The Matchmaker

  I wrote this for the February 14th Flash Fiction Challenge

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My elderly neighbor, Mrs. Silverberg, is always trying to fix me up.
She once arranged me a date with her granddaughter, Ruth.
I liked Ruth, just fine. Ruth just didn’t like me.

She told her grandmother that she had found me – awkward.

On the first of Shevat I happened to meet Mrs. Silverberg at the park.
She wanted to talk with me; about me.
She offered to coach me, so that I might become – less awkward.

It seems that her Rabbi’s youngest daughter may be looking for a husband.
Mrs. Silverberg believes I can be ready by Valentines.

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about valentines. It can be Valentine’s Day, the exchange, love for another, romance, or friendship. Have a heart and go where the prompt leads!

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Country Music

  I wrote this for the February 7th Flash Fiction Challenge

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The sign on the door read, “The Unwritten Halibut”. She stood just inside waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. This was her kind of place. It was a drinker’s bar. Dark paneling lined the walls; a couple of neon beer signs glowed in the back. A ghost of smoke held up the ceiling in defiance of a local ban. Rainbow colored bottles sat on glass shelves and four or five patrons rested at the bar; staring into their drinks, not talking. The volume was low as Hank Williams sang a hard luck song on the box.

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes a sign. It can be a posted sign, a universal sign, a wonder. Go where the prompt leads.

Lookout

  I wrote this for the January 31st Flash Fiction Challenge

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Roger stood in the bow and watched the fog roll in. He hunched in his Pea Jacket to stave off the weather. His hands were in his pockets where he clutched a silver flask of brown whisky.

He felt it before he saw it.  He watched it emerge from the haar that obscured visibility to the north. It was an old Soviet boat, running on the surface, twin screws churning the water.

Roger reached for the handset of the sound powered phone, “Bridge – Bow.  Surface  contact  bearing  tree fife  zero,  fife hundred  yards,  moving  left  to  right slowly.”

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about sea mist. How does it create an environment for a story? It can set the stage or take the stage. Go where the prompt leads.

Porcelain Shards

  I wrote this for the January 24th Flash Fiction Challenge

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The last of the dessert set goes into the furnace
Final firing for
cups, saucers, plates and bowls.
There’s a coffee pot and warmer,
a creamer, sugar bowl, and cake plate.
All done in a stylized violet motif
A signature design favoured by my father.

This time there is trouble in the kiln
Most likely the sugar bowl blew
I’ll never know for sure though. I lost that sugar bowl,
and it’s lid,
two cups that had been positioned close by.
Fine porcelain reduced to shards.
Doesn’t happen often, but its part of the game.

Move on, make more.

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about shards. You can write about the pieces, the item they once were, or who picks them up and why. Go where the prompt leads.

Maybe It Won’t Be So Bad

  I wrote this for the January 17th Flash Fiction Challenge

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Dario was a cad, a reprobate. He knew when he died because the pain disappeared.

Dead Dario rose, brushed imaginary dust from his shoulders, and looked ahead; there was no behind.

He was on a covered walkway surrounding a garth filled with souls of the suffering damned. Tapered stone columns stood like sentries between him and the wretches. Each column, labelled with a lie, that he recognized as one of his own:

Promises he’d never intended to keep, yet made to women he’d wanted.

Yarns spun to investors whose monies he stole.

Dario was a sinner, foreordained to perdition.

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes colonnades. It can be natural, architectural, or a metaphor. Take a stroll and go where the prompt leads.

enrichment, in no particular order

  I wrote this for the January 10th Flash Fiction Challenge

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art and artists
knowledge and teachers
buildings, builders and architects
children and discovery
dogs and cats
food, farmers, ranchers
coffee and mornings
freedom and soldiers

 

big skies in Montana

 

friends and family
oceans and boats
giving without taking
help and contributors
confabs and conversationalists
ideas and thinkers
jobs and colleagues
mountains and fresh air
music and players
amor y novias

 

New Mexico and wide open spaces

 

poetry and poets
sculptures and sculptors
seabirds and majesty
shipmates and brothers
when a plan works
stories and storytellers
wives and daughters, or husbands and sons
books and authors
cake and ice cream

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes the idea of enrichment. Use many of its different manifestations or explore reasons why it matters to the character. Go where the prompt leads.

The Right Bank

  I wrote this for the January 3rd Flash Fiction Challenge

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The night was wet.
Not with raindrops, but a heavy mist hanging in the air without ever seeming to fall on the pavement.
Luc moved up the Rue des Barres, away from the river as gargoyles from Église Saint-Gervais watched from above.
Glancing over his shoulder he caught a shimmer illuminated in the single streetlight below.
Only a flickering,
as though the lamplight were refilling a space hastily vacated by whatever he had not seen.
There could be no doubt. They were on to him again.
He quickened his pace and remembered Aubree; her dark hair, and her laughter.

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The prompt and instructions were:

In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a character who looks back. It can be a metaphorical reflection or a glance in the rear-view mirror. Who is looking back, and why? Go where the prompt leads.