Soul On Fire: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Soul On Fire

Karen knelt over the cooling body of her abuser. Last of the nine. She and Val had dug through the earthen floor together. Dug deep through the adobe layer until exhausted; dug until they found the gravel and rock base. Until they found stones large enough to be a weapon. If they had the strength.

Val didn’t.

When he finally opened the door he was startled by Val’s body at the entrance, where Karen had laid her out. The heavy rocks she wielded did their job.

Taking his cell, she stepped outside, smiled, breathed deeply, and cried.

She called 911.

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Author’s Note: The title comes from a quote that I like:

The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire~~~ Ferdinand Foch

It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

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When Nature Calls: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

When Nature Calls

Aphrodite and Helene were wiped out. The evening at Mont Olymopos Club was a success, both on the floor, dancing their tails off, and in the darkened alcoves doing…things.

Many times.

Upstairs in the restaurant, they had just finished an exquisite meal of Pan Seared Scallops with pureed turnips and shitake mushrooms, followed by warm Gaia Apple Pie topped with Dove ice cream. Wine flowed throughout.

Later, checking themselves out in the ladies room mirror, Helene asked: “Where’s next?”

“A descendant’s Science Fair project,” Aphrodite answered, fixing her makeup.

“Shells?”

“Shells, again. Sigh. But, afterward: RUM!”

“Party!”

They both smiled.

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

Coffee Roulette: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Yvette PriorC

Coffee Roulette

Steph and Tyler were left. The others were lying dead at the base of the table. Two coffee cups overturned. One drawer opened. Two left alive; two choices to make.

“It’ll be fun,” Sean promised. “Reward’s will be high!” A lark.

It wasn’t.

Sean chose coffee: drank, convulsed, died. Bob the same. Rose chose a drawer. Wrong choices.

“Coffee, or drawer?” The host asked, gun in hand.

Steph thought it was a simple pattern: coffee, coffee, drawer, drawer.

Tyler thought so as well and grabbed the coffee.

Wrong choice.

“Coffee, or drawer?”

$500,000,000. Beaucoup bucks.

Steph reached for the drawer.

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

From The Standpoint Of Water

At the breaking of my spirit

At the disbelief in all I’ve found

Nothing really comes together

Nothing really sticks around.

 

Reflected on the surface

Just air and refracted light

But underneath I’m churning

Gonna embrace the night.

 

From your expectations I am less

Then what I thought I was to be

No one stays the course, anymore,

I’m left to drown instead of set free.

 

From the standpoint of water

I am nothing but a drop

That runs along forgotten shores

Drifting aimlessly among the crowd

Some are buoyant, but so not me,

I’m sinking down without a thought.

 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

I’ve heard this lie, this damned refrain,

Yet moving out beyond my ways

Always finds me still in place.

 

From the standpoint of water

I am nothing but a drop

That runs along forgotten shores

Drifting aimlessly among the crowd

Some are buoyant but so not me,

I’m sinking down without a thought.

 

I’m sinking down without a thought.

 

Shirem Far Mrim: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

SHIREM FAR MRIM

The Carpetbag of Extraordinarious rested on the wall, alone but not abandoned. Waiting. A new owner was needed; time for the mantle to be passed on. The carpetbag always remained the same, but a new umbrella would call the next Mary.

Preloved umbrellas were splayed among the rafters, in honor of those who had deftly used them. The levels were as endless as the Marys’. Each was distinctive, wondrous in their magical glows.

The Parrot-Headed one gave a squawk. All the other handles turned.

A double layered, inverted umbrella brought the new Poppins.

She adjusted her hat. “Spit spot. Ready!”

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

Life During Clock Time: #FridayFictioneeers

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Life During Clock Time

Midnight comes but once an eve,

The tolling of the chimes by Twelve

Awakens denizens, the Black Forest Clock.

The milkmaid draws her milk.

The farmer hoes his patch.

The lovers lean and kiss, then part, to kiss again.

The Bell Ringers circle, and strike.

And the Devil…

The Devil dances

In and out of his Devil hole

Promises come cheap, this Prince of Lies.

At three, the lovers part forevermore.

Six bells and the milk curdles.

Nine, and the patch withers.

By twelve, only one left to ring anew.

The Devil laughs, sneers,

And continues his dance of tears.

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

Where Have You Been?: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Gah Learner

****Please read, or reread, Philomel, With Melody first. I’ll wait.****

Where Have You Been?

“Finally! Where have you been?”

“Out.”

“Doing what?”

“Stuff.”

“Hmph. ‘Stuff.’ And who were you doing ‘stuff’ with?”

“The guys. Ya’ know. The usual.”

“So, doing that lazy shoemaker’s works for hisself again? He’s using you, Gabrine!”

“Ain’t what you fink, luv. Itsa job; no little, no less.”

“More’n like you lads just want to hang out in the mushroom fields instead of making your own names, like Goodfellow did.”

~~ ~~ ~~

“Oh, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have brought ‘im up.”

“Sun’s almost arise. Bed, aye?”

“Well, I’ve awaiting long enough, eh?”

“Luv you, too.”

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.

The Tod Chronicles: Book 4

 

@Richard_Kadrey Prompt

The Tod Chronicles Book 4

I. The Dangling Participle

It was the best of Tods, it was the worst of Tods, it was the Tod of wisdom, it was the Tod of foolishness, it was the Tod of belief, it was the Tod of incredulity, it was the season of Tod Light, it was the season of Tod Dark, it was the Tod of hope and despair, Tod had everything before us, and Tod blew it all to hell.

