FFfAW Challenge – Week of July 26, 2016

75th Challenge

Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

Week of 07-26 through 08-01-2016

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Louise with the Story Teller’s Abode.

Guide for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

1. A prompt photo will be provided each Tuesday to be used as a base to your story. Please include photo prompt with your story.

2. Linking for this challenge begins on Tuesday and runs to the following Monday evening.

3. Please credit photo to photographer.

4. The story word limit is 100 – 150 words (+ – 25 words). Please try and stay within this limit

 

He surveyed the little patch of ground he optimistically called a garden. He’d never had anything to call his own. Now, for good or worse, he had a garden.

But what use, they’d cried, for a garden in which nothing grows? This wasn’t entirely true. Some neighboring gardens flourished before the drought.

Others abandoned their gardens as it got hotter. Dryer. Talked to them. Shaded them from the mid-day sun. Cleaned their leaves against harmful pests.

If only it had worked on the crabby little kids three gardens down. Still, the drought was evenly cruel to all. The little kids hadn’t come for weeks and, to his surprise, he missed them. Chattering like magpies. Squawking like jays. Running around like that funny chicken.

Tomorrow, he thought, will be my last day. He could no longer bear witness to their deaths when he’d so lovingly cultivated each tiny seed.

At dawn, his plot shone like an enchanted garden amid the wasteland. All bright flowers, shiny leaves, hints of berries peeking out from the foliage. A robin warbled.

A smile crossed his lips as he walked away.