Category: Challenges

Posted in Challenges, FFftPP, Flash Fiction

The Guardian

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Damn. He should have known better than to take this car. It was his brother’s car. He didn’t steal it, but The Guardian didn’t seem to be able to differentiate between stealing and borrowing. It didn’t seem to be able to tell the difference between what we considered good and bad. It had its own ideas.

Ever since this thing had descended upon them, the world had gone crazy. It was like a big taser. If you did something it considered bad, it appeared and tased you. When scientists tried to research where it came from, it appeared and constantly tased them. Law enforcement could do nothing with it. It appeared at crime scenes and took over, rendering law enforcement impotent. If someone had committed a crime it considered heinous, it killed them on the spot.

The military had tried to shoot it out of the sky. That didn’t work. It had shot back and killed them all. It seemed the only thing to do was obey it. Now it was pointed right at him. He had borrowed his brother’s car to get groceries. He would take it back.

He opened the door to get in and the car exploded.

 

Posted in Challenges, Flash Fiction, Uncategorized

The Train

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Do you think you can meet me at the town square,” Albert asked quietly.

Juliet replied, “I will have the driver ready to take me to town as soon as he leaves. He is my friend and sometimes my confidant.”

“We will just run away, darling! It doesn’t matter if we’re married,” Albert said.

“Can we go far away? I’m afraid he’ll find me?”

Albert said, “Yes. I will keep you safe.”

Juliet and Albert met in town to leave her abusive husband. When they tried to catch the train, there he stood. Albert knocked him down with one blow.

Posted in Challenges

The World Went Black

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“You boys can take any of those stumps back there behind the corn crib,” Jake said to his friends. “They will make good firewood this winter.”

Jake’s friends walked behind the corn crib and saw all the tree stumps. One turned and asked Jake where he got them. Jake said he cut trees on his property and sold them to a company that makes hardwood floors.

“Jake, you live in the Daniel Boone National Forest. How are you cutting trees, man?”

Jake told them that the trees were at the back of his property. He said no one would know. One of the men in the group stepped forward and told Jake he should not be cutting young trees in the woods to sell. That it was not environmentally conscious. The man went on to say that someone should turn Jake in to the authorities. He turned to walk off.

Boom!! The world went black. That was the last thing the man knew for several hours.

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

The Sanatorium

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Mabel and Anne sat at Table 19, waiting for their families, in their long, white, day gowns. It was visiting day and the two twenty-something girls were anxious to see their parents and others who would perhaps come with them. They were residents of the East Lake Tuberculosis Sanatorium in a town in Virginia. It was 1906.

Both girls had been diagnosed with a medium level tuberculosis. They expected to die in the sanatorium.

Visits from family were allowed only one day per month. The first Wednesday of every month and were limited to 15 minutes. Family members had to wear some sort of gauze over their mouths as tuberculosis was thought to be quite contagious.

There they were! They couldn’t hug and it was so hard, but at least they could talk for a few minutes.

Being a tuberculosis patient in the early 1900s  was like being an inmate in a prison. Mabel and Anne were lucky. They got better and got out. Most patients did not.

 

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

New Zealand and the Clown

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Casey was finally able to visit New Zealand when she graduated from college. Her mother was a native New Zealander, but she died when Casey was only seven years old.

There was a tour she wanted to take in Christchurch. The sights she would see were the result of the earthquakes Christchurch had experienced. It was called the graffiti tour.  Christchurch graffiti was special. It was beautiful paintings, painted on the backs of buildings, that were the way Christchurch residents dealt with the pain and devastation of the recent earthquakes.

The tour was fascinating. The graffiti artists had poured all the city’s pain into their work. They rounded the corner of the last building on the tour and Casey turned toward it and screamed. It was a painting of a clown. She had been holding her toy clown when she found out her mother had died.

 

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

Burned

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Russ and Mary stood looking at the smoldering ruin of their home. The fire had started last night in the chimney. There wasn’t much left. It had just been a small frame house. They were in shock and didn’t quite know what to do.

They heard a vehicle on the road and turned around. It was the wood man pulling a cart full of wood. He stopped in front of the burned house and walked up to them.

Russ asked him where he got his wood and he told him. He asked him if he could get better wood to help him rebuild his house. The wood man said that he could.

The wood man asked, “Do you need help rebuilding?” The man whose house burned answered that he did.

