Tag: #flashfiction

Posted in Fiction

Ascent #writephoto

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The trip to Scotland had been wonderful. My roots were there, in the Highlands, and I’d always wanted to visit. Now, it was time to go home. We were driving along the curvy roads toward the south of Scotland when we saw the old castle. Old, but in good repair. It had not been on any of the tour schedules we had seen. We pulled into the driveway.

No one was around, but the castle door was open. There was a sign out front that said, “MacDonald Tower. Enter at your Own Risk.” We looked at each other. That gave us pause, but one of the clans from which I was descended was Clan MacDonald so I was intrigued. Without speaking, we entered the open door.

It was dim inside. The ascent up the stairs was steep, but there was no other place to go. We began to climb. As we got to the top of the stairs, we heard a growl and a gruff voice said, “Who goes there?”

We replied, “Visitors to your home.” No answer.

When we left, much later, we were in shock. Our car was gone and two mules stood in its place. We began to walk. We didn’t walk far until we realized that it wasn’t 2018 anymore. We now knew what “enter at your own risk” meant. Entering that castle and speaking with the Laird had transported us back to the Middle Ages. How would we get home again?

*Thanks to Sue Vincent

Posted in Fiction

Hay Monsters

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Ray was drunk. He had to leave his car and walk the country road home from the bar tonight. He smelled the sweet smell of the pasture. He just wanted to lie down. Pass out really. He staggered off the road into the pasture, tumbled down the hill, and was asleep before he hit the bottom.

Dawn woke him. Rather, it tried to wake him as he viewed the light with bleary eyes and shut them again. He realized he wasn’t sober yet. He wanted to sleep it off. The sun started to get warm. Two hours later, it was hot. Ray awoke again, still not completely sober. He decided to get up and make his way to the house.

He opened his eyes as he stood. When he looked up, he screamed. There were strange-looking people working the pasture. They had no faces and hay bales for heads. They were seven feet tall.

Ray turned and ran toward the house, vowing all the way never to drink again.

170 words

Photo credit to Ellspeth

Posted in Fiction, weather

The Wine Tasting

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“Oh, but isn’t the blue fun, the Gik, darling? It’s so new and different,” Juan asked the party at the wine-tasting.

”It’s fun, but I feel like I’m drinking cough medicine,” the American said.

”But the taste! It’s sweet, light, and bubbly. I’m taking some home for my daughter’s wedding,” the British man commented.

The three men, friends for many years, were attending a wine tasting in Spain, where they were on holiday. It was at a small, rather mysterious winery that none of them had heard of before they got the invitation.

“The yellow! The Vin Jeune! This is the first time I’ve tasted it,” cried the American. “How unique! It’s nutty and fruity at the same time. Delicious.”

”It’s just overdeveloped white wine. Next, please,” said the Brit. The Spaniard was delighting in the taste of the yellow.  The three men briefly argued about the characteristics of the blue versus the yellow.

They came to the red, the burgundy. They agreed. Full-bodied, delicious, perhaps the best.

A commotion took place at the door and two masked men appeared.

”Place your wallets on the table. Then walk into the vat room,” one of the men said.

Posted in Fiction

Family Heirlooms

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She had been summoned to her family home in the forest. Only her mother lived there now. She hadn’t seen her in over twenty years. There had been a falling out between she, her mother, and her sisters.

She stumbled up the plank path to the door of the house. She was frightened, not knowing what she might find. She opened the door and walked in.

Her mother was sitting in the living room. Beside her was a suitcase and surrounding her was all the family valuables and heirlooms. Furniture, silver, gold bars, stacks of money and more. When she saw her, she stood up and cackled, sweeping her arm around as if showing her the bounty. Her eyes looked wild. Then she picked up the suitcase and walked out without a word of explanation.

She walked over to all the heirlooms her mother had gathered and she noticed a note tied to one of them. The note said that it was all her’s and her sister’s. It further said, “Ruth, I would rather have had you for these twenty some years than all the money in the world. How I wish you had known that.”

196 words

PHOTO CREDIT TO MIKE VOR

 

Posted in Fiction

Target Practice

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The boys loved it when the city park was closed. The fence was easy to climb. They hid the car they had “borrowed,” waited until no one was around and scrambled over the fence, pitching their dads’ rifles down to each other.

They were each 14 and knew where their dads’ kept the keys to the gun cases. There were deer that grazed in the trees in the park. They used them for target practice. Their parents were busy. They never knew the boys, or the guns, were gone.

