Friday Fictionaeers – This Jolly Beggar

The Bus – Friday Fictioneers

Genre: Realism 
Word count: 99
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Brenda Cox)
and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

The Bus

Honey Humberg had waited for this day all her life.

She’d worked and saved to build the “Humberg Bus” from scratch, designing, commissioning and assembling it, part by part. She painted it in homage to the DIY hippies that were her inspiration, free thinkers and dreamers all. She would tour Europe showcasing her singing talent and the world would fall at her feet.

In the square, the crowd cheered when the Humberg Bus arrived.

They left when she began singing.

“How much you want for the bus?” a man asked.

“One billion pounds,” she said bitterly, turning away.

“Done.”

The Load

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Sandra Crook) 
and limit our words to 100 or less.

I counted them too, you know: every turn, every curve, every meter. Every pothole, aggravation, near disaster.

For what it’s worth, the load was never the point.

It was where I was going.

My only regret is you were stuck with me for every millimeter of it, and you hated it.

Life was too slow for you.

It was too fast for me.

I had a load to carry: responsibility to those who depended on me.

You were looking for an escape.

I was looking at the journey’s end.

I wish you could know now it was worth it.

Letter from the Past

Dear Rochelle and fellow Friday Fictioneers, This is my second stab at writing for this week’s prompt. I guess I must be out of practice: instead of fictioneering I ranted for a hundred words, posted then banished from inlinkz when I realized a piece of fiction it was not. Back to the photo prompt and finding my muse again. :>)

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Andrea gripped her husband’s hand tightly as Grace ripped open the letter. It was from her birth mother. The fifteen-year-old had made them promise to give it to Grace when she too reached fifteen.

You were loved every moment I carried you. Just wanted you to know that. There won’t be a moment when I don’t love you.

Sighing, Grace looked up from the blunt, childish scrawl, a smile on her face.

“I believe her. She could have thrown me away like a piece of garbage. Speaking of which, Dad, can we get back to fixing up my motorcycle?”

Afternoon Bobcats

Afternoon Bobcats

The scirocco blew in our second day in Trieste. We sheltered from the blood rain in an old church.
How long? Joan asked.
‘The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.’
Not my favorite. Hurrah for May 17th, 1966!
‘Judas!’ a voice yelled from the crowd that day when Bob switched from folk songs to electric guitar.
But that year, he wrote my favorite, today anyway.
I watched her cradle her sleeping baby. He wrote it when his eldest son was born. It was released on June 22, 1979.
A single.
“Forever Young.”
We looked out. The rain had stopped.

“Forever Young” echoes the priestly blessing from the book of Numbers:
“May the LORD bless and keep you . . . .”

Genre: Fiction; Word count: 100
Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © Brenda Cox and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Fear

Genre: Fiction
Word Count: 100

Fear

I’ve heard it said that a woman should never be afraid of her own life. Yet I am. Every day the crowd multiplies. I grow old. The room grows smaller. Am I to be buried alive? Not with grave dirt, but with ghosts. The more confined I, the more rampant they. What diabolical art is this, that the dead suck life out of those they abhor? My nights are theirs to engorge upon in hopeless pain, my days spit out remnants of their celebration. For as vines strangle and overgrown briars encroach, my ghosts encircle me. And I am afraid.

Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers and Eugi’s Weekly Prompt. Eugi asks us to use any variation on the word prompt (“celebration”).

Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (above, © Alicia Jamtaas) and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories and participate.

Lightfoot’s Last Testament

If
one day
you are told
this was an accident,
caused by your increasing crescendo
of scorn, my darling,

don’t
spill

precious ink

tracking why?
in (what your sort) calls poetry.

Poetry is simply

breaking through walls.

[Addendum for Friday Fictioneers:]

United World Chronicle, 6/5/2100: Missing Woman.

Christina Lightfoot left this note and photograph for her fiancé, Lord Ettlesworth. After multiple crashes, she successfully flew her automobile into outer space. The vehicle reportedly runs on a nuclear-powered, zero-gravity generator. The World Authorities Commission Force (WACF) is requesting information in return for zero lifetime taxes on sales, income, property, and travel.

For Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers (100 words or less; click frog for more) 
and Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt, 37 words, "Crescendo."

Buggy Annals

Nothing in you, nothing in me,
Nothing as far as eye can see
Nothing to say who made me,
Nothing makes itself plain to me
Nothing will be my guide and creed
No absolutes but what my thoughts decree
Ruler of my own destiny
Master of sky, land and sea
No limit to whatever desires mingle, set free
It’s all about me, from A to Z
I’m free to decide what’s best for me
What’s wrong for you may be right for me
Ask Mother Nature, what’s cruelty?
Evolution’s progress, look at me!
[SPLAT!]
– Last sounds of Nobigbug Butméé

Genre: Poetry
Word Count: 100

I’ve been rather under the weather lately but roused myself to participate in Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers and Eugi’s Weekly Prompt. I’ve read many of the entries already and am inspired. Eugi asks us to use any variation on the top photo or the word prompt (“mingle”). Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (above) and limit our words to 100 or less. Check them out!

Hot Pursuit

Somewhere on this busy street the culprit Janus was hiding. The time of the assignation was near. If he didn’t show up with Janus in tow, he knew he was finished.

Suddenly a flash of orange streaked past the fish vendor. Diving through torsos and between legs, arms outstretched, crawling painfully on his knees, he caught the miscreant. The job was done.

****

He knocked on her door. When it opened, Janus leapt into her arms.

“Oh you darling!” She buried her face in the tabby’s fur. “He wasn’t any trouble, was he?”

“Oh no!” he said, handing her the roses.

genre: fiction; word count: 100; Rochelle Wisoff-Fields kindly invites us to join the Friday Fictioneers in their weekly creative quests of a hundred words or less. Photo prompt © Roger Bultot. Click on the frog and join in!

All I Need is the Air

Andrea watched as the trailer rig pulled into their lot. This was a new beginning, for them and their children.

She turned to look for George who was standing by a small creek looking lost.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered in his ear. “You’re wondering why we lived like kings for so long when we could have been happy as paupers like now.”

“I never meant you to have to start over like this.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey! We’re bankrupt, not dead. And all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.”

Jeeves Clairovoyant

Even before these events transpired, my barrista, the summum bonum of my life, divined them in the grinds.

She summoned me (“Bertie”), supplied my ususal combustible concoction, and intoned, “Enjoy.”

It wasn’t what she said but the way she said it.

“Rad, Jeeves, what ho!” said I.

As I blew out the door, winds exceeding 90 mph blew through the Savannah café. I landed down the road on Aunt Agatha’s bulldog, Horatio, who was as pleased to see me as a vulture on resurrection day.

My espresso, as predicted, survived. Extricating myself from Horatio, I took a sip. I enjoyed.

genre: fan fiction; word count: 100; Rochelle Wisoff-Fields kindly invites us to join the Friday Fictioneers in their weekly creative quests of a hundred words or less. Photo prompt © Dale Rogerson Click on the frog and join in!