The wood man haltingly said that he used to be in construction but there had been no jobs recently and he would be glad to help.

Russ and Mary looked at him and each other. Everything would be fine.

 

Posted in Challenges

A Way Out

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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She sat at the table, looking at the bottle of poison left for her there. Her friend, Colin, supplied it. She had been so miserable. Her husband had tormented her for years. Years of subtle, and not so subtle, mental and emotional abuse. She had always confided in Colin. He knew she was about to crack, that she could not take it anymore. That she had come to this place. That she was really considering poisoning her husband, shocked her. She couldn’t wait to do it.

Her mind wandered back to all the years before. She had been ambitious at one time. He had nipped that in the bud. He wanted her home, where he watched her. Monitor every phone call. Every visitor. He had broken her spirit. She hated him.

Now, she had to figure out how to do this. Colin said the poison was tasteless and colorless. Undetectable to the police. Tonight, she would make vegetable soup. She would put just enough in his bowl. That thought made her heart beat fast. She was shaking.

She started to get up from the table. Thoughts poured through her head. She turned, picked up the bottle, and drank it herself.

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 04/15/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Memories and Dreams

When I lean over the railing of the pier and look into the Gulf of Mexico, the surface is ultrasmooth. What I see is the reflection of my memories and the mirage of my dreams. They overlap as the water moves and it becomes hard for me to tell what is a memory and what is a dream. I think some may be the same. I hope not. It’s time to unpack my baggage, as a friend of mine would say, and move past the memories. Try to make my dreams happen.

I have to ask myself if it’s too late. Is it too late for me emotionally? Are the emotions that support those dreams used up now? Maybe it’s just too late physically. Maybe I’m too old to have the dreams of a younger woman. I’ve never thought that before. It’s not like me to think that. I seem to be feeling my age recently, whatever that means. That’s also not like me. It’s worrisome.

There are always people in your life who are small-minded, petty, and jealous. I spent many years of my life avoiding those people. In the last few years, I forgot what I knew to be true. I cannot deal with such people and I let them back into my life. I have learned my lesson.

I still have dreams. Big dreams, in fact. I also have memories and, often, they get in the way. My memories that get in the way really have nothing to do with my dreams. My memories are of emotional things. People, places. Failed relationships. My dreams for the future are not about people, places, or relationships. They are dreams just for me. Successes professionally are my primary dreams. How can my memories of people and failed relationships possibly get in the way of professional successes?

I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to most of you. Repeated emotional failures can break down self-esteem and self-esteem affects every facet of your life, including your professional life. I have always had the ability to put emotional failures away in a box in my head and heart and go on with my life, including my professional life. As I get older, that ability seems to be escaping me. I find that very distressing. Exposing myself to small-minded people did not help me, but I have fixed that problem now.

Memories and dreams. Where do memories stop and dreams start? Is there really a clear-cut, definitive line?

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Posted in Challenges

Hassan

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Hassan watched the soldiers as they went through their drills near the house in which he and his mother were staying. He remembered another house. He was with his mother, father, and baby sister in that house. Now his father was a soldier and seldom came home. As for his baby sister, she was just gone. When Hassan asked where she was, his mother just cried. Hassan was seven years old. He lived in Aleppo, Syria.

All Hassan knew was that his ears hurt. He wished for quiet. It was never quiet where he lived. Hassan was also hungry, but he tried not to cry.

One day his father came home and told them to get ready. They were going to escape. They left the house and ran into the country, hiding all the way. His father said they had to get to the border. Hassan was so tired, so his father carried him. Suddenly, there were bright lights and men with guns. When Hassan woke up, he was on a cot with his mother smiling over him. They were safe now, she said.

Hassan knew she was right. It was quiet now.

Posted in Challenges

The River Chamo

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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They had spent three days camping by a lazy section of the Rio Chamo in New Mexico below Taos. Leslie and Bill had brought their raft with them. After much reading, they decided that this section of river was suitable for novices. After getting the raft ready and in the river, along with their gear, they climbed aboard.

It was smooth going at first. They knew how to paddle. As the river took a turn, the water got rougher. Bill yelled his concern to Leslie but she wanted to keep going.

They saw the rocky dropoff ahead, but it was too late. The raft flew up in the air and so did Leslie and Bill. They both landed on the bank, unharmed. As they sat up, trembling with shock, Bill quietly told Leslie to turn around slowly.

There sat a large black bear staring at them.