flash fiction

Unscramble, please!

/ Dee / 18 Comments

©️Roger Bultot

I can hear him breathing, very quietly, next to me. I wonder what it will be like when he is no longer beside me.

He no longer remembers what day it is.

He tells me his brain is scrambled and full of fog. Sometimes his nightly tablet makes things much clearer for a time and he wakes feeling refreshed.

I lie there as thoughts come and go. ‘What about me?’

‘How am I supposed to deal with this?’

‘How long have we got before he forgets me?’

Tomorrow we will walk in the park. He has always liked it there.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you to Rochelle for always being there and to the many Fictioneers who, unlike me, manage to post every week. Life has thrown a curveball and doesn’t leave me much ‘me’ time to write as I would like.

Wild Card

/ Dee / 11 Comments

Photo © Lisa Fox

Leo was so handsome. All the girls were falling over themselves to go out with him. I had spots and frizzy red hair so knew I’d have no chance.

At the dance the boys lined the room, the girls danced in groups, giggling every time a boy approached. Suddenly Leo was standing there, alone, watching. From my seat in the shadows, I could see the effect he was having. I finished my soda, ready to go. Leo walked over.

‘Leaving? ‘

‘Yes’

‘Can I walk with you a while? Can’t stand all this.’

We walked.

We talked.

We still do.

Thanks as always to Rochelle for organising Friday Fictioneers

  • A Wild Card – a person or thing whose influence is unpredictable or whose qualities are uncertain

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The Supper Club

/ Dee / 12 Comments

(Photo © Jennifer Pendergast)

Maria bought the food and wine and selected her best linen for the table.

Hugh said fish pie wasn’t a good idea, it was child’s food and messy, he preferred
steak. He changed the wine glasses, removed the flowers questioning why she
thought this club was a good idea.

The Supper Club attendees loved the meal and thanked them for an enjoyable evening
Hugh said they were patronising and steak would have been better.

Maria cleared away, smiling to herself. Hugh would have steak tomorrow
night, with the mushrooms she had found growing at the back of the garden.

 

A Magical Tour

/ Dee / 25 Comments

 

Genre: Fiction

Word Count: 100

A Magical Tour

The tour was sold out. Placing a brochure on every seat, Susan anticipated a very busy day.

A middle-aged couple queried everything about the legend and the castle. Later, visiting the cave below, while she warned everyone about the dangers of straying from the path, the man shouted from the far wall, ‘it says in your blurb that Merlin lived here, how could you know?’

‘Yes, how could you know?’ the woman sniggered.  Susan pointed to an opening behind them, ‘you could find out in there.’

Afterwards, everyone complimented her on a great experience.

No-one mentioned the two empty seats.

 

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Thanks to our FBM Rochelle for supplying the photo for the prompt this week and for being there week after week ….it means a lot.

For more about Cornwall, Merlin’s cave below Tintagel castle, you can check the English Heritage link

 

 

No Mention

/ Dee / 33 Comments

Genre: Fiction

Word Count: 100

No Mention

The estate agent’s glossy brochure is very appealing. Family home, six bedrooms, five bathrooms, annexe suitable for student or older person, large gardens with summer house and various out-buildings.

No mention of the room at the top of the house.  The room with no windows. The room with thick carpets and sound proofed walls. The room with mirrors and wardrobes full of clothes – if those things could be called clothes. No mention of the camera or the screen with five padded chairs placed behind it.

I was fifteen when I was first taken there.

No mention of that either.

Good to be back, it’s been a while. Hope you’ve all been keeping well. Thanks to our Fairy Blogmother, our ever busy, very productive leader Rochelle.

 

 

Weathering Our Storm (2)

/ Dee / 38 Comments

Thanks to Georgia Koch for the lovely photo for our prompt this week and to our intrepid Captain Rochelle for navigating our good ship Friday Fictioneers  through all kinds of seas.

(I love this photograph and am so grateful to Rochelle for using it as the re-run this week and I have posted my original story. At present my ship is a bit wobbly, due in part to OH not being well, but we will be back on course very soon).

24 January Georgia Koch

Copyright – Georgia Koch

Genre: Fiction

Word Count:100

Weathering Our Storm

Will you come with me, to Venice?’

