The Girl on the Bridge

I wrote this for the June 27th Flash Fiction Challenge

---

---

Stavo picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder
the cans rattled together, they shifted in the sack
Tonight he carried mostly blues, greens, yellows, and greys
He took the path through the park, from his van to the bridge

His canvas was already chosen so he promptly set to work
Shaking each can before use
Ducking down as cars passed
He painted a portrait of Caledonia

The young girl with colourful corkscrew hair and full, lush lips

He never sold his work
Just put it out- to be loved or hated
By whoever happened across it

---

The prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that involves paint. It can be fresh, peeling or in need of a coat. What is being painted and why? Go where the prompt leads!

OLWG#108- Not All Forevers are Equal

 Written for OLWG#108

---

Evi opened her eyes, turned her head and looked at the large man lying next to her in the small bed. She knew he was a cop but she couldn’t remember if she had gotten his name. It didn’t matter. He breathed slowly and regularly with his back towards her. She figured he was asleep.

Careful not to wake him, she spun her legs off the bed, eased from under the duvet, and put her feet on the floor. Her dress was there, next to her purse, so she pulled it over her head. It had thin straps, was made of silk, and cut short. Her pumps were next to the bed. She groped around and scoured the floor but she couldn’t find her panties and she hadn’t come in with a bra. She figured she was as dressed as she was going to be. She didn’t want to linger any longer than necessary.

He had left the pre-negotiated 700 guilders on the dresser, she scooped up the cash and was moving toward the door, ready to leave, when she spotted his wallet on his bedside table and his weapon hanging in its holster from the back of the desk chair; a nine. She paused to consider what she was planning. After a while she shrugged her shoulders and removed the pistol from its holster sliding it into her bag. The wallet and car keys were next.

After taking what she could she opened the door a crack and slipped from the room into the corridor. On the lift, she pressed the button for the garage and prayed that she didn’t have to stop at the ground floor. She held her breath as the car slid past the lobby and she stepped out on P1. It took a minute to get her bearings but finally, she ventured left and walked till she spotted his older model BMW, the one had brought her here in. It was a deep black 325i that unlocked without complaint when she pressed the button on the key.

Evi threw her purse on the passenger seat and slid in behind the wheel. She started it and waited a while for the engine to warm up. While waiting she removed the 9 from her bag and concealed it between her leg and the centre console. Turning onto the straat, Evi contemplated her life; she didn’t seem to be living the life that her mother had promised.

Should she try to sell this car or leave it down by the waterfront with the keys in.

---

---

This week’s prompts were:

1. I told you not to throw that egg
2. even distribution
3. not all forevers are equal

---

Running For the Border

I wrote this for the June 20th Flash Fiction Challenge

---

---

“Moooom,” I wailed from the backseat, “It hurts.” She looked over her shoulder before pushing her cigarette out the wind wing and turning down the radio.

“You just have to hold it, Billy,” she said; turning her attention back to the road that stretched out in front of us. “I can’t simply call a time out.”

We were going fast when she hit the spike strips and the tires all burst. My bladder let go when the wheels began tossing sparks like lightning bugs past the windows.

We skidded sideways to a stop and the troopers boxed us in.

---

The prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about having to wait. Who is waiting and what for? Think about how the wait impacts the character or the story. Go where the prompt leads!

Author’s note: Waiting can be quite boring, in and of itself, so I thought I’d throw in a car chase to help hold my reader’s interest.

OLWG#106- Honky-Tonk Saloon

 Written for OLWG#106

---

---

Marshall was walking south on U.S. Route 54, the train tracks to his left when the snow began to fall. He would have been hitching if there had been any traffic. It was dark, no streetlights, and cold. He was surrounded by desert and heavy clouds blacked out the stars. The quiet was like a beast sitting on his chest and roaring. Oppressive, Omnipotent, Weighty…

He kept walking; one foot in front of the other and at some point he became aware of something else that he shared with this high desert landscape. He couldn’t have told you whether he heard it first or saw it first. A faint glow – behind the next hill? Maybe over the horizon? – he couldn’t tell. The sound of a crowd? Or the throaty rumble of mufflers from a hundred race cars? Music? Hallucinations?

