Mother’s Gift – Friday Fictioneers – March 24, 2016

© Ted Strutz 

 

“Perfect!” Stephen said rubbing his hands together, “I think that’ll get the message across!”

“Uhm, don’t you think that that’s a bit much?” Jason said, looking doubtfully.

“Nah!  My Mom’s got an original outlook … she’ll love this!”

The next day, Mother’s Day, Stephen blind-folded his mother and took her out to the back garden.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” he intoned proud of his handy-work.

“Oh my Stephen! Now this is original indeed!” she beamed though uncertainly at him. “Just one thing, would you mind terribly if I paint the commode sky blue?”

“Ah! I should have thought of that!”

© G.s.k. ‘16

100 words

 

Friday Fictioneers

Black and White – Haibun – March 12, 2016

Emily Grant

 

Truth they say is black and white, Marco thought as he walked along the street, intrigued by the odd afternoon light caused by a pause in the storm. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the wind picked-up shaking a plastic bin bag drawing his attention to it. Someone had discarded an umbrella or maybe something else, he wasn’t sure. How odd; the light refraction caused by the weird preamble to the storm made everything a little mysterious. The world seemed black and white yet things were anything but clear. Hard to see any truth here.

bold contrasts
enlightening
his inner truths

© G.s.k. ‘16

(100 words)

Friday Fictioneers

B&P’s Shadorma and Beyond 

Molly and Louis – Friday Fictioneers – December 4, 2015

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

Molly was seventeen and had lived on her own since she was fourteen, from the day her father, drunk as usual had tried to take her to bed.  Luckily he’d fallen into a stupor, so she rifled his wallet and set space between them.

Now she worked as a waitress in the cafeteria of an office conglomerate next to an old factory.  The money was ok, plus she had all she needed to eat. She’d found a small work shed that she’d cleaned up and made homey.  Just she and her cat Louis lived there.

She didn’t feel at all homeless.

 

4 DECEMBER 2015 – Friday Fictioneers

Take Away – “senryubun” – August 20, 2015

PHOTO PROMPT – © Madison Woods

I saw two moths like so many other tourists who lined up at the take-out window of the local fast-food joint. I could just imagine the conversation between the two.

“It’s been a long haul!  Whatcha say to a break?”

“Yeah . I could kill a hamburger!  Darn, it looks closed to me.”

“Uhm, I saw a dude pull up with a car and hit a squawk-box, then he drove over to this window and they gave him a bunch of stuff.”

“Ah – well, let’s go then!”

Even the moths
visit a fast food restaurant
from time to time

© G.s.k. ‘15

(A senryubun doesn’t exist … but I really couldn’t call this a haibun 😉 )

Written for Friday Fictioneers … and not linked sorry I’m not home.

Brooding under the Moon – Flash Fiction (100 Words) – August 9, 2015

 

Brooding under the tenuous moon, the wicked witch sat reflecting about her current lover, who of course didn’t really appreciate her genius, the wimp. She’d dump him.

Though beautiful, her heart was a black hole. Everything and everyone that came too near, got sucked up, transformed and spit out as an appendence of herself.  She avoided mirrors. Like Dorian Grey’s portrait they showed her the dissipation caused by her wickedness. Strangely, she was woman enough to wonder why no one really loved her.

A cat spied her sitting on a park bench. It saw her aura, so prudently slipped away.

© G.s.k. ‘15

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers and I’m submitting it to Tale Weaver as well, as it speaks of a “wicked witch” of sorts.

The Ghetto of Padua – haibun – July 16, 2015

It was hot. The heat radiated off the white walls of Padua, the humidity so high that one had the feeling of walking through a steam filled sauna.

Being a tourist, isn’t all it’s cut out to be, thought Mary.

