Ben said, “I’ve rounded up the last of the flowers. I just stuck them in these containers.”

The employees of the flower shop were resting in the back room at the end of a busy summer weekend. Every flower in the shop had sold except these two arrangements.

The door opened and a woman walked in, crying.

“My mother is so sick. She loves flowers. Do you have anything? The cases are empty.”

The employees all looked at each other and Ben walked to the back. He got the arrangements and handed them to her.

She left the shop, smiling.

Photo credit to Dale Rogerson

“Honey, I want you to be really careful. This is your first solo trip in the car.”

“Dad, I promise I will follow all the rules of the road,” Gail responded.

“That’s not enough. You have to drive defensively.”

Gail got in the car to go see her friends.

She zoomed out of the driveway. She saw a stoplight ahead and realized she was driving too fast. She didn’t look behind her and had to slam on the brakes. The car behind her hit her and, since the engine was in the back, the entire VW went up in flames.

Photo Prompt by Kent Bonham

“Is this all that’s left?” Grace wondered as she surveyed the contents of her late mother’s bedroom. After her mother died, her sisters had ransacked it before Grace had arrived. The closets and dresser drawers were open. Her mother’s jewelry box was even gone.

Grace walked over to the table where the jar her mother used for her crystals stood. Clear quartz crystals. Grace’s mother had believed in their healing powers. Her sisters hadn’t taken those because they laughed at that idea. Grace picked up the jar to take with her. There was an explosion of white light.

Photo credit @ Janet Webb

“Another stack of manuscripts,” Jenny thought to herself as she started opening envelopes.

As an editor, Jenny read and edited dozens of manuscripts each year. Debut novels mostly. Few would make it. Publishing was changing. She had always wanted to write herself, but her finances had never allowed it.

She started reading a manuscript that was an environmental thriller on climate change. This was the kind of thing she wanted to write. She knew how to do it for mobile applications.

“Why not!” she thought. She threw the jar of used staples across the room and walked out the door.

Photo credit @ Claire Sheldon