Idiosyncrasies - 360 words

Angry Hourglass  - 360 words
Photo Prompt courtesy of Ashwin Rao

I have endeavored to behave myself these many years though Temptation lurked around every bend.  Maybe knowing my heart was always in the right place when my actions were not will soften your harsh judgment.   I did try to follow the true path.  

My parents tried to do right by me.  They even relocated to this game flush environment to teach me how to hunt, what to hunt, and when to hunt.  But from my earliest recollection, I favored the game more wary rather than the awkward clueless creatures my kind favored.  It never seemed a fair contest, culling from such oblivious herd animals.  The challenge was what I lived for, not the guaranteed meat in every pot our kind had settled on.

Mom promised my idiosyncrasies would pass when I became an adult.  Just growing pains she said.  She was wrong.  I was in my 30's when I stopped resisting and embraced my urges.  I decided I was but existing for existence’s sake.  Taking up space, living a treadmill life.  There was no challenge in living.  So, I separated from the clan and went my own way.

Word got around.  I became a pariah no longer welcome at the tables of the many clans scattered hither and yon.   I did not mind.  Listening to them justify their slovenly lifestyle by invoking entitlement and superiority made me want to gag.  Besides, by that time, I had lost my taste for domestic animals.  Sustenance was not just a full belly, I needed to feed my soul as well.

I left behind the comfortable space my kind had created for themselves.  And for the first time in my life, I found comfort in being uncomfortable.  I embraced the uncertainty of where my next meal might come from.  I was finally outside the box and I loved it.

I would love to stay and chat, but I am hungry and a nice couple in a RV has just taken up residence near my edge of the woods.  And Look.  They have a dog.  A big Pitbull.

If they let him loose, looks like dinner is served.  But I will have to earn it.
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The Deplorable Double Wide - 99 Words

Flash Fiction site, "Carrot Ranch Communications" does a weekly 99 word challenge.  This week's challenge (11/9/16) is "write a story that pivots around an unexpected ending".  

In lieu of watching the news, commenting on the news, and hating the news, I figured to give it a go.  Anything to take my mind off the nightmares that will haunt me for at least the next 4 years.

My effort this week:

The Deplorable Double Wide

Roscoe opened his eyes.  Disoriented, he took stock of his surroundings.  He was seated at a wooden table in the kitchen of a deplorable double wide.  

Where he was now was not the location of his last waking moment.  He was sure it was tipping shots and slapping backs with his Wall Street buds in lower Manhattan.  On the big screen, their guy was kicking ass. 

“Uh, Where am I?”

A pudgy hand with no wrist dropped a plate of Spam and eggs in front of him.

“Home, you dumass.  You got shitfaced last night cuz your man won.”

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There you have it.  

Keep it 'tween the ditches

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*Cross posted at Lost in the BoZone 

Jack Top - #2 - Say Goodbye

"Say Goodbye" - 250words
(from the defunct site, Flash Fiction Friday - Starter sentence - "What do you see when you close your eyes?")

"What do you see when you close your eyes".

Zip was not even thinking about closing his eyes. Not with that knife in Jack Top’s hand pressed so hard an inch or two under his left ear.  Jack Top grabbed his hair and roughly tilted his head back. "I said, what do you see when you close your eyes?"

Zip knelt whimpering and losing control of his bladder. He looked up into Jack Top's eyes.  He had always been slow on the uptake. It took him a second, but he closed his eyes. Some seconds later they fluttered open. "Uh, nothing Jack. Don’t see a thing. Black I guess. Why?" Piss began to soak through his pants and into the carpet.

Jack Top closed his eyes. His free hand gripped Zip’s hair so hard he could feel some of it coming loose at the roots. “I tell you what Zip. When I close my eyes, I see red. Beautiful red everywhere. Nothin but red.” Jack Top then sliced the poor bastard's throat open from ear to ear.

Jack stood staring down at the wet red gash he had created under Zip’s chin. He watched the gushing blood drain the life out of his eyes. A look of serenity and calm came over J T’s face. He sighed and closed his eyes again. His knife fell to the floor.

Rivet Head whispered, “If he ever asks me that, what do I say?”

Axel looked at him and said, “You say goodbye.”
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Jack Top #1 - "A Cicatricial Reminder" - 100 Words

I was sure I had purged my belly full of anger a few weeks ago.  Apparently not.

I decided to once again try my hand at some Flash Fiction when I found a blog run by an old Flash Fiction friend that offered up a weekly 100 word challenge based on the prompts she came up with.

I also decided that writing an upbeat happy 100 words would put me in just the right mood to walk down to the Town Hall and step into a voting booth.

Try as I might, I could not fashion anything warm and fuzzy, wry or humorous.  All I had floating around inside the cranial void were serious negative waves dude.

I was actually surprised.  I thought that some of my recent rants, posted and unposted , would have set me straight.

So my re-entry into Flash Fiction is dark, ........ yeah, not a pleasant tale.

Be forewarned and remember it is only a story.