An invitation to the place where we began would once have sent my heart soaring. Dare I allow it to do so again?

‘I’ll think about it, if that’s alright?’

Oh, the care we take with one another.   I couldn’t ride out the maelstrom of his affair.  I had to scream it out, to hit back verbally against the waves of pain and sadness that engulfed and threatened to overpower me.

But somehow the storm abated, he chose to stay. How ambitious we are, how determined to keep our precious ship afloat.

‘Yes.’

 

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City Girl

/ Dee / 24 Comments

I’m grateful for a re-run this week. After years of searching we finally have a holiday home in France – more about that later. It has take up a lot of our time and I have missed chances to post anything as the internet connection at present is so slow, so very happy to offer up this post from 2012.

Thanks as ever to Rochelle who is busy being an author and getting the third book in her series ready for publication

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40again's Blog

(thanks to Piya Singh for the photo)

The auction guide said 75,000; the place was almost a ruin it would take a lot of time and money to make it habitable.

Rose pouted, her Manolos were scratched, her hair a mess. Sam smiled, “could be beautiful” he said.

Rose glowered and thought of what she could buy with 75,000+

It would never be beautiful, she frowned, it was an old ugly mess. She was a city girl.

Sam took her arm and led her inside, showing her his plans for Rose Cottage.

Rose made the front cover of ‘Homes & Gardens.’

Smiling, looking beautiful.

Friday Fictioneers devised by Madison Woods http://madison-woods.com/blog/ 

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Jar of Happiness

/ Dee / 45 Comments

This was my original post for this prompt back in 2012.  Can’t quite believe it was so long ago but, as the saying goes ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ and Friday Fictioneers certainly provides that in spades! Delighted to hear that Sandra Crook  a stalwart of FF, is one of ten people short-listed for the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize 2016 and that our FBM Rochelle is busy with her next book and interviews on radio etc., etc., don’t know where she gets her energy from, wish I could borrow some 🙂

Image courtesy of Sean Fallon

The boy stands anxiously in line

Money clutched tightly in his hand

As one by one a box is taken from the pile on the counter

And handed to a mother, sister, grandfather, brother, father

He has none of these.

Nearing the front, he leans forward and tries to see if there is one for him

Then a brightly coloured jar catches his eye

It is full of cars, trains, planes and robots

Tucking it under his arm, he walks out smiling

His guardian waits to take him back to the home

Back to where the old toys are cheering

 

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Grace

/ Dee / 22 Comments

Another wet week in Wales, no wonder it’s so green here…… Thanks as always to our fairy blogmother Rochelle and this week’s thanks for the photo prompt, go to the sometimes poetic always interesting CE Ayr

29 January 2016

Copyright CE Ayr

Genre: Fiction

Word Count: 100

Grace

Grace shielded her eyes against the glare.  At the end of the track stood the white-washed farmhouse they’d been searching for.  Forty years ago, for reasons that were inescapable, she had turned away from Jack and married Edward.  She had kept their secret all this time, until Edward’s death set her free.

In the lavender fields of France, the powerful scent calmed her nerves.  The long journey was almost over.  Grace saw someone on a tractor in the distance and a moment of panic gripped her, she started to shake.

Amy gently took her hand,’go on gran, it will alright’

 

The First Step

/ Dee / 24 Comments

My thanks to our leader Rochelle for being here every week, whether the road is rocky or smooth we follow wherever she leads.

Thanks also to Amy Reese for the photo this week.

15 January

Copyright – Amy Reese

Genre: Memoir

Word Count: 100

The First Step

I smile, accepting their mild applause.  I’ve been out of my comfort zone in front of this class of restless fifth form girls, delivering a talk entitled – ‘Succeeding as a Woman in Business.’ Questions follow. Though I am enthusiastic, questioning their reasoning, hoping to provoke engagement, the poverty of aspiration astounds me.

Struggling to understand their attitude, I walk towards my car.  Tamara, the quiet girl who said she wants to be a hairdresser, stops me.

‘My family’s been out of work for years. How can I be any different?’

I tell her she has just taken the first step.

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I attended a local school, at the invitation of the Head of Business Studies, to speak to fifth firm girls about my story, how I got to where I am. The girls’ lack of aspiration that day still concerns me.