“Thanks, Tod. And your stupid monkey thing too.”

That became the call of the people. The saying could be found on a huge, I mean huge, number of things. Cups, mugs, t-shirts, bumper stickers for your Space Vehicle, pencils, coasters (for drinks, not going up and downsy things), and it could even be found tatooed on certain parts of the body by those who were most miffed. Coke had to recall a wee bit over twenty billion bulbs of their product that had ‘Tod’ on the label.

Noone in the Acronym Research and Study Services knew who came up with the saying. TTAYSMTT was not the most graceful combo. It sent Ms. Belfar, acting head of ARSS, into a convulsive state upon its first appearance on a sign being dragged behind an FL 42U FE sky drone (otherwise known as a Fluffy).  TTAYSMTT, spoken, was a mouthful. Some headway was made when it morphed into TattysMit. The cool kids gave it the tweak it needed,  and “Ta-Tay!” became the flavor of the month and a half.

Ms. Belfar recovered soon after. She went into the Medial Circumference a wreck and came out engaged to Mr. Frank Bloom, the Circumference Custodian, and all around Dandelion Master. They will be hyphenated and brought to union by Commodore 71 on 210988 at 1500 hour of the clock, EST. The BB’s are registered only at acronym friendly stores.

“Ta-Tay!”, I mean Tod, was not happy about any of this. He wasn’t happy about what led to all of this: he was badly injured by the Man-Eating Space Ducks but, surprisingly, he survived; was eaten by a planet (whose name can’t be named due to legal issues) and summarily spit out by the (un)said planet; and finally escaping the clutches of a Galactic Orb Buster (Mrs. Belfar-Bloom was quite pleased with GOB) after infiltrating the GOB in three different disguises, and eventually vanquishing the intergalactic foe with the help of his quasi-simulated girlfriend Anouk and Darth, the stupid incontinent monkey thing.

Even with all this surviving stuff going on, Tod wasn’t happy at all at this point in his life. He definitely didn’t think he would survive this latest muck up. Just about everyone left alive hated him. Anouk and Darth weren’t quite sure at this point.

He had one job, and he incontinated all over it.  Push a lever here, press the three strobing globes in the correct sequence, and put Metal to the Peddle©™®. One job: the safety of the known universe.

If only he had a Spork ®.

How he messed up, partially atoned for the cataclysm that followed, lost his love then got her back again, and why that stupid Darth hid an ulterior motive in his bowls, are all part of this Narrative In Space (the NIS series, ARSS approved). It’s become my job to lead you on as the Narrator of the narrative.

Who am I?

I’m Jim. Welcome to my world.

Stupid Tod.

**Jim Notes: In case you missed that last three of The Tod Chronicles NIS series, the following blue letters below with jaunt you to their destination:

No Tod, You Just Lie There While I Fight The Man-Eating Space Ducks With A Spork

Mars Blows

Tinker Tailor Soldier Tod (Yanked off the shelves due to secretive thingies being worked out) 

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Author’s Note:

The above pulp cover prompt was “altered” by Author Richard Kadrey. He has been posting, on Twitter, reworked/photoshopped covers of old pulp(ish) novels, changing them to show off his brand of humor. I just thought it’d be fun to write a few story posts from Mr. Kadrey’s. So, yes, this is my writing, not Mr. Kadrey’s.

Richard Kadrey is a writer, photographer, comic book writer, and an all-around interesting guy. His fiction straddles the Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Cyberpunk worlds, and he’s pretty darn good with it all. I fell in love with his writing starting with his first Sandman Slim novels. Gritty, sometimes violent, often full of whimsey, and really worth reading. He’s not just another pretty face.

You can check out more fun covers by following him on Twitter @Richard_Kadrey.

To get into his body of work, visit his website: Richard Kadrey

Storms Will Come

The storms, the storms

Alive, they come

Floating or falling

They collect, always downward.

 

On the trees, on the grass,

Oer the fields, the streams,

The mountain tops,

The Canopies and roofs,

On grizzled heads and ones of youth,

The storms, the storms,

They come.

 

Things quiet down, you see

There is a softness of sound.

Or a roaring crack and sear

That goes the other way around.

Both are needed; both are dear

Both can bring life; both can bring fear.

 

The storms, the storms,

They come, they come

Bringing that sense of calm

Of the white drifting flakes.

Or feeding the energy of life,

As the panorama is slaked.

 

The come,

The storms.

They come.

 

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Thanks to a new online writer friend.

 

 

 

 

Who Is The Fairest?: #FridayFictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Nathan Sowers grandson of our own Dawn M. Miller

Who Is The Fairest?

Magic Mirror had it rough ever since the Wicked Queen was defeeted. Wearing red-hot metal shoes is one thing; being forced to dance in them? A whole other mishegoss.   Queeny was toast.

The Mirror was in a funk: nobody asked it anything.  On top of that, the Mirror became a magical vagabond. Wherever it was stored, or hung, the locations were beneath it.

“A shack! Alas, alas!”

Its finale placement. It deliberately cracked itself up. Fare thee well.

Who was Fairest wasn’t fair, at all.

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It’s #Friday Fictioneers prompt time, as always created and hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her blog, Addicted To Purple.

The rules are simple if you’d like to do this:

1. 1. Use the photo on Addicted to Purple as your prompt (goes up on Wednesday).
   2. Write a 100 word story, complete with beginning, middle, and end.
   3. Make every word count.
   4. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor of the photo credit.
2. Add the InLinkz button (below) so your readers can find the dozens of other bloggers who have taken up this challenge.