Flash Fiction

Lost Bell

lillian43 Comments

School was officially out for the summer. But somehow, Bell was lost. A precocious first grader, tall for her age, she’d ended up in an empty hall. I can’t miss my bus! Ma will be so mad! Where is everyone???

She saw a weird machine-thing hanging on the wall. Climbing on it, standing tiptoe, her hand just reached the window. Oops. The black handle-thing fell off. The machine buzzed. Bell pounded on the window and screamed for help. Standing by her small charges in the driveway, Mrs. Verizon heard the ruckus. She hurried inside to find the distraught Bell.

phone-booth-jhc

Word Count: 100  Written for Friday Fictioneers where the inimitable Rochelle Wisoff-Fields presents a weekly photographic motivator for flash fiction (a story of 100 words or less). Photo credit: J. Hardy Carroll. 

Urgent Plea

lillian12 Comments

Standing in lunar light, hands extended to cloudy, star studded skies, I scream to the heavens. Silhouette me!

This cursed disease. It is a time machine with rusted levers. Disengaging cogs cranking ever more slowly. They will stop far too soon. I cannot leave shadows behind. Dark thoughts of what-ifs and could-have-beens. Family and friends who will only remember the deep hollows of my eyes. The chaffed dry skin pulled tautly across these brittle bones.

They deserve better. I deserve better. Realign your celestial scrim! If there be Ursa Major, then let there be me. A forever galaxy of light.

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Originally written for a Flash Fiction challenge/competition I saw — to write a piece of 100 words or less, using the word “silhouette.” Unfortunately, I waited too long and the deadline was past. Assurances to my readers: this is fiction. Photo in public domain at Pixabay.com

I Was, I Am

lillian28 Comments

She stood outside the car, the driver impatiently snacking on pistachio nuts inside. The waiting seemed interminable. She’d come so far for this moment. Found the certificate stuffed in her mother’s journal. Attended the funeral, dry-eyed, in shock. This was her destiny. Would he recognize it as his?

How could a name inscribed on a document, assume fatherhood after a lifetime in absentia? She held the document in shaking hands, ready to show him the proof. She could see the trail of dust far down the road, kicked up by the approaching vehicle. A new reality was about to materialize.

vw-in-israel-wmq

Written for Friday Fictioneers where the talented Rochelle Wisoff-Fields poses a photo prompt each week. Classified by some as “flash fiction” we are to limit our text to 100 words or less. Word Count here = 100  Photo Credit: Kent Bonham

 

A Telling Tale

lillian4 Comments

He looked back one last time. No one noticed as he left. People milling about mistook the bright wormhole for a full moon. But he knew. They’d come back for him.

He was not of this time. But because of her, he desperately slithered toward the machine. He’d shapeshifted somewhere between town and this desolate field. She’d touched . . . what? His synapses? Some seed of humanity roiling within these tentacles? He’d followed orders. Assessed the creatures.

There are more good than bad! She and I can turn this earth! The energy field engulfed him. They would never know.

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Flash Fiction (exactly 100 words) written for Friday Fictioneers where the masterful Rochelle Wisoff-Field provides a photo and challenges us to create a story for it. This is actually from last week’s challenge. Have not done fiction here for quite a while. A good change of pace! Photo Credit: Dale Rogerson.

Why hast thou forsaken me?

lillian36 Comments

…and Namrah spread his wings as I clung tightly to his undulating spine. He took me to the place last inhabited by my kind.

He landed on dry encrusted earth; trails of criss-crossed steel nearby. His massive head nodded to the open door and he watched as I ventured in. Rows and rows of emptiness. Benches of once polished oak, gathering the dust of ages. A transport station. Hope long since depleted.

Tears streamed from my eyes as I sought Namrah’s fold. With a keening guttural dirge, his one tear joined mine. And he lifted me, soaring, into the clouds.

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Word Count:  100.  Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle is the master of flash fiction (a story of 100 words or less) and challenges writers each week with a photo, posted on Wednesdays. Photo credit: J Hardy Carroll.  Stop by and see some of the tales garnered from this photo!

For Tohi

lillian15 Comments

Born into a mystical place of she-wolves, Tohi was granted one wish from her sungod.