She turned the corner from the sunny plaza into the shaded walkways of the Ghetto, suddenly she felt transported into another, somehow simpler age.
Brick lined pavements in heavy shadows, where once a people lived, plying their trade. She stood before the open doors of the synagogue.

whispering voices
each footstep an echo
from Venice’s past

© G.s.k. ‘15

§§§§

The photograph by Sandra Crook is of Dijon, France but I’ve placed my travel story in Padua because it looked so much like a photo of the Ghetto (though it could have been in just about any large town in the old Venetian Republic). When one says Padua now days one doesn’t think of Venice, but in fact it is believed that the founders of the island city of Venice were Paduan ( the Venetian Republic was one of the oldest independent republics of Italy which for the most part avoided the constant invasion and colonization of their European neighbours, unlike the rest of Italy).

The “Serenissima” instituted the Ghetto in the 16th century and though the Christians and the Jews mingled during the day, the gates of the Ghetto were closed at night from 1516 onwards.   For a bit of history about the Ghetto, not only in Padua but in the Venetian Republic, click HERE and HERE.

Written for Friday Fictioneers – July 17, 2015

Friday Fictioneers “The Chain” – Haibun – June 5, 2015

PHOTO PROMPT – © C. Hase

 

A chain, that keeps me close to the land, and to him.  Constructed in iron humiliation and pride, hidden in the beach of his desire.  A chain, an anchor I’d once thought it was.  The price to pay for security is sometimes very high.  Just like a chain, this feeling of suffocation.

§§§§§§§

Just beyond the hill, the sea calls: “Come to me – give up your fears – be free!”

Remembering the salt tang of wind on my face, I catch a train … leaving the abandoned chain in the wet sand – forgotten.

free sailing
broken chain
a memory

© G.s.k. ‘15

§§§§§§§§§§§§

Inspired by Friday Fictioneers

 

Friday Fictioneers .. The Fire .. April 17, 2015

 

Photo Credits: Roger Bultot

They’d lived in the white house only a few months before the fire. They’d gone to the movies, returning home, they saw the fire engines pumping water into their home. People stood around on the street as people do in the face of some exciting tragedy.

Mary held their tiny daughter in her arms as a tear rolled down her cheek thinking of their belongings gone up in smoke.

“I wonder what started the fire?” she said.

“Seems someone left the roast on the fire before going out forgot to turn it off!” said a neighbour.

Then she remembered!

© G.s.k. ‘15

 

This is a memoir of sorts … actually a couple of bits of my early memories .. in Mississippi as a child I did live in a white house, there was a fire which we came home to find (but I don’t remember much more than the fire) and my Mother left a roast cooking on the range one evening, my Father had come home and decided we should pass the weekend with my Grandparents … in the rush to dump some clothes in the car, she forgot the roast.  Fortunately, outside of a lot of smoke in the kitchen upon our return everything went alright.

 

Written for Friday Fictioneers

Clickety-clack – genre: Haibun – April 10, 2015

 

PHOTO PROMPT – © Jennifer Pendergast

 

Clickety-clack clickety-clack – rolling down the railway tracks comes the train in the fog. Passing through the small town, it rumbles by my grandma’s house, shaking the place to its foundations.

Once there was a paper-mill just on the other side of the tracks. In those days the clickety-clack must have been a constant back-ground noise, like the cicada’s are now the constant sound of summer.

When the factory closed, the town went to sleep and now, only dreams of prosperity hearing the passing of the occasional trains, going somewhere else.

spring passed
the town falls into winter
its factory closed

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for Friday Fictioneers

Friday Fictioneers – Sadie Thomas – Prose – March 27, 2015

Image by David Stewart

Um-pa-pa  um-pa-pa!  The band from the village gazebo filled the evening air, already pregnant with jasmine and roses, with joy.

Sitting in her wheel-chair, Sadie Thomas had a far away look.  In fact she was far away and had been for several years, tonight though, her memories had taken her back to that special evening when she’d met her Mark.

Her smile was young and fresh, filling her watery blue eyes with a sparkle that had been missing for so long.  Her daughter seeing her smile, clasped her hands.

“Mark!” she whispered, her daughter wondered who he could have been.

© G.s.k. ‘15

 

Linked to Friday Fictioneers