friday fictioneers

Mrs. Ambrose

lillian22 Comments

“I’d like a cup of hot chocolate, please.”

She’d walked out of the nursing home, no interest in the craft for the day. She couldn’t handle origami and hated working with glitter.

So here she sat on Christmas Eve day. Across from a young couple who chatted quietly, packages beside them. She remembered those kind of stolen moments with Ben. Their kids home with the sitter, last minute shopping done.

She sipped the sweetness, eyes closed, remembering.

“Mrs. Ambrose? You need to come back now.” She pulled the old coat closer to her chest and walked back across the street.

coffee_in_mirror_02-1

Word Count: 100   Photo credit: Jean L Hayes.  Story motivated by Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers photo. Thank you Rochelle, for your work this past year and here’s to an inspirational 2016!

Empty Nest

lillian14 Comments

Coffee cup in hand, she focused on the shapes coming into focus through the morning mist. James said they’d be a family science project. Bat houses. She’d agreed, only if they were a good distance from the house…

A good distance from the house…in-state college would have been nice. She smiled softly, thinking about the “Roots and Wings” adage on the plaque above her bureau. He sure spread his wings…

The telephone startled her. Coffee sloshed as she grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“Oh, sorry mom. Did I wake you? It’s noon here. Just wanted to touch base. I miss you.”

kitchen-window

Word Count: 100.
Photo credit: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
Flash Fiction written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers.
Learn more about bat houses!

A Boston Tradition

lillian16 Comments

Mother’s Day. Exhausted, incredulous. Home from the parade, she sat sipping sherry, flipping through albums. Pictures of children covered in yellow feathers. Thirty years of moms pushing buggies, pulling wagons, kids quacking.

Roberta surprised her this year. Came cross-country for this Boston tradition. And her costume! She manipulated poles so the wings stretched six feet above the crowds. More like a chicken but no mind. She drew oohs and ahs.

Mrs. McCloskey smiled through tears. Make Way for Ducklings, Caldecott book and so much more. How proud her father would be. His legacy for this city’s children and the world!

luther-siler

100 words. Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle provides a photo for a 100-word story. Tales vary widely. Photo this week is by Luther Siler.
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, first published in 1941. A Caldecott Medal Winner it motivated a popular sculpture in Boston’s Public Gardens of Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings, and the annual mothers’ day Ducklings parade.

The March

lillian24 Comments

He watched in amazement from the fifth floor window. He told Melinda it would never work. Her eyes damp, remembering.

But they were coming in droves. From the subway stop. Riding bicycles. Pushed in strollers. In school uniforms and ragged jeans. All colors. All sizes. Children of hope, many with handmade signs.

Hundreds bowed their heads in prayer, and then began to walk from the old Transportation Building to City Hall. Melinda held the banner high. No More Hurting People. Peace Now. Her locket caught the sun and gleamed at him. Their son’s picture within the small gold heart.

roger-bultot-2

98 words. Written for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  Photo by Roger Bultot.

Seth and June

lillian43 Comments

He lived in the pink house, she in the white. They grew up together laughing, climbing the hillside, riding the school bus. No one was surprised when he proposed. It was quietly assumed. Seth and June.

Just days after the wedding, his unit was called. She wept and he promised to return.

Eight months of living with her folks. Skyping when possible, through static and frozen image. And now she sat, secret intact. Large belly pressed against the pane, a new life about to enter theirs. She waited for him to round the bend. Promise fulfilled and multiplied by two.

sandra

100 words.  Photo Credit: Sandra Crook — basis for this week’s Friday Fictioneers flash fiction challenge by Rochelle Wisoff.  

Papa

lillian35 Comments

 

It was too much. I should have known.

He’d worn long sleeved shirts for almost fifty years, since the Allies liberated Buchenwald. And so they invited him to come. This new museum, with its hall of portraits so high you had to crane your neck. A pile of shoes and a boxcar, like the one he rode after Kristallnacht. “Get me out,” he gasped.

We waited outside for the walk light. Construction workers poured tar onto new pavement, near the numbered sewer grate. That putrefying smell. His face blanched as he crumpled to the ground. And I knew he was gone.

ce-grate.jpgFriday Fictioneers: 101 words.  Photo by C.E. Ayr

Heaven Sent

lillian36 Comments

Margaret and Kathleen: forever nine years old. Not ones to hold the chalk while others hopped from square to square, they’d met St. Peter at the gates, request in mind.

“Emissary,” was their word for the day that December first. They listened attentively as Sister Mary Kelley used it in a sentence. Henry raised his hand and at that moment, they began to smell the smoke.

And so it came to be. Fifty-seven years later, these cherubic emissaries hovered, waiting by the grave. Soon, a small child would take their hands and be escorted from this world to the next.

jhc5

100 words.  Photo by J. Hardy Carroll and used as this week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers. Dedicated to those who lost their lives in Chicago’s Our Lady of the Angels Elementary School fire, December 1, 1958.

Panama Worker #898

lillian41 Comments

It was the only evidence left.

He came to build someone else’s dream, a canal between two oceans. One year of back-breaking labor, and then a joyous return to Rosa and young Henry. His pay would ensure simple things they grappled for now. Shoes that fit a young boy’s ever-growing feet, and warm coats for cold winters.

He managed to escape malaria and avoid the brothels. His wiry mud-caked frame always alert. Nimble fingers. Quick legs. Just ten days more. Twist the wires. Set the charge and run like hell. Only this time, hell exploded in his hands.

wired

Photo by Connie Gayer.  Word Count: 98 words.
Flash fiction using this week’s photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers.

Off Course

lillian35 Comments

I’d travelled through time, hopeful to visit the genteel days of Jane Austen’s world. Instead, the calibration mechanism slipped and catapulted me into a reed-covered pond.  Scrambling out of the machine, the corrosion was evident. How far off course had I come?

Sopping wet, I stumbled down the nearby path and came upon them: three young girls writhing on the ground. Suddenly they rose in unison, pointing at an ashen-faced red-haired woman in the surrounding crowd. “It’s her,” they screamed. “She’s the witch! Take her to the pond and test her!”

And they moved toward my beloved machine.

dale-rogerson

Photo by Dale Rogerson.  Word Count: 98
First try at flash fiction using this week’s prompt photo, provided for Friday Fictioneers. Requirements: 100 words or less + photo attribution. Boston is a commuter rail ride away from Salem, Massachusetts — alive this time of year with reminders of its witch trial days! Not sure I’ll continue writing in this genre — but fun to try!