Tag Archives: Flash

Ex-pat’s?

“So we sold the house and fled from the gloom of the English summer, like a flock of migrating swallows.” Gerald sniggered at his choice of metaphor, knowing as he did the truth behind their migration was more aptly “Had we not fled, we would most likely have been swallowed.”

“Deddy always said there was a hole in the sky for the birds to fly through,” Chimed in their somewhat bewildering although eternally gracious hostess, Miss Acacia Rivers, “and if’n that’s what brought y’all Englishers to Mississippi, well, we all’s just pleased as punch to have y’all nested up here.”

Acacia’s father, the ever dapper Colonel Rivers, laid a quieting hand on his daughter’s plump forearm, cleared his throat deeply, and gave her a look that coulda stopped the tongues of the holy ghost from waggin’. “I do believe what my daughter is trying to say..” Pausing here for emphasis.

“Is that we welcome you and yours to the beautiful state of Mississippi.” He raised his glass in salute, nodding respectfully to Gerald before allowing his gaze to hover somewhat lecherously upon the bosom of Gerald’s lovely wife, Cherise. “Hrumph..” The Colonel continued. “To Mississippi then. Where grass grows uphill..”

‘And God willing shit runs down!’ Gerald whispered discreetly to himself behind teeth clenched in that practiced smile he reserved solely for baiting traps built on confidence- well that, and a perfectly timed indiscretion involving the fondling of more than just the ample cleavage of his most alluring accomplice, Cherise.

 

This is my response, written in 50 word increments, to the literary quote provided by 50 Word Thursday this week, “So we sold the house and fled from the gloom of the English summer, like a flock of migrating swallows.” – My Family And Other Animals – by Gerald Durrell.

I have also included two of the phrasal prompts offered in the OLWG #117 and hopefully succeeded in inferring the third. The phrases were:

Where the grass grows uphill
A hole in the sky for the birds to fly through
Written in fire

Eroded

broken-footings

CCC #70

Although she openly attributed little good to her upbringing, there was no denying she had been taught the difference between right and wrong.

Many times over the course of her life she had found it necessary to humble herself. To return to the firm foundation which had been instilled upon her as a child. But she never stayed long.

Invariable the wounds that had driven her there would heal. And bolstered by the callus of scar tissue that inevitably formed where those wounds had once been, she would venture out again.

Every time further. And further…

Until eventually it became necessary to erode every shred of what she knew to be decency before she was humbled enough to admit she had been wrong yet again. Before she could bring herself to return.

And when she finally did, she found the foundation that she had always known to be firm and strong- cracked and fissured.

Years of neglect and abuse, alas having taken their toll.

 

This is my response to the photo prompt offered on Crimson’s Creative Challenge #70.

Memory Lane

fountain ceayr

Photo Courtesy of C E Ayr

We gathered at Auntie’s deathbed to share memories..

Gramma reminded Auntie of the day she sold their mother’s spaghetti pot to the “Paper! Rags!” man to buy ice cream.

Mama reminded Auntie of the day she tried to teach us all to make potica, and every one but hers came out like a lead sinker.

Finally, it was my turn.

“Remember at family reunions how all us kids would sneak down the basement to play with Uncle Louie’s whisky decanter? The little boy that pissed whisky?”

Auntie struggled to smile, then whispered, “My Louie, such a filthy sense of humor.”

whizzer

This is my 100 word response to this weeks photo prompt provided by Rochelle on this weeks Friday Fictioneers

Clarice

Clarice, the understudy, stepped onto the stage that had seen the show’s star vanquished mysteriously while enacting the death scene just three days earlier.

Under the smoky stage lights, she recreated the classic role.

She brought a pathos to the character that not even Shakespeare himself had imagined. Delivered her dirge of dialogue with the solemnity of postcards sent from an execution. Indeed that night, Ophelia was reborn.

Unfortunately, the life into which she was reborn ended with Clarice’s most pedestrian delivery of the line, “It’s got nothing to do with me!” whilst being served a warrant for murder.

This is my 99 word response to a call for fiction surrounding a girl named Clarice issued by Charlie at Carrot Ranch. I have incorporated the three phrasal prompts offered this week by the OLWG #145 for good measure.

The phrases were:

smoky stage lights
postcards from the execution
it’s got nothing to do with me

Behind closed doors

open door open gate

Magda presses her fingertips to the glass. She can almost feel the rain as it spitters and spatters against each pane. “Take me with you.” She whispers at the window, but the thick leaded glass only becomes opaque under the brume of her warm breath and refracts her heartfelt plea.

“‘Take me with you’, my ars!” Mrs. Helmsley mocks from her warm seat nearest the hearth. “Get ye from afore the window ye whinin’ bastard! Back to the shed with ye now and mind that frock be proper hung. I’ll strip yer back a hide if’n a crease be found.”

Magda silently curses the two opposing spirits that she knows to inhabit Mrs. Helmsley’s ample frame. The one, overflowing with brightness, cheer and benevolence, that shows its face when Father visits. And the other- devoid of all human kindness- that rears its ugly head- whenever they are behind closed doors.

This piece, written in 50 word increments, is my response to both the photo prompt and the literary quote offered on this weeks 50 Word Thursday.

The literary quote was: “Take me with you,” She whispers at the window.’ – Kate Racculia – Bellweather Rhapsody