Happy New Year everyone! A Friday Fictioneers story is a good way to start the new year. I don’t like to put much significance on the first story of the year, especially since this one is rather dark. Hopefully it won’t be a portent of the upcoming year. Also, there is a bit of swearing in it, just so you’re warned. I don’t usually put swearing in my stories, but it seemed this one needed some. You can judge for yourself after you read it.
copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Bruno Knew
“Grant! The dog’s gone crazy! Stupid dog, too lazy even to get up to eat, today he’s barking his head off. Shut up, Bruno! Shut up! You wanna go out? Fine. Look at him go. Ho— Ho . . . ly . . . shit! Grant! Gra-ant! Come see this. Bruno just climbed the tree! Oh shit, Grant, the floor’s moving! There’s earthworms coming through the linoleum. Ahh! They’re in my feet, in my feet! I can’t move. Dear God, help! Grant, where are you? Where are you? These ain’t earthworms!”
Outside, Bruno’s frenzied barking failed to keep the probing tendrils at bay. He climbed higher.
Merry Christmas from the Green-Walled Tower! I hope you all had a great day yesterday. By the way, if you’re interested, go read my post about the time I was a real-life ghost. It just got Freshly Pressed, which was a great Christmas present for me.
Searchlights combed the sky like Zen rakes, cutting graceful swaths across the obsidian dome of night.
“Get my son back this instant!” the president said, emotions colliding in his trembling voice.
“We can find him, sir,” the chief of staff said, “but while he has the artifact, we’re helpless. He flies faster than our jets and is virtually invincible.”
* * *
“What’s the spin?” the PR director asked later. “Is this good or bad?”
“We’ll find out soon,” the chief of staff said. “If we can make him a superhero, the next election’s in the bag. If not, start updating your resume.”
First of all, let me say Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays or whatever, since the next story I do will be after Christmas. Next, let me say I’m sorry that I’ve been bad about reading stories lately. I tend to be very busy these days, but I’ll make an effort. Lastly, this is not based on a true story.
copyright Jean L Hays
Distortion
“Honey, I’m worried.”
Nag.
“I think you might have a problem.”
Overbearing.
“I love you and I just want to spend time with you.”
Emotional blackmail.
She finally looked into his eyes that were snapping like firecrackers. Why was he so angry? She worked hard; couldn’t she relax?
“Fine. I’m going out.”
Ah, peace.
“Can you pick up milk?” she called after him.
She clicked START on her 673rd game of the weekend and the familiar music washed over her mind like a long overdue narcotic rush. Come on high score, she thought, as the colored blocks began to fall.
I thought the Friday Fictioneers community might be interesting in knowing that one of my previous Fictioneers stories, Enough to Go Around, was recently accepted to be part of the upcoming Leodegraunce flash fiction anthology. I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but I’ll let you know when I know.
As for this current story, I have nothing to say except that it is not an allegory, just a story.
copyright Adam Ickes
Discalceate Dreams
The feel of verdant, dew-covered blades anointing his toes: rapture.
Gamboling barefoot through a meadow: epiphany.
The pungent, whispering squish of a cow pie under his heel: heavenly.
Feet baptized in a cool, sun-flecked brook: pure adoration.
Denouncing shoes forever for the wild, free ecstasy that only the holy unshod can know: heresy.
“Reebok! Reebok Puma III, are you listening to me?” The iron voice crushed his fantasies under its cruel heel and brought him back to an equally hard reality of tight shoes pinching his feet. He nodded glumly and raising the Sacred Shoehorn, he repeated the catechism again.
Today is my 52nd straight week of doing the Friday Fictioneers, ever since Amy from the Bumble Files suggested I give it a try. I’m very glad I did. One year of stories and pictures (each one exactly 100 words, since I’m obsessive that way) is an accomplishment but more important are all the people I have met and the relationships that I have made in the Friday Fictioneers community. And so, I have decided to dedicate this story to that idea. (I toyed with the idea of mentioning people by name, but 100 words is not at all enough room to mention everyone and I didn’t want to leave anyone out.)
copyright Ted Strutz
5200 Words
Hundreds streamed through the cafe, but Gloria chose one soul a week to get to know, then wrote 100 words about them.
Soon leather jacket—table 4 became Mike, grabbing a breather from the crying new angel at home. Lunch special—table 8 was Miles, heading off to adventure in Australia. Smiling eyes turned into Carmelita, stopping in to get her usual whenever she was in town. After one year, the notebook in Gloria’s desk held 5200 words of real lives.
Then one day:
Where’s Gloria?
Collapsed suddenly.
Stable condition.
The number of kind words that awaited her were countless.
“Exclusivity builds value,” my father always said. That’s why he opened his restaurant on an alley with no name and no address. “Word of mouth is the best advertising. We don’t even need a sign if people like what they eat and tell their friends.”
So, no sign. For the first month, no one but friends of my father visited the restaurant. Until one night when the president’s personal secretary took a wrong turn and knocked to ask directions.
He liked what he ate and the rest is history.
“You also need a lot of luck,” my father finally admitted.
The casket was empty as far as I was concerned. I had come to pay my respects to my former teacher, the piano virtuoso Horace Thornhill, but as I approached, all I saw in the satin-lined box was a dead body.
I looked at the hands that had drawn exquisite aural elixirs from ivory vessels and the face that had worn an expression of such concentration and sublimity in the midst of his performances. They were empty—as cold and silent as a marble statue.
There was nothing more than a broken piano now; the music had flown far away.
You have reached a quiet bamboo grove, where you will find an eclectic mix of nature, music, writing, and other creative arts. Tao-Talk is curated by a philosophical daoist who has thrown the net away.
The Green-Walled Tower 