She knew they shouldn’t be here, but Jim was insistent that they visit this club that had great rock and roll music, It was on the South side of Chicago in the U.S. It was a rough part of the city.
She gave in after he assured her it would be safe. It was a thrilling taxi ride from their place to the street where the club was located. The streets were teeming with people. All ethnicities, She didn’t see anything worrisome. Just a lot of very diverse people having a good time.
The taxi pulled up in front of the club. They found a table very near the stage. It seemed like the music included all of her favorite songs.
It was closing time and they started to leave. They got to the door and she felt a tug on her arm. She turned and the world went dark. She heard lots of fighting and screaming around her. She realized she had on a hood. She kept calling for Jim having no way to know he had been knocked out and put in a nearby van.
She was pushed into a taxi and yanked off the hood. Another passenger was sitting there.
After they started to move, he looked at her and said, “Sorry about your luck with your date. He was the one with the money.”
There was no answer when she called Jim’s cell. The police had no luck. Jim was gone in a flash.
Thanks to C.E. Aye and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
It had been a wonderful trip. She had finally arrived in her favorite city. The last stop. She was looking forward to seeing a special person. They were to meet in a bar there.
She left dinner early and started to walk toward the bar where they had always met. That was so long ago.
She stepped to the door. When she saw him, her nervousness drained away and she started to smile. It had been 20 years. So much had happened. He turned and saw her while raising his martini glass to his lips. He stopped halfway.
Thanks to Rochelle for continuing to host #FridayFictioneers.
She and her mother found it when they were cleaning out the attic. Several boxes of what some call uranium glass. Antique glass with a glow in the dark glaze on it from decades ago.
She looked in her books about antique glassware and discovered that it is a much sought-after collectible.
As they got it ready for sale, they noticed the glow in the dark coating was flaking off. Antique collectors bought it anyway.
Later, she found out that the flaking was radioactive. What about the people who bought their glass?
The girl was 11 years old. She was becoming an accomplished piano player.
She was terrified of playing in an upcoming recital. The girl was bullied at school. They called her “chicken” and teased her.
It was the day of the recital. She wanted to pull out of it, but she remembered all the cries of “chicken.” When her turn came, she gathered all her courage and played a Bach piece, the Prelude in C Minor.
When she finished, there was silence in the audience. Then wild cheering. She never heard the cries of “chicken” again.
When they decided to go their separate ways, she was devastated. She took a solo trip to the beach to try to reconcile herself to her new life without him.
Why were her friends and family freaking out about her trip before she went? She was trying to start healing.
She went for a swim. When her aunt came down to the beach, she was swimming underwater along the shore line.
Suddenly, there were police and an ambulance. They pulled her from the water.
Really? Over a failed relationship? They must not know her at all.
The blonde girl, with the brunette girl, were nervous, standing in the airport waiting to board their plane to Europe. Each was only 19 years old. Their parents were sending them to Europe for two months with an American tour group. Both girls were in college,back in 1971, and scared of the new experience but excited at the same time.
First stop, Paris. They were taken by taxis to the innermost parts of Paris where the streets were narrow and crowded. They pulled up to an old building. Looking at the building, they couldn’t believe it was their hotel. It looked old and rundown. Their rooms were adequate, according to their American standards, although they soon found out they had to share a bathroom with an entire floor. There was no running hot water, It didn’t matter. The hotel had character and Paris was so exciting.
They wound their way through Europe by train. Some hotels in the big cities were more contemporary, some less.
One of their last stops was Oslo, Norway. The leaders of the tour group seemed disturbed when they arrived at their hotel in a very old section of the city. Later, they would find out their hotel was in the red-light district of Oslo.
After the girls arrived home in America, they knew they had been on one of the valuable trips of their lives. Many years later, they spoke of how that trip was the best gift their parents could have given them.
Thank you to C.E. Ayrs and Jenne Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
#fridayfictionwithronovanwrites Prompt Challenge #30 – Favorite Song
Song: Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones
She didn’t understand what it was about this man. It seemed that no matter what he did or said, she couldn’t find the strength to walk away from him. He was the special one, the one in a million.
