Awards, I think. I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s a tale about a mysterious, scaled creature from South America that lives in a water tank at a hidden, high-security government laboratory in Baltimore in 1962.

Hmm. A mysterious, scaled creature from South America? At first I thought it might have been a remake of that 1954 horror flick. But after reading some of the reviews, it turns out to be something of a love story. A mute, isolated woman who works as a cleaning lady in that Baltimore laboratory discovers the lab’s classified secret — a mysterious, scaled creature from South America that lives in a water tank.

img_0612-1I haven’t seen “The Shape of Water” yet, but I probably will before the Oscars are televised next month. But I find it interesting that the basic premise of a Fifties horror flick has been contemporized into a love story between a human woman and a scaled creature.

Of course, religious conservatives are now demanding that “The Shape of Water” be boycotted because it promotes the mixing of species. And the Trump administration is already planning an executive order banning the immigration of mysterious, scaled creatures from shithole South American countries.

Song Lyric Sunday — Gimme Some Truth

Fandango10 Comments

This week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt from Helen Vahdati is all about “truth.”

“Gimme Some Truth” is a protest song written and performed by John Lennon. It was written in 1969 and first released on his 1971 album Imagine. It contains various political references to the Vietnam War.

The song expresses Lennon’s frustration with deceptive politicians, and the hypocrisy and chauvinism of politics. It also reflects some widely held feelings of the time, when many people were participating in protest rallies against the war and the government.

Lennon referred to president Richard Nixon as “Tricky-Dicky,” a nickname that became popular during the Watergate hearings. There are many lyrical references to politicians as deceiving, slick, and cowardly characters.

No doubt, if he were alive today, Lennon would be able to express similar sentiments about today’s politics and politicians.

Here are the lyrics.

I’m sick and tired of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope

I’m sick to death of seeing things from
Tight-lipped condescending mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of watching scenes from
Schizophrenic egocentric paranoiac primadonnas
All I want is the truth just give me some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
It’s money for dope, money for rope

I’m sick to death of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth