Lying Truth - Indie Ink Challenge - 100 Words

Facts intermingled with conjecture and forgone conclusions cast Truth aside in favor of expedient knee jerked solutions.  Lost in a sea of deception, specious goals are massaged by lying hands, replacing Honesty with Truth’s ugly step sister, the Half Truth.

The Midway Squawkers and Snake Oil Salesmen insist and demand the Half  Truth into our lives hoping their deception lasts long enough for them to cash in their nickels and dimes. 

Assaulted long enough, we allow recent lies to become our New Truth. Delusion casts itself in stone and merry populations dance around it happy as if they had brains.

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For the Indie Ink Writing Challenge this week, Sherree challenged me with "There's a world of difference between truth and facts.  Facts can obscure the truth.  Maya Angelou" and I challenged Catherine with "Water is the theme - either too much or too little - any setting"
_________________For Challenge week 1/6/12 to 1/13/12________________

Some Below the Fold Thoughts on the Piece

Along with the rules of the prompt, I usually write down snippets of thought pertaining to the story or essay I want to write.  I do this more often when I really have no idea of what I want to write.  I hope that by seeing these random thoughts that may or may not be connected to the prompt, a story will cross my mind.

I leave these snippets at the top to help remind me of what I might want to include.  For this challenge, I dutifully began a story, then stopped.  I kept coming back to Maya Angelou's quote and the phrases and words I had written down to jog me in the right direction.   Her quote was so concise and utterly complete, I thought I should try to be also.  Thus I decided to limit my effort this week to 100 words, a style of flash I really enjoy.  Regardless, this is what I came up with this week.

Turn Left and Look Up - Indie Ink Challenge

Avery hated the cold.  He hated being broke worse.  That he didn't have to worry about rent, food, or even clothes had nothing to do with it.   Avery did not like owning empty pockets.  When his agent called with a photo shoot involving ski wear, he jumped on it.  The gig paid eight grand and he got a free weekend in Vail.  He grabbed his ready bag, left a note for Marta Sugar Mama and headed to Miami International for the last flight to Denver.  

Avery never considered that women found him attractive and men envied him until he had dropped out of high school ten years ago and hitch hiked from Buffalo to the Big Apple.  He had no plan or idea of what he was going to do.  All he knew was whatever it was wasn't going to be done in Buffalo.  That first night he was hit on by two different gay blades and one older woman at a bar near Times Square.  He went home with the woman.  Three weeks later he was still massaging her feet and her libido, only he was doing it in Palm Beach.  He had finally left the hated cold behind him.

Rudy - Indie Ink Challenge

Five years in a row Rudy had been voted the best Red Cap on the line from Grand Central Station in New York City right through to the LaSalle Street Station in Chicago.  His behavior like his uniform was always spotless.  His smile was always quick and pleasant.  And his ability to solve baggage problems became mythical tales told in station break rooms from coast to coast.   He remembered all the regulars by name and treated the many travelers just passing through like old friends.

Many times early in his career, the company had offered Rudy the opportunity to leave the baggage to others and step into a management role.  Rudy refused.   More than one train executive had tried to steal him for their own station.  Rudy would not budge.  This station was his home and for the brief moments travelers came thorough his house, they were his family.