They ran for the cover of the trees and decided to spread out. One of the boys ran to another tree about 100 yards away. The rifles had scopes. They were both poised to shoot a deer. One of the boys saw movement in the brush and fired. He heard a noise and knew he had hit something.

He had hit his friend who was motionless on the ground. The boy kneeled beside him. All he could think of was how mad his parents were going to be. They would take away his phone and his privileges. He wouldn’t get to play soccer. He might as well go home and face the music.

200 words

Photo Credit Sasha Darlington

 

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction

The Book of Spells of Misfortune

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In a city in the North, she was the housekeeper for the handsome detective. She didn’t like him much. She was snowbound at his house overnight. He was gone on an assignment. She was bored that night and looked for something to read. She found a book with crumpled pages called The Book of Spells of Misfortune. Curious, she opened it.

She found a spell she would like to cast on him but she didn’t believe in that stuff. She started chanting it for fun. She heard something and there he stood. He had turned into a pillar of ice.

100 words

Photo Credit Dale Rogerson

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Writing

Catch Me if You Can

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The nursing home was like new and the two ladies were old. They had come to see their sister. They were triplets and the nursing home had only been remodeled in places. When they looked down at the old brick floor, they twittered to each other that it was not only old but dirty. They thought their sister was in a nicer place. The bright young lady behind the desk directed them down a hall to the left when they gave her their sister’s name. Halls ran off the dank lobby in every direction.

Huddling together, they turned and walked down the hall. The young lady had said Pearl was near the end of the hall. They noticed the doors had no names on them and wondered how they would know which door she was behind. They paused where there were only four doors left although one door seemed to go to the outside.

One of the sisters didn’t know what to do but call out, “Pearl?”

No answer.

She called out louder, “Pearl, answer me!”

The door at the end of the hall was flung open and there was Pearl.

”Catch me if you can,” she answered the call.

 

200 words

Photo Prompt by J Hardy Carroll

 

 

Posted in Fiction

The Muse

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He lived in this ramshackle hotel. He’d caught the ferry to it a year ago after he lost everything in a craps game on the mainland. He couldn’t afford anything else. Now someone wanted to talk to him about painting a landscape.

He found the fine-looking lady at the bar. He bought each of them a drink. She had horses and wanted him to paint them in a pasture on her horse farm.

He briefly dreamed he could still do it. Now his hands shook and the muse was gone.

He turned her down and walked away. Shattered.

 

98 words

Photo prompt JS Brand

Posted in Fiction

The Twisty Stick

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The young boy scrambled into Kay’s kitchen looking for his friend.

”Larry,” he shouted, “I found the wood you need to make one of your walking sticks just for me!”

The old man rose slowly to his feet and followed the boy outside. They found the cut wood lying in the neighbor’s yard.

”Son,” Larry said, “It takes a strong, young sapling with a grapevine wound around it to make a stick.”

”You mean like this?” the boy asked, as he touched a piece of wood.

Larry watched in amazement as the sapling with the vine rose into the air.

 

100 words

Photo prompt by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Posted in Fiction

Coffee – #JusJoJan 2018

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She had spent some of the best times of her life in Jamaica. When she was sitting at her desk in their home on her beautiful island, trying to write, she found herself thinking of Jamaica. Not really about the times she spent there, but about the climate. The climate was always the same. Hot and humid around the coast no matter the time of year and cool as you went into the interior of the island. The Blue Mountains made up the interior, where the coffee plantations were located. Those mountains reminded her of her home in the Appalachian Mountains.

It was a hot November on her beautiful island. The daily temperature published in the media was always ten or more degrees lower than what it really was. The temperature hit 90F degrees every day. The air conditioning in the house had been damaged by Hurricane Irma and wasn’t cooling very well. It was hard to stay inside because it was so hot, but she felt the need to write. Creativity wasn’t coming easily in that environment, particularly since she felt she had a jailer lurking right outside the door.

He wouldn’t go anywhere with her and if she tried to leave for the day, taking one of the day trips she loved, she would see the look in his eyes when she left and when she returned. Barely concealed rage and anger. It just wasn’t worth it. For the first time ever, when she is on her island, she is missing her home in the Appalachian Mountains.

Thinking about the last two years, she slowly starts to realize the state of her marriage. She has tried valiantly to save it, but she is gradually realizing there is nothing to save.

The realization dawns on her that it is time to try to save herself. Is it too late?

 

This post is part of Linda G Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge. Prompt by Barbara. Drop by and visit her site!