She knew that he had been through a lot in his life. Many relationships. All had ended badly. Many great loves that turned out to be not so great. He was cynical, jaded, and took it out on her. She had to believe he didn’t mean to though that belief was starting to fade.
For so many years, she had loved him unconditionally, always remembering the life he had before she entered the picture. Maybe it was the life he still had. He couldn’t seem to accept anything pure or good.
Was what she offered him pure and good or was it selfish? She wasn’t objective about herself and couldn’t answer that question. There were times when she left that she was glad to be gone from him. She was more at peace when she was away from him than when she was with him. She always went back.
Wild horses couldn’t drag her away from her relationship with him.
His former life wasn’t the only problem. Her life contributed to the dysfunction in their relationship as well. She was needy and jealous. Although she tried not to be, she’d never had much positive reinforcement in her life. Then there was The Incident when she was physically abused. She couldn’t think about that.
Was it truly unconditional love that kept her with him? Was it something else, something darker? Was she afraid to step out into the world and take her chances? Was she going to stay with him, no matter what, because she was afraid something else would be worse? She was suffering abuse at his hands too. Emotional abuse.
Then, it happened. She didn’t know what “it” was, but one day, her emotions turned off as if they had been switched off. She looked at him and didn’t care anymore. She wanted to be away from him. Suddenly, she was free, but she had wasted so many years. She didn’t have much time left.
The wild horses that couldn’t drag her away were now carrying her away to her freedom. What about him? She couldn’t sacrifice herself anymore.
Alfred sat nervously waiting for a taxi. He had groceries to take home, but his mind was elsewhere. He had called a taxi almost half an hour ago. It should have already arrived.
A horn honked and headlights blazed as the taxi screeched its tires pulling up to him. He didn’t give it a thought as he leaped into the taxi before the driver could get out. He breathed a sigh of relief. Now he wasn’t a sitting duck.
The driver silently sped away. It was quiet in the taxi. The driver didn’t speak and that made Alfred anxious. He was driving too fast. Alfred tried to make small talk with the driver but to no avail.
They reached the edge of the city and Alfred was relieved. Then suddenly, the taxi swerved hard and Alfred was thrown against the window. He was knocked unconscious. Later, he had no idea how long it took him to wake up.
When he awakened, with his head pounding, the driver was nowhere to be found. As Alfred looked around, he realized there was a man in the floorboard of the front seat. He had on a badge and was obviously the real taxi driver. It was quiet and dark. He saw the bushes at the side of the road rustle. He reached for his phone and realized it was gone.
He was being hunted and there was no way to escape.
She went to the park with the rock garden just to escape for a few hours. She sat to eat her lunch, finding peace in looking at the rocks around her.
As she looked at the beautiful rocks, they seemed to move. She thought it was the tears in her eyes. One seemed to have turned into a statue of her mother. Another a statue of her dad. They had passed long ago.
Seeing them again in the rocks gave her some peace. Maybe she wasn’t so alone to deal with her life challenges after all.
In the heart of the city, an old, weathered man had a bright and shiny food truck that catered to the lunch crowd from businesses in the area. He sold fish and chips. Everyone who ate there raved about how delicious the food was. The lunch lines kept getting longer and longer.
Simon was a chef who had gotten his fish and chips recipes from one of his mother’s cookbooks. She loved fish and chips and was striving to find the very best recipe.
After her death, Simon found a small jar in her kitchen that was labeled “Special Ingredient for Fish and Chips.” He had no idea how to find this special ingredient or what it was. It tasted like nothing he had tasted before.
One day, an ancient, wrinkled lady came to the food truck. She was his mother’s friend and told Simon the seed pods he needed only appeared on the night of the third full moon.
Simon gathered the seed pods on the designated night. He began to make the secret ingredient, but it was never quite right. The crowds at the food truck started to dwindle.
As the Legend of Simon, the fish and chips guy, goes, he could be seen at midnight working on the secret ingredient in his food truck.
The Write Scribe 