Response – JSW 3-23-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Tim pulled the golf cart to a halt and got out, walking over to lean on the fence. The colts in the pasture were playing, galloping in circles chasing each other. Bogo, the collie, slid under the fence to join the game.

They had the makings of good racehorses, but nobody would know if they were great until they hit the track. And a great racehorse was what he wanted. Thirty years of raising Thoroughbreds and he’d never had that great one. Maybe this year. Maybe one of these colts. Maybe.

He’d long ago learned not to get trapped in wishful thinking. Raising these horses was his life’s work, great one or not.

Somethings you just did out of love.

JSW Prompt 3-20-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Response – JSW Prompt 3-13-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Good advise if you can take it. Most people would take it and keep on wishing. It’s hard to start doing instead of wishing. I know. I’ve been there.

Spend a whole lot of my life wishing. For the bigger house, the fancier car, the improved phone. Anything I felt would make my life better. Make me happier, but it doesn’t work like that. I learned that the hard way.

Instead of that bigger house and fancier car, I got a divorce and a one-bedroom apartment in a part of town I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemies. Not that I have any worse enemies, at least not now. Except my Ex and enough said there.

I won’t lecture you on wishing and doing. It’s something you have to work out on your own much as I wish somebody had told me about the differences early on.

I working it now. Trying to do instead of wish. Trying to find the way to make my dreams come true. Cause I have dreams, yes, sir I do. And dreams I hope to make my reality. It ain’t easy, but then good things never are.

So, are you doing or wishing?

JSW Prompt 3-13-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

JSW Prompt 3-6-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Response – JSW Prompt 3-5-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Pix by csk

The beach was his happy place. He loved the surf and the sand and smell of the sea. He loved the sunshine and the rain and the wind when it whipped sands into waves. Yesterday he sat down in the wind and the sand, him and a seagull, the only living creatures around. The day before, sunshine. And so he sat, watching the surf, the sound of the waves deep down inside his bones.

She was never coming back and he’d run to the beach to recover, but there was no recovering. Her going left a hole in his life which he knew he could never fill. When he’d buried her, he’d known but lied to everybody around him about it. And they’d believed him because they’d wanted to believe.

He stood in the ocean, surf washing around his thights, staring out into the beyond.

Response – JSW Prompt 2-27-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

“Okay, I’ll stop, but I am okay.”

“I believe you.”

Silence spread between them, flat like a blanket. Neither knew what to say next. And so they worked around the kitchen like any other day. The clink and tinkle of china and flatware speaking all the words they could not say.

“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” he said finally, putting the last dried plate into the cabinet.

“All right.” She drained the sink, wiping down the counters with the wet cloth.

“And find someplace else tomorrow.”

“All right.”

“I’m glad you are okay.”

“All right.”

“How do you want to tell the girls?”

“I’ll tell them.”

“Shouldn’t I be there? United front and all that.”

“All right.”

“I mean if it’s okay with you.”

“It’s okay.”

“All right then.” A pause. “I guess that’s it.”

“It is.”

“Then I’ll get a blanket and a pillow.”

“All right.”

He hesitated a moment and then hung up the dishtowel and walked to the door. Hesitated another moment and then was gone.

“I’m okay,” she said to the empty kitchen and went upstairs.

JSW Prompt 2-27-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Pix by csk

JSW Prompt 2-20-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Response – JSW Prompt 2-19-2023

The JSW Challenge is open to anybody who wishes to participate. Using the writing prompt, write a flash fiction no longer than 300 words and post it 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.

Pix by csk

“Mommy, why are the fish wearing masks?”

“Because they want to be safe and healthy.”

“Is that why we wear masks?”

“Yes, because we want to be safe and healthy.”

“But not all the fish are wearing masks.”

“I know, dear, but it’s the same way with people. Not everyone wears a mask.”

“Don’t they want to be safe and healthy?”

Mother sighed. How did one explain pandemics to a four-year-old? “I guess they think they will be safe and healthy even if they don’t wear a mask,” she said finally.

Lucy considered for a moment. “All the fishes should wear masks,” she decided with a nod of her head, standing on tip-toes against the low wall around the fish pool.

“Yes, they should,” Mother agreed, “but that is their choice.”

“Can we go back inside to see the fish again?”

“Maybe we can come back tomorrow,” Mother said. “The Aquarium is closed now.”

She leaned down and picked Lucy up, cradling her against her hip. “And it’s time to go meet Daddy and have dinner.”

“All right, Mommy,” Lucy yawned, laying her head against her mother’s shoulder. She was asleep before they got to the car.