Marshall continued to put one foot in front of the other. He was shivering with the cold, but as he moved he realized that he had begun to sing along with the music. It was a mixture of country and old rock ‘n roll. It was then that he crested the hill and looked down. He saw a tilt-up concrete building the size of a sports arena that was surrounded by a poorly lit gravel lot. Pick-ups filled the parking area. and a garish lighted sign shone brightly where the driveway met the highway.

“The StarLite” it read in large letters done in a mid-century modern typeface, stylized stars, planets, and satellites seemed to orbit the name. There was a changeable letter message board below where the message read,

7 STAGES, LIVE NUDE GIRL5,

BEER, WINE, BILLIARDS, BOWLING

BEST PASTRAMI SANDWICHES THIS SIDE OF THE RIO GRANDE

Marshall picked up his pace. What the hell, he thought, any port in a storm, it was cold and he craved warmth. By the time he reached the driveway he was running; down the drive and across the gravel lot. The double front door was metal. It was a fire door, painted red that opened with a crash bar. There were no windows on the front of the building, but inside, sat a large man on a stool. A black felt cowboy hat rested on the floor next to him. The man had a shaved head and wore a blue shirt with a white patch over the pocket. The patch read “Hector”.

His sleeves were rolled up and cinched around tree-trunk biceps. Jeans and black boots finished the outfit.

Without a word, Hector pointed to a hand-lettered sign over his shoulder “$5.00 Cover” Marshall pulled a twenty from his pocket and, teeth chattering, handed it to the big man. Hector produced a roll of bills and carefully manipulating his island sized paws, gave back three fives to Marshall. He then held aside a beaded curtain and motioned Marshall inside.

 

---

This week’s prompts were:

1. keep walking till the music gets loud
2. it’s always money
3. he only came in to get out of the snow

---

Emergency Blow

I wrote this for the June 6th Flash Fiction Challenge

---

---

USS Pickrel – Emergency Surface: Photo Courtesy of Navsource.org

 

Asleep in the bow, I forgot the plan to test the emergency blow system. I woke to the sound of the diving alarm and that shuddering of the hull that accompanies flank speed, and cavitating. We changed trim. The bow rose from a zero bubble to a 40 degree up bubble. We were rising fast when suddenly, BOOM. I heard the 4500 pound air dumping into the main ballast tanks; first the forward tanks then aft.

When the boat broached, the bow raised high above the swells and splashed down. She came to rest on the surface, waters roiling.

---

 

The prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that makes a big splash. It can be fluid, or you can play with the idiom (to make a big splash is to do or say something that becomes unforgettable). Go where the prompt leads!

OLWG#105- I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

 Written for OLWG#105

---

---

Junior Notaro grabbed his sister, Marica, by the chin and turned her head so that he could see her face.

“What’d you tell Ma, Mari; what’d you tell Ma?”

“I didn’t tell her nothin’,” she wiped tears from her cheek, smeared her mascara and looked at Junior defiantly through cry reddened eyes.

“I didn’t tell her nothin’.”

BAM

Junior slammed his hand down hard on the table and Marica jumped.

“I’m startin’ to lose my patience, Mari. I need to know what you told her.”

“Fuck, Junior. You’re scarin’ me… All right, all right,” she shook her head and looked down at the table, “I told her… I told her that you and Ann went into the city, and you were going to stay the weekend.”

“Why would she believe that?”

“I told her that you were going to see some shows.”

“Do you know where I was, Mari?”

“No, not for sure, but you might have been involved in that shooting on the bridge. Did you kill those guys on the bridge, Junior?”

He averted his gaze to the window, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come on, Junior; I watch the news. I read the papers. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what you do for a living.”

---

This week’s prompts were:

1. it’s clogged
2. soaked
3. rocket surgery

---