will

An Unwanted Gift

Fandango15 Comments

“Seriously, what harm can it cause to display his artwork in the lobby of the building?” the attorney for the family argued in a mellifluent voice. “Hal Simpson was a patient here for many years and his family wants his paintings to be their gift and his legacy. He was, after all, a very versatile artist.”

“A versatile artist?” the building owner stated in a quiet voice, in contrast to that of the attorney. “It’s ridiculous to argue that the family of the creator of pornographic and sacrilegious paintings has a right to hang such offensive paintings in the lobby of a nursing home run by a religious order simply because he was a patient here. The fact that Mr. Simpson put in his will that his paintings were to be hung in the lobby of the nursing home does not put any obligation on the part of the building owner or the nursing home to comply.”

Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (artwork), The Daily Spur (harm), Your Daily Word (mellifluent), Fandango’s One Word Challenge (versatile), My Vivid Blog, (quiet), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (ridiculous).

#WDYS — Grandma’s Dilemma

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Grandma just couldn’t get the hang of it. She didn’t grasp the concept of answering machines. Whenever she called someone and the answering machine picked up, she couldn’t understand that there wasn’t a person on the other end, and she’d start saying, “Hello, hello, hello, it’s Grandma,” and when the voice kept talking over her, she’d get angry. And then, when she heard the tone and thought she had been hung up on, she got even angrier.

We all tried to teach her how to use the voicemail box we set up for her on her own phone, but when she listened to the messages, she didn’t realize that it was just a recording and not an actual person talking to her.

We left Grandma little notes, like “After the tone,” and “Leave us a message.” But even that didn’t work.

One day, Grandma got so angry that she called her lawyer with the intention of cutting us all out of her will. Sadly for her, and fortunately for us, her phone call to the lawyer went right to voicemail.

Grandma’s now gone, but the one thing we all have to remember her by was the voicemail message she left for the lawyer. Who knew the old bat could use such salty language?

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: Taylor Heery @ Unsplash.

Time To Write — The Preparations

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EA206B38-C62B-4220-A8F8-E916303C4EF8Emma looked at her watch. “We need to hurry,” she said to her brother, Liam. “Mom said she’s going to be getting here by around 6:30 and it’s already a quarter past six.”

“I’m almost done hanging this banner,” Liam said, “so go let everyone know that Mom and Grandpa will be arriving shortly.”

“I’m so excited,” Emma said. “Grandpa will be really surprised when he walks in and sees everyone from the extended family here to help celebrate his 100th birthday. There will be four generations of the family here for this occasion. He’s going to especially love seeing his cousins who have flown in from Ireland to see him.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be great,” Liam agreed. That’s when he heard his mother’s car pull into the driveway.

Emma ran into the living and adressed the gathering of friend and family from near and far. “Okay, everyone,” she said. “Grandpa will be walking in any second. On my signal I want everyone to run out and shout SURPRISE!”

The front door opened and Emma gave the signal. The attendees all ran out and yelled “SURPRISE.” Grandpa, startled, looked at the crowd, smiled weakly, grabbed his chest, and fell to the floor.

Emma ran over to Grandpa and checked his pulse. She looked up at the group, tears running down her cheeks, and said in a hoarse voice, “He’s gone.”

Liam walked into the room carrying a sheath of papers. “Okay,” he said. “The plan worked. Mom was right, the old man’s heart couldn’t take it. So let’s get to the will, shall we?”

Written for Rachel Poli’s Time To Write prompt. We are asked to write a story where the characters are preparing for something.

One-Liner Wednesday — Of Wills and Ways

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“Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.”

I don’t know who originally said this, although it does have a Groucho Marx sensibility to it, don’t you think?

Anyway, when I came across this quote, obviously a humorous variation on the motivational statement, “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” it made me smile. And I knew that I would use it for my next One-Liner Wednesday post.

Life’s Illusions

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Jake was under the impression that there were certain givens in life. Aside from the givens of birth, death, and taxes, that is. Givens like hard work will be rewarded, love conquers all, time heals all wounds, and a whole host of other trite platitudes that Jake accepted as life’s givens.

But as Jake grew older and more and more cynical, one might even say jaded, he learned that those are all illusions. Well, except for birth, death, and taxes, which are all too real.

Jake did work hard most of his life until his company moved the bulk of its jobs, including Jakes, to China and India. He suddenly found himself unemployed and uninsured. Even his pension plan ran out of funds due to poor decisions by management.

Jake was deeply in love with the woman of his dreams. Or was that just love’s illusions he recalled? Shortly after he lost his job and ran out of money, she walked out on him. He found out that love doesn’t, in fact, conquer all. Losing one’s dignity, for example. Another shattered illusion.

That all happened more than two years ago and, despite the passage of time, the wounds still seemed quite fresh to Jake. He was hurting, broke, homeless, and alone.

The good life, Jake thought, was just an illusion. All of Jake’s illusions about what life was supposed to be had been shattered. Yet, despite the hurt and disillusionment, he was still alive. He was still breathing. His heart was still beating. And he knew that his reality, as bad as it seemed, would persist. Somehow, in some way, he would survive.

After all, where there’s a will, there’s a way. At least that’s the illusion Jake chose to embrace.

This post is for today’s One-word prompt, that word being “illusion.”