Day: October 18, 2019

Friday Fictioneers — Invisible Angels

Fandango23 Comments

Halos Overhead“Mommy, look at all of the angels,” Charlotte said, pointing down the broad alleyway.

“Angels? I don’t see any angels, sweetie,” Charlotte’s mother said.

“Don’t you see their halos?” Charlotte asked. “They’re up there,” she said, pointing to the circular, lighted tubes strung out across the alley.

“I see the lights, sweetie,” her mother said, “but there are no angels there.” When tears started streaming down Charlotte’s cheeks, her mother asked, “What’s wrong, honey?”

“My Sunday School teacher said that angels are invisible to those who don’t believe in them,” Charlotte said. “You don’t believe in angels, do you mommy?”

(100 words)

Written for the Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

The Man Who Would Be King

Fandango8 Comments

King Donald“This whole mess gives me pause,” Michael said.

“Well, it makes me feel jittery,” Michele admitted.

“The whole damn system is broken, as far as I’m concerned,” Chris added.

“I know,” agreed Peter, “The president is acting like a goddam king, a despotic ruler who is out only to enrich himself and his family at the expense of the American people.”

“I wish Congress would do its job and move more briskly to impeach the man before it’s too late,” Michael said.

“Hear, hear,” the others chimed in, clinking their beer steins together in a toast to a better future.

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (pause), Word of the Day (jittery), Ragtag Daily Prompt (broken), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (ruler), Daily Addictions (family), and Your Daily Word Prompt (brisk).

#writephoto — The Deer Hunter

Fandango14 Comments

Deer in the snowJethro learned over and whispered in his son’s ear, “Now.”

“No!” Billy said in a loud voice. The buck, which had been standing between the two trees, looked up when it heard Billy’s voice and then bolted out of sight.

Jethro smacked his son upside the head. “Look what you done, boy,” he said. “You had a perfect shot, goddam it. What’s the matter with you.”

“I’m wet and cold and tired and hungry,” Billy said, “and I don’t want to shoot no deer.”

“You don’t think I’m wet and cold, boy?” Jethro snapped. “I’m out here in this mess trying to teach you a valuable skill and you don’t want to shoot no deer? What are you, some kind of sissy?”

“I just don’t see why we need to shoot and kill a beautiful, defenseless animal, Dad,” Billy said. “It’s not like we need its hide to keep warm or its meat to eat.”

“You don’t know that, boy,” Jethro said. “Might come the day when you gotta fend for yourself and if you don’t learn these skills I’m trying to teach you, you’re gonna be shit outta luck.”

“I’d rather be shit outta luck than ruthlessly kill other living creatures,” Billy said.

Jethro smacked his son upside his head once again. “Dammit, boy, you need to learn how to survive. It’s a kill or be killed world out there and you need to learn how to protect and defend yourself and your family. You hear me boy?”

Billy looked at his father and said, “That deer wasn’t going to kill me. I didn’t need to protect myself or you by shooting it. Shooting and killing that innocent deer for sport is the very definition of cruelty and is what is wrong with the human race.”

Jethro looked up toward the sky. “Dear Lord,” he said, “what did I do to you for you to curse me with an animal lovin’, tree huggin’, sissy-boy liberal?” Then he looked at Billy and said, “Wait until your momma finds out what kind of boy her son has become.”

“Oh she knows, Dad,” Billy said. “She knows.”

Written for the Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — October 18

Fandango24 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 18th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on October 18, 2011 in my old blog.

The End of Times is Near…Again…Probably

The End is NearThis will be my last blog post. Why? Well, according to an Oakland, California minister, American Christian radio host, and president of Family Radio, Harold Camping, Friday, October 21st is probably the end of times.

As a regular reader of this blog, you may recall when I told you that Old Weird Harold had previously predicted that the end of life as we know it was supposed to take place earlier this year, on May 21st. When that didn’t happen, a “flabbergasted” Camping claimed that a math error had caused him to be off by five months.

Guess what, folks. Five months have elapsed and Judgment Day is now scheduled for this Friday. Are you ready to Rapture?

“I do believe we’re getting very near the very end,” Camping said in a pre-recorded podcast posted on his Family Radio website. “October 21, that’s coming very shortly, that looks like it will be, at this point, it will be the final end of everything.”

Having “learned that there’s a lot of things we didn’t have quite right” the last time he predicted the end of days, Camping is now fairly confident that this time he has it nailed.

However, you needn’t worry too much about it. Camping says that “probably there will be no pain suffered by anyone because of their rebellion against God.” Probably no pain and suffering. Yeah, that’s what my dentist always says when he’s about to stick that sharp, pointy, metal implement of dental torture into my gums.

But I digress. Camping believes the end of everything is going to come very, very quietly this Friday. “I really am beginning to think, as I’ve restudied these matters, that there’s going to be no big display of any kind,” he said.

Still, my friends, you need to get your shit together and be prepared to go, um, wherever one is supposed to go at the end of days in relative peace and quiet. No big deal. No catastrophic calamities. Just a nice, peaceful end of life as we know it.

So, as I said, if Camping got his math right this time around, this will be my last post on this blog.  If not, see you next time.

FOWC with Fandango — Ruler

Fandango24 Comments

FOWCWelcome to October 18, 2019 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 “ruler.”

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.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

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