Short Story – This Jolly Beggar

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
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Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © Brenda Cox and limit our words to 100 or less. 
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Peony Shangri-La

Sorry, folks, but this week’s 92-word Weekend Writing Prompt led me to the dark side. Be forewarned!

Peony Shangri-La

Igg! Take a look! These flowers are beautiful.

Biggest I’ve seen in any galaxy, Jaka.

Oh smell! I love the scent, Igg. The leaves are so shiny and green.

Multiple buds too, Jaka.

The gardeners must be very fine aliens, Igg.

Nothing less than perfect, Jaka.

Like angels, Igg, cultivating beauty instead of hatred, greed or deception.

Have we found Shangri-La then, Jaka, after all these years of searching?

**sound of bug spray**

[gasping] Alas, Igg. Here lies . . . our resting . . . place . . . .Good . . . bye.

For Cee's FOTD, June 12, 2021 
and Sammi's WWP #213, prompt "galaxy", exactly 92 words

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."

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!

The Only Way

Word Count: 100; Genre: Realism

The Only Way

“You’re in my world now. What do you think of it?”
“Like a fish out of water. Like I stand out in an unpleasant way, like I don’t belong.”
“Does that offend you? Want out?”
“Not really. I mean, it’s not your world I want. It’s you.”
“To know me is to know the world I came from. You understand?”
“I do. But you’re still missing the point. It’s you that makes my idiotic world and yours worth knowing. I couldn’t care less otherwise.”
“So our ‘love covers a multitude of sins’, in both our worlds?”
“It’s the only way.”

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields very kindly invites us to join the Friday Fictioneers in their weekly creative quests of a hundred words or less prompted by a photo.

Click on the frog to join the party!

The Ancient Warner

The Ancient Warner

Listen!
it was a night like this
I walked out of Mariner-Labs
the night of my birth
my skin clothing perfection
flawless, selfless, programmed
an AI born into a world
seemingly decipherable
aged the moment I awoke
to look into coveting eyes
human eyes
and I walked out
while they yelled behind me
because this was wrong
this world bent
this people a mistake
surely, a mistake,
and in the diaphanous fog
I touched the Narnian lamppost
I saw the end of time
the Maker
and I worshipped
and returned as a warning
on a night like this

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!

Sanctuary Portal

Kim at dVerse has this weeks “Prosery” challenge of a 144 word-story using a certain line from Yeats’ “The Song of Wandering Aengus” (in italics below). I won’t claim to having done it or the wonderful Whelan painting here justice, but what fun trying! Thanks, Kim. ❤ Check out Mr. Linky for more “proseries.”

Michael Whelan, “Sanctuary” (oil on canvas, 2019)

SANCTUARY PORTAL

“A red-ribboned heart he had given me to wear,” the dying woman breathed. “But I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head.”

The priest nodded wisely. The nun did so likewise.

Outside a young girl stopped to hear all that was said.

“Now I’m unsettled. I miss him so. I lost one world to gain another, both now fading fast.”

A voice came from the portal, a voice that sounded far off. “It’s not too late, my darling. I’ve been waiting this aeon’s passing. There’s more that lies ahead.”

She sat up, her heart failing. She threw open her arms while passing across the threshold’s steps.

The last they saw was a sunlit orb floating into the light.

The priest nodded wisely. The nun did so likewise.

The girl outside the window felt a fire inside her head.

Miraculum ad Fontes

Pastor Peter was all a’flutter.
There was the baby. There were the parents. There was the baptismal font.
And there was Mick Mooney, to whom he had given bottled water for the font, boasting a malicious grin.
The unopened bottle stood, tragically, on the chancel rail.
Peter prayed, opened the font.
It was filled to the brim.
Afterwards, he confessed his surprise to the happy couple.
“Oh, that was me,” the new mother said. “I just wanted to say a prayer over the font before the service began when I saw it was empty. I didn’t do wrong, did I?”

100 words; fiction
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