“Could you help me?”
“I will if I can. What is it you want?”
“Do you spell flower, F-L-O-W-E-R or F-L-O-U-R?”
“Depends. Are you creating a flower arrangement
or are you baking a cake?”
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My first effort at the Wednesday Words on a Friday challenge site. I chose to do it in 100 words.
The choice of prompt words -
1. lurk 2. amber 3. birch 4. drainpipe 5. spelling
Three word prompt - Bog, Cryptic, Emergency
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Sheriff Wilkins sighed. On the clipboard in front of him, a blank crime report remained untouched. It was an open and shut case, yet here he was bogged down while he wrestled with legalities and his personal ethics code.
She shouldn’t go to jail. 35 years Caleb had beaten on her. Wilkins had done what he could, but she wouldn’t bring charges. He did manage to set up a cryptic message system so she could call him in an emergency without Caleb being the wiser.
This time she didn’t call. And now Caleb had no face.
Sheriff Wilkins began writing.
True story. I compacted it into 99 words so I could enter it in this weekly Carrot Ranch Flash Challenge. It has been awhile since I tried any Flash Fiction. I really enjoy Flash challenges. They force me to focus on the essence of the story, without all the trimmings that so often are just that, trimmings.
I have a much longer piece about this incident from my teen age years. It has languished now for at least a decade.
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I had a song picked out for this story before I even wrote it. I heard the song for the first time in college, several years after I sneaked into that Hoochie Coochie tent. Please enjoy "Sharon", by David Bromberg.
“We’d made a promise when we were kids that we would never see each other again. Yet, here you are on my doorstep and once again asking for help I cannot imagine giving you.”
“When I helped you bury that other friend of yours, I told you that was the last time. I won’t even loan you a shovel. Now take your sorry ass and ………….”
“Wait now. Let’s not get excited. No need to brandish such a large knife. You know what? Screw that promise we made when we were kids.”
“How can I help you old friend?”
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Since Charli,the author of this challenge, used Kenny loggins' tune, "Danger Zone" as her prompt, I will follow suit and use it here.
The Prediction Weekly Writing Challenge
for Thursday June,16, 2022 - midnight GMT
100 word maximum - Three words - Available, Third, Yoke
The Secret of God
Eons before any other species began to gain
self awareness, our kind learned in their third epoch the most efficient method
for conquering the Universe.
It wasn’t with grand, extravagant, expensive
violence. No. Cost too many lives.
Instead, we learned unexpected and unseen infiltrations were consistently more
successful at bringing another race or planet under our yoke.
Our asteroid will collide with Planet 13 in
Quadrant 2334 soon. There will be no need to prepare to land. Available DNA
strands safely ensconced deep inside this rock will ensure a successful
conquest.
Patience and time is all that is needed now.
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So, for this post, I had to include two musical choices :
"Galaxy Song" - Monty Python
&
"Space Oddity" - a one off cover by Astronaut Chris Hadfield in 2013
First Line Prompt- Writers Link – FB – 5/27/2022
But before I was here in a dream
I had never been here in a dream
I never dreamed when I was here
That here is where I dreamed to be
Dreams come, Dreams they go
But only in dreams when I wasn’t here
