In Harms Way

August 1, 2014August 1, 2014 / Dee / 29 Comments

My thanks to Rochelle for her photograph this week and for the continued support she gives to all the Friday Fictioneers. Each week she posts a photo prompt and urges us all to ‘say what we see’ – I apologise in advance for my mood this week. The news stories and film clips from the many war-torn regions of the world have occupied my thoughts for most of the week, to write anything in a lighter vein has proved difficult.

Genre: Creative nonfiction

Word Count: 100

In Harms Way

In the early morning we claw at the overnight rubble and debris searching for the missing. The children are terrified, the women distraught. The angry and patriotic young men talk of taking up arms, while their mothers weep.

What rains down on us from the heavens is making our land barren, what little food we had is almost gone. Clean water is rationed and in short supply. Cats and dogs lie dying in our streets; it is only a matter of time.

War mongers and posturing politicians lie safe in their homes; their strategy reduces ours to dust, to memories.

++++++++

Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge – Robert Burns

Many and sharp the num’rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav’n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

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100 Nightmares – coming very soon

March 29, 2014 / Dee / 3 Comments

Horror is not a genre I usually feel comfortable with. That said there is something about the writing of K.Z. Morano that draws you in, in spite of yourself. How someone who looks so sweet, could write such gut-wrenching stories baffled me when I first read her work. But she is a writer who can turn her pen to other genres too, and I admire her ability to do that.

She has put together 100 of her stories into a book ‘100 Nightmares’ which will be released very soon. Read them if you dare…

100 NIGHTMARES – COVER REVEAL!

COMING THIS APRIL! — official date TBA

100 NIGHTMARES by K.Z. Morano is a collection of horror stories written in exactly 100 words and accompanied by a few illustrations.

It takes a brief encounter with death to cause enduring nightmares.

A single well-placed blow could maim you for life…

One well-placed word could haunt you forever.

Micro-fiction is a blade—sharp, swift…

Sometimes it goes for the jugular, killing you in seconds.

Its silver tongue touches your throat and warm blood hisses before you can scream.

Sometimes, the knife makes micro-cuts in the sensitive sheath of your sanity, creating wounds that will fester throughout eternity.

Take my 100 words daily like a slow-acting poison or read them all and die of overdose.

Your call.

It’s your suicide after all.

The Author

K.Z. Morano is an eclectic eccentric… a writer, a beach bum and a chocolate addict who writes anything from romance and erotica to horror, fantasy, sci-fi and bizarro fiction. Over the past few months, her stories have appeared in various anthologies, magazines and online venues. Visit her at http://theeclecticeccentricshopaholic.wordpress.com/ where she posts short fiction and photographs weekly.

For more updates on the story collection like K.Z.’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/100Nightmares

The Entertainment

March 12, 2014 / Dee / 63 Comments

Another photo prompt this week for the wonderful group of writers, who make up the Friday Fictioneers Family. Mother Hen Rochelle Wisoff-Fields takes charge every week, posting the photo – this week courtesy of Adam Ickes – and urging us all to ‘write what we see’. This is what I saw…

Genre: Horror

Word Count: 100

The Entertainment

Silence as the numbers are called. Nervous boys go to their allotted place, although challenged, no-one refuses. My number is called last. For one brief moment, as I join the other ninety-nine, I consider the challenge. My mother is ill and Mary’s pregnant, but The Glory will change everything, forever.

Outside, we line up shoulder to shoulder. The General reads the rules of ‘The Entertainment’.

You will walk until only one remains; to him will be awarded The Glory – anything he wants for the rest of his life.

Those who stop walking will be ‘removed’.

We walk.

The crowd roars.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Inspired by ‘The Long Walk’ a novel by Stephen King – his first, published under a pseudonym Richard Bachman. Set in a future United State of America, the story tells of the annual event called The Long Walk. On 1 May each year 100 teenage boys are drafted into taking part; the idea is that they all walk until there is only one left standing.The walking never stops. If anyone does stop they get a warning, three warnings and they are ‘ticketed’ which eventually you realise means they are shot. Read more about his novel here – http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/The_Long_Walk

To read more FF stories, click on this link –

Busy Bees

July 31, 2013July 31, 2013 / Dee / 35 Comments

Last week was one of those weeks best forgotten. I did no writing but lots of driving and listening, to mainly boring people, talking about mainly boring topics. I missed my Friday Fictioneers fix, like lots of others I look forward to Wednesday when the email from Rochelle drops in my inbox and I wonder in what direction the photo prompt will take me. The photo this week is courtesy of Jennifer Pendergast -hmmm