Day: May 8, 2020

Failing the Gullibility Test

Fandango10 Comments

8E05D635-9BB2-487D-9214-0B49C40DD338“What a relief,” Malcolm said. “This whole coronavirus thing is finally behind us.”

“Where did you hear that?” Aaron asked.

“I just heard the president say it in his own voice at his daily coronavirus press briefing,” Malcolm said.

“Is that a fact?” Aaron asked sarcastically. “Behold the almighty King Trump, the stable genius who knows more about everything than the scientist, the doctors, and the generals. And you believe whatever bullshit comes out of his mouth, huh?”

“He’s the president, he should know, right?”

“Malcolm, my dumbass friend,” Aaron said, “it’s because of gullible imbeciles like you that our country is in the sad state it’s in.”

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (relief), The Daily Spur (voice), Fandango’s One-World Challenge (fact), Your Daily World Prompt (behold), and Word of the Day Challenge (king).

Friday Fictioneers — Cold Beer

Fandango20 Comments

916DA8F7-F1F8-4BA4-A87D-16D7F254372EElaine came home from work exhausted. She walked into the kitchen, dropped her pocketbook on the table, and went to the fridge to grab a beer. Suddenly she froze. “Clyde,” she screamed, “where’s the goddam refrigerator?”

“I hauled that piece of crap out of here and dumped it in the ravine behind the house,” he called out from the living room.

“What on earth possessed you to do that?” Elaine, bewildered, asked.

“It wasn’t keeping my beer cold enough,” he complained.

“Why didn’t you just call the place we bought it?” she asked. “It was still under warranty, you idiot!”

(100 words)

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

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — May 8

Fandango22 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 8th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This post was originally published on May 8, 2018. It was written for that day’s daily one-word prompt from WordPress, “rapid.”

Rapid Transit

441E04ED-AA8B-4E7E-9770-6A27CE143635Eugene looked at his watch as his patience was running thin. He looked at the overhead display. It read “NEXT TRAIN IN FIVE MINUTES.” It had said that for the last three minutes.

Eugene looked around at the others waiting on the platform. No one else seemed bothered by the delay. Some were reading books, magazines, or newspapers. Others had their eyes glued to their smartphones, and still others were moving to the beat of silent music heard only by them through their earbuds.

“We’re like a group of lemmings,” Eugene thought, “standing at the precipice just waiting to step off.”

Eugene looked at his watch again. Then he heard the rumble of the subway train heading into the station. He looked towards the tunnel and saw the train’s light growing brighter.

“Finally,” Eugene said aloud. But then he heard some grumbling from the crowd on the platform. He looked up and saw that the display had changed to “TRAIN WON’T STOP” as it rumble through the station.

“Rapid transit my ass,” he said.

FOWC with Fandango — Fact

Fandango29 Comments

FOWCWelcome to May 8, 2020 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 “fact.”

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.