Month: April 2021

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Friday Fictioneers 4-30-2021

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

They sat amid the devastation, oblivious. If not oblivious, at least resigned. The flood waters lay flat, motionless. Behind them, well, there used to be a house.

“Funny,” the first said, “how these daman chairs are bout the only thing to survive.”

“Yeah, funny,” agreed the second, dead-pan.

“Indestructible less you sit in them wrong.”

“Ah huh.”

“Think FEMA will get their tails in gear this time?”

“Nope.”

“You’re right. Probably not. Still……” And he was silent for a long moment. “There is always tomorrow.”

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Question For The Week 4-29-2021

Do you have any pet peeves?

Don’t we all? My biggest pet peeve is small and rather silly, bit it still burns me every time. It is when people go in the Exit Door and Out the Entrance Door. Really people? They are plainly marked. Most of you can read. What’s the problem?

See, silly, but…. it’s a pet peeve. I think pet peeves are supposed to be silly. Little things in life that, while not important in the overall picture, irritate us for no reason. I mean, really? What does it matter which door you use to enter or exit Walmart? Both accomplish the same thing.

It just seems to me this silly little dilemma speaks to a more important topic in our lives. People don’t care anymore. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but it is the right way to enter and exit. Nobody cares if I have to wait to enter the store because they are leaving through the entrance with two carts of stuff and five wild kids.

Okay, that is an exaggeration, but you get the picture. I hope.

What is your pet peeve, silly or not?

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Retro Thursday 4-29-2021

What does it mean to be strong?

What does it mean to be strong? There are many kinds of strength. Physical strength. Mental strength. Psychological strength. Strength in math or writing or baseball. We all know what strength means, or do we?

The Dictionary defines strength as:

1: the quality or state of being strong: capacity for exertion or endurance

2: power to resist force: solidity, toughness

3: power of resisting attack:

4: legal, logical, or moral force;

5: strong attribute or inherent asset

6: degree of potency of effect or of concentration (chili peppers in varying strengths) intensity of light, color, sound, or odor; vigor of expression; force as measured in numbers: effective numbers of anybody or organization (an army at full strength).

7: one regarded as embodying or affording force or firmness

8: maintenance of or a rising tendency in a price level: firmness of prices (the strength of the dollar).

9: basis—used in the phrase on the strength of (from strength to strength); vigorously forward: from one high point to the next.

Strength is inundated into our very being. We are expected to be strong, men and women both. Weakness is not tolerated in this world of succeed or fail.

The strength of our leaders, whether political, clerical, movie stars or sports heroes, has been transformed over the years. Men and women in positions of strength, whether mental or physical, are falling to weaknesses like wood into a chipper. Most people can name at least ten, probably twenty or more, leaders who have fallen from grace. Strength has come to mean invulnerability to many of those in positions of strength.

They are no more immune to attack and destruction than anybody else in this world. They are just better at pretending. There is no strength without weakness. Weakness is the ability to bend but not break. We all need to be strong and weak in equal measure. Those in power who feel that they cannot be torn down are broken because they refuse to bend.

Light cannot be strong without comparison with dimness. A chili pepper can’t be hot without the comparison of mild. An army can’t be strong if they are never willing to bend and fight another day. Phalanxes which fight to the death look impressive, but when the battleground is layered with bodies, what then? Was their strength well used?

One can’t be strong without having been weak. Otherwise, how would know you were strong? Currency can’t be strong without also being weak, even if we’d prefer it not weaken. One cannot go from strength to strength without first having been weak.

I hope that what we are seeing is a revolution against those who hold all the strength, those men and woman who wield strength to benefit them, not those who watch them or elected them or pay their salaries. Those people who think the rules and laws, not of nations, but of humanity, don’t apply to them.

In order for all of humanity to be strong, we must all be strong and weak. There is no strength in millions of people starving or having no safe place to live, no safe water or food, the security of knowing they are safe from the strength of those who would destroy them. Millions of tribesman murdered because they belong to the ‘wrong’ tribe. Strength?

Children bought and sold. Strength?

A finger on the Red Button? Strength?

Torturing an animal? Strength?

No to all the above, but many people will think strength.

This world will not survive on strength alone, no matter what definition you give to the word. So when you think about strength, remember that weakness can be as powerful as strength. Make sure you learn to be weak in order to be strong.

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Response – JSW 4/26/2021

pix copyright csk 2020

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 500 words and post to your page. The Challenge starts on Monday and runs through Sunday each week. Please remember to link your story back to this post so everyone can read your entry.

George looked out across the barren landscape wondering when some trees had turned square and hard.

“Why are all the people running?” Charlie asked, stick close to George just in case.

George looked down at the one person not running and wondered why. “Hello,” he said in a echoing thunder, but it was clear the tiny person didn’t understand.

Now, she was running.

“Come back, tiny human,” George called, flicking his tail once to break completely free of the stone mountain which had held them captive for so long. “I won’t hurt you. Come back.”

“It’s not going to come back,” Charlie said patiently. “You’re too big.”

“That makes me scary?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Maybe you should try then.”

So Charlie strode after the tiny human but she still screamed and hid inside of the hard square trees.

“No luck?” George asked as Charlie came back, skittering around nervously as he looked in all directions.

“Stop skittering.”

“I can’t. I can only think of one reason the tiny humans ran.”

“What’s….”

“They didn’t recognize us with our masks on.”