Friday Fictioneers 3-23-2023

PHOTO PROMPT Lisa Fox

“This is ridiculous!” Suzy said, tossing the cards down onto the bed.

“No wonder, all you have is Jokers,” Tim told her.

“I can see that.”

“Then Solitaire is going to be a little complex.”

She rolled her eyes. “You think?”

“I do.”

“Then maybe try finding me some good cards instead of stating the obvious.”

Tim searched the desk and found a new deck of cards.

“I’ll give you these cards if you play a game with me.”

“What game?”

Tim divided the cards between them. They both turned a card up, each a three.

“I- Declare- War!”

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.

Friday Fictioneers 3-15-2023

PHOTO PROMPT ©Rowena Curtin 

The alley was narrow and colorful, filled with signs and benches and plants, anything which might make a tourist pause and come inside. She walked with her eyes on the narrow strip of horizon visible, shops holding no allure for her tired mind. Tony had said this would be the perfect honeymoon spot, but now he was gone and what was left for her to do?

How was she going to get home? And what would she say when she did? Her feet shifted from sidewalk to sand and yet she continued to walk.

Maybe the sea held the answer.

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.

Friday Fictioneers 3-9-2023

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

“It’s beautiful!”

“Just a little something I threw together.”

“You did not just throw this together, Chris.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I do, but where did you get that light?”

“It was given to me,” he replied.

“Oh, it’s dramatic.”

“You don’t have to pretend you like it.”

“It’s okay if you don’t look too closely at it.”

He laughed. “We can take it down if you’d rather.”

“No, somehow it goes with the table,” she said thoughtfully. 

“Let’s make it a promise for no broken dishes in our marriage.”

She smiled. “Perfect.”

 

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.

Friday Fictioneers 3-3-2023

PHOTO PROMPT © Miles Rost

“Do you know when you’ll be back this way?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, dumping the last load of laundry into the machine. “Though with this level of excitement, I can’t help but wonder why.”

“Silly,” she replied.

“I know, but you like me that way.”

“I do.” She sipped her tea. “Will you call me when you are back this way?”

“I will,” he might have lied.

“Sounds good.” She might have believed the lie.

Later, as he was leaving for the night, she kissed him goodbye. “See you next time.”

“Will do,” he replied and headed out into the night.