Day: August 14, 2018

I Know Just What You Need

Fandango11 Comments

Adopt me please!!Elizabeth was not used to feeling this way. Her natural state was to be happy, contented. But today she was feeling quite blue. She told her mother of the state she was in, and being the wise, perceptive woman that her mother was, she said, “Elizabeth, I think I know exactly what you need to chase away your blues. Get your jacket. We’re going for a ride.”

Elizabeth put on her coat and followed her mother to the car. Once inside, she asked, “Where are we going, Momma?” Her mother smiled but didn’t say anything.

Elizabeth could hardly contain her curiosity, almost forgetting how down she had been earlier. After a few more minutes driving, her mother pulled the car into a parking lot in front of a building. Elizabeth read the sign and asked her mother what the Humane Society was.

“Let’s go find out, honey,” her mother smiled and said. They got out of the car, Elizabeth grabbed her mother’s hand, and they walked through the building’s front entrance. Elizabeth was immediately hit by the redolent scent of animals.

Elizabeth looked up expectantly at her mother. “Are we getting a dog?”

“Let’s go pick out a puppy to rescue,” her mother said.

Written for these prompts:

MLMM Photo Challenge — The Apparition

Fandango15 Comments

img_2172His daughter was so beautiful. She was growing into a lovely young woman. A woman of substance. He was immensely proud of her. She was standing next to the bicycle rack, wearing her red coat over her short, black dress and black nylons. She was staring down at a cone of strawberry ice cream, her favorite flavor. She looked like she was about to take a taste.

He wanted to take her picture and stepped away from her to frame her in the shot. A second after he clicked the shutter button, the old man, far too old to be behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle, mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake.

It was over in an instant. And she was gone. She literally didn’t know what hit her. At least she didn’t suffer. But he did. He suffered every single day since the incident.

She was everywhere he was, looking exactly as she had that day. She always looked so real, so lifelike, so young, so innocent. Of course, it was an apparition. It was his mind, his heart, playing tricks on him. Hurtful tricks. Mean and nasty tricks. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

Why was she haunting him like this? Did she blame him? If he hadn’t stepped away to take her picture, he might have been able to save her, to push her out of harm’s way. He was her father. It was his job to protect her. He had failed.

It should have been him and not her.

Written for this week’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge. Photo credit: Anka Zhuravleva. And for Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, “substance.”

FFfAW — Dropping Out

Fandango23 Comments

img_2171Laura sat in her car growing impatient. She hated her new job. She hated this commute to the mainland from the island where she and Jonathan bought a house five years ago. She hated having to wait in a long line of vehicles for the ferry that was almost always running late.

Jonathan said it was their chance to get away from the hustle bustle of the city. He could work from home — telecommuting, he called it — and she could work on her novel. It would be peaceful and serene, he told her.

And for a while it was. But then Jonathan started to change. He grew restless. He got angry at politicians and at the government. He started believing all these conspiracy theories. He started acting paranoid and went out and bought a handgun and a rifle. He started talking about living off grid. They were starting to argue a lot.

A month ago she woke up and saw a note on the kitchen table. It simply said, “I’m dropping out.”

(174 words)

Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers from Priceless Joy. Photo credit: Ted Strutz.

Twittering Tales — Full Moon

Fandango13 Comments

FEA5ED29-EA4F-452D-9A47-BA5E2B463433Just as he did every night, Sam took his dog out for her last walk of the night. The moon was full and bright, illuminating their usual route, so Sam left his flashlight at home.

Perhaps if he’d brought his flashlight that night, he’d have seen what was lurking in the bushes.

(275 characters)

Written for this week’s Twittering Tales prompt from Kat Myrman.

FOWC with Fandango — Substance

Fandango28 Comments

FOWCWelcome to August 14, 2018 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “substance.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.