Friday Fictioneers – From Sea to Shining Sea – Memoirs- January 11, 2015

Back in 1959, returning from the Philippines, my family (that is my Mother and Father) decided to see America. We arrived in Los Angeles and the next day started driving across the great nation in our new station wagon.

Over the mountains, into the desert, we even passed Salt Lake City by night, my Mom told me, “There’s not one nail in that temple!” A week’s stay at Grandma’s in Illinois, then onward to New Jersey.

The only thing I remember of the trip is miles and miles of road … but we crossed the nation from sea to shining sea.

G.s.k. ‘15

Written for Friday Fictioneers PHOTO PROMPT – © Copyright Jean L. Hays

Friday Fictioneers – December 30, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright -Björn Rudberg

Grassy steps led to an over-grown garden. Looking down Janice wondered who had built the walls and indeed, when those stony steps had last been used. The garden full of wild flowers was weed-choked but the sun filtered down invitingly. She began to descend, half-way down the stairs she stopped surprised.

Piercing the silence, a blood-curdling howl. Robin red-breast rises, screeching, into the sky.

She looked down the remaining stairs and saw a large brindled cat stride out from the undergrowth. Tail swishing she realized the hunter had lost his prey.

idyllic spring
among the wildflowers
the hunt continues

© G.s.k. ‘14

Friday Fictioneers

The Christmas Gift – Friday Fictioneers – December 18, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Douglas M. MacIlroy

The Christmas Gift

Genre: Haibun

Mary-Anne had stolen David Wayne from Cathy-Anne. The blonde haired beauty sat by him in the lunch room at Elm Street Elementary School his Christmas present in her hand.  She opened the wrapped box, let out a yell and dropped the object on the table as she ran away in tears.

Cathy-Anne had watched the scene from the next table.  She picked up the box and then  exclaimed: “Oh this is so beautiful!”

“She’s really a silly kitty isn’t she?” said David Wayne, “Let’s go play ‘Magic’!”

 

Christmas present
wrapped in bright red paper
spider and cockroach

© G.s.k. ‘14

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Friday Fictioneers – Genre Haibun – December 16, 2014

Sandra Crook for Friday Fictioneers

 

I was asleep in the back of the Dodge with my brother. The car had stopped.

I could hear the announcer on the radio: “The Kaskaskia has flooded its banks (static)”

Christmas lights were flashing up ahead.

“How long will we have to wait? Do you think the bridge is out?” Mom said.

“We’ve got water up to the car doors.  Maybe we’ll have to turn back home.” My father replied.

I imagined the water turning our car into a boat, then fell back to sleep.

going to Grandma
the Dodge is like the Ark
the waters rise

© G.s.k. ‘14

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Childhood memories are sometimes just  fragments if not filled out by some adult.  Seeing the photograph, I vaguely remembered this trip back in 1955 or ’56.  We were driving from Mississippi to Illinois.

Ice Fog – Haibun – Friday Fictioneers – December 6, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright Janet Webb

Ice fog frosted the trees and bushes white and now with the first pale light of morning the world was a winter wonderland.  Looking like a Norman Rockwell painting but as cold as a miser’s heart.

Students stood waiting for the school bus to come, hoping it wouldn’t be late.  It’s so easy to be frost-bitten on a deceptively beautiful postcard morning in Anchorage. Not an inch of skin was visible, even ski masks covered everybody’s faces.

A couple stood apart holding hands and rubbing noses.

 Alaskan white morn –
ice dripping from old flowers
like a Christmas card

G.s.k. ’14

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Some Background:

In my youth I lived in Alaska, Anchorage  to be precise.  It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived.

However, when the winter rolled in, it did so with a vengeance.  After three months of near total day light,  autumn came and gradually brought on first normality then it ushered in winter with its three months of near total night.

Temperatures were more moderate in Anchorage than let’s say Nome. But they could still get down to minus 20 and lower without much of a problem.

Ice fog was one of the most insidious winter problems to face in Alaska. You’d be driving down a road at night and all of a sudden your wind screen was nothing but a sheet of ice crystals.  It’s ice fog that so beautifully outlines everything in white, at least in Alaska.  Ice fog can hit between late autumn and early spring.

 

Linked to – Friday Fictioneers

Friday Fictioneers – November 28, 2014

Copyright – Randy Mazie

 

The library is my home away from home.

I visited my first library when I was 7 years old. I loved the quiet calm atmosphere, but most of all I was enchanted by the wall to wall, aisle upon aisle, of books. I’d always loved books and I had my collection of Golden Books, but that treasure-house of books was so magnificent, that I stood in ecstasy. The first book I checked out was Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat”. How wonderfully different from my fairy tales. “Imagine that! A Cat in a Hat!”

 

 

Friday Fictioneers

The Michelin Man – Haibun . November 22, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Claire Fuller

 

I remember when the garage opened in 1966 and grew up walking past The Michelin Man every morning going to school.

Years later, when my son Harry was little, he’d squeal with delight when he’d see that vision from outer space.

The place grew older and shabbier. The proprietor went into retirement leaving the garage to his eldest. George-Michael didn’t have his heart in the business, he’d wanted to be a singer.  It wasn’t a surprise when he decided to close the doors  mentioning the economic crisis.

old  Mr. Michelin
changes through the years
karma

(c) G.s.k. ’14

 

An Extra:

I remember seeing the Michelin Man the first day I arrived in Italy, somewhere in Milan going from the airport to the train station. Over the years, his image, on television and in garages gradually changed. From a stout old debauchee with a cigar in his mouth advertising bicycle tires, he’s became a streaking slim white (young) outer-space sort of person advertising automobile tires. Gone is the cigar too .. no longer socially acceptable 😉

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Jostling People – Friday Fictioneers – November 14, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Walking along any street at any hour before midnight in a tourist town, is to walk through a miasma of human intimacy.  Hundreds if  not thousand of people, each in their own little group talking.

“… and I said, “Listen I’m not ready …”

Ready for what I wondered.

“… then she let out this horrible shriek …”

Did she see a mouse or was this something more sinister.

“… the Americans have done it again!”

Oh my, now what are they up to?

Bits of life, bits of personal experience jumbled stories.

summer afternoon
oceans of experience
in tiny puddles

(c) G.s.k. ’14

This haibun is linked to Friday Fictioneers

A Remade Studebaker – Friday Fictioneers – November 7, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Jean L. Hays

She hates growing old.

She’s wearing high heels and red tights under her Japanese-like white silk kimono. Large sequined sunglasses rest on her nose. Her hair should be white but it’s raven black, you can see a white halo around her scalp.

She changes her ‘mise’ at least three times a day, then goes for a walk around town, strutting like a peacock.  Everybody recognizes her but no one ever talks to her.

She’s a remade 1950s Studebaker trying to look like a Mercedes-Benz sports car.

guising from herself
hiding from her fear of life
in mummer’s rags

(c) G.s.k. ’14

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The Veil – Flash Fiction – October 30 2014

The Veil

Sitting on the bright sunny patio, she looked down at her notepad pondering.  How can you write Halloween poetry on such a bright sunny day?

The veil rends
At Halloween
Between worlds

No, she didn’t feel at all inspired.

A rumble seemed to shake the world, she looked up at the cloudless blue sky, “What the …” the thought remained hanging in the air as she heard another, even louder crash.

A feeling of foreboding percolated into her mind. With a third crash the patio began to tremble and disappear.

She sat upright in bed, a storm was brewing.

 

Linked to Friday  Fictioneers – PHOTO PROMPT-Copyright-Melanie Greenwood