And so it was that she arrived in a New World. She watched humanoids thrash in cold waters, struggling to reach land. Found walls with no doors. Saw fences and miles of barbed wire, shredding dreams to shards of despair.

Tohi wept, tears that grew from soft rains to rivers of grief. Graveyard plots grew in numbers and the ground was sodden until it could hold no more. And she became the final witness, as this New World became the Last.

Weep for your children
for they see the hatred sown
and will reap its fruit.

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The first three paragraphs are written for Friday Fictioneers, hosted each week by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. She provides a photo prompt and asks that folks create a story, flash fiction, in 100 words or less (word count: 96).  The haiku that concludes the post is written for NaPoWriMo day 23.  Taken together, prose + haiku, they become a haibun.  Tohi is the Cherokee word for peace. Photo Credit: Madison Woods.

Color-less World

lillian30 Comments

We didn’t notice at first. She’d misplace keys. Or forget to call.

Once the diagnosis came, I used to take her in the back yard with a coloring book and a box of sixty-four crayons emptied into a bowl. She used the crayons gaily. To color and for digging in the dirt. Always the brightest colors. Lines were immaterial. She colored with sheer exhuberance.

Slowly, the colors changed. Two-fisted brown sharp edged lines filled page after page. And then I found her, staring straight ahead. Coloring book upon a rock, no sign of her upon its pages. And I knew.

kent-b

Flash Fiction (100 words) written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. Photo prompt from Kent Bonham. For a recent poem I’ve written on the subject, read Dementia.

Watch Me!

lillian38 Comments

I am in my eighty-seventh life on this earth. I’ve always been a feminist. Female, beautiful, and independently sufficient at the same time. I loved my can-can ruffle life in the Parisian bordello. And I donned a bright sash when I pounded my suffragette drum.

But this narcisstic genius body? It’s perfect!

I am bright, erect, and wear my sunny ruffles well. I stand above those two-lip characters, dutch men all of them. Short-lived though I shall be, there is nothing daffy about me! I am JonQuil the magnificent. And I out shine every bloomin’ thing!

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Word Count: 96. Written for Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle Wiseoff-Fields provides the photo prompt and a myriad of folks work their words into what is known as “flash fiction.” Must be a complete story about the photo, in 100 words or less.  FYI:  the jonquil, as well as the daffodil, are members of the Narcissus genus. Photo Credit: The Reclining Gentleman.

 

 

Chateau de Sable/Castle in the Sand

lillian18 Comments

“Ou est le bibliotheque?” She grinned, listened like she understood, then ducked into the first café she saw. “Un croissant. Donnez moi le beurre.” She’d had so many croissants, butter, le boeuf and les oeufs in the past two days, she’d probably gained five pounds. But she loved using her old high school French.

She ate quickly then followed the map to finally meet The Earl of the Castle de Sable! They’d met on the internet. His English was remarkably good. So she’d flown to Paris!

“Um, really? This is a . . . house! And your name is Earl????”

chateau-de-sable-ceayr

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers. Each Wednesday she challenges folks to write a 100 word story based on the photo she provides. This one took me back to my high school French (50+ years ago) and the only words (in addition to the first verse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!) that I remember 🙂  Photo Credit: ceayr  

Channeling

lillian30 Comments

He lived on the streets. His junkie parents couldn’t deal when the infection went to his ears. He could sign though. Well enough that petrified folks gave up their money to the frightening, grunting teen.

Today’s cold was numbing. He entered the church and spied the antique clavier. He found himself sitting, eyes glazed, watching his fingers fly over the keys. What the? And somehow, music filled his head. Loud, crashing crescendos of…

The cop’s shove knocked Ludwig off the stool. The angry gesture sent him sulking back outside. He stopped to listen, straining. Nothing. The mute world stared back.

hh-spinet

Word Count: 100   Although it’s Wednesday, this piece of flash fiction is for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers. Photo Credit: Jan W. Fields.  Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 to 1827) was almost totally deaf in the last decade of his life. Many of his most admired pieces were composed in that last decade. Would that a homeless young boy might have his talents and we would never know.