Hi All!
We are back from our road trip to D.C. and Virginia, where we are visiting friends, and my flash fiction story, “Unwelcome Guest” has been published today with 101words.org, where they publish flash fiction everyday! Please check it out if you’ve got a moment–a brief and ghostly tale!
http://www.101words.org/unwelcome-guest/
by melanoma – license Creative Commons 2.0
My husband and I have fled South to visit friends. Today, we walked through the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia with them. Some thoughts:
Poem for Looking at Art at the Chrysler Museum
Nineteenth century gardens
are green windows on the pale blue walls.
We walk through in the artificial cool,
and the baby sees maybe a little from his stroller,
but his eyes are for mommy and daddy,
and maybe for someone else who might smile at him.
*
There is stone, paint, metal,
thick, thin, rusted, bent, shaped,
and peace and pain are revived
for those who are looking.
*
There are the burned stains
on an iron cloth, framed in worked metal,
seeming, at first, interesting, innocuous.
Then, with the help of the words,
it is easy to see the bodies of slaves
arranged economically in the bow of the ship:
a diagram I’ve seen before, taught before.
*
The baby is asleep now, protected
from the auras of the art in the orb
of his stroller and the life he knows.
When he wakes, he’ll reach out again
to change that life.
*
We five adults wander singly or in pairs,
drifting apart and merging,
speaking quietly:
a comment,
a question,
a joke,
a touch.
Haiku for the Garden
Pulling, digging so
bright spots talk to passersby:
“Hello. Summer. Grow.”
Copyright Emily Livingstone 2015
Copyright Emily Livingstone 2015
Copyright Emily Livingstone 2015
The following story was written for Barbara W. Beacham’s weekly prompt on Mondays Finish the Story. She provides the picture and the first sentence (this opening line from Martin C. Furman). Then, writers must incorporate the picture and the first line into a story, using 100-150 additional words. Click on the blue frog below to read more stories and to add your own.
Copyright Barbara W. Beacham 2015
Backtracking
(1st sentence + 150 words)
Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy.
Unfortunately, a lone girl giddily approaching a plane attracted attention.
She settled for the field nearby, watching takeoffs.
“Why not try my plane?”
There was an old-time pilot with goggles and leather cap, standing by an antique plane.
“Looks old.”
“Nonsense!” he cried. “Get in.”
Delphine felt a wave of desire. Before she knew it, she was strapped in, and the plane was climbing into the sky. Delphine felt the usual thrill as her stomach flipped. She looked down. The airfield was different. The neighborhoods had changed—fewer cars, smaller buildings, older. She shouted, but the pilot didn’t respond.
Finally, the plane landed back in the field. Delphine stumbled out, trembling.
“Again tomorrow?” the pilot asked.
She ran. Entering her neighborhood, she saw familiar buildings and cars. At home, she put her father’s keys back and crawled into bed, hugging the teddy bear who hadn’t felt her touch in months.
The following story was written for the Friday Fictioneers prompt, provided weekly by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on her website, Addicted to Purple. Click on the blue frog below to read other stories responding to the photo prompt or to add your own!
Image – Copyright Stephen Baum
Faith
(100 words)
Fatima had kept us alive in the tunnels: fended off our claustrophobic madness, hunted the mutated underground creatures. We followed her strength, but most no longer believed in “the way out.”
I wasn’t sure Fatima believed either until I asked why we were leaving the best section we’d found.
Fatima frowned. “If we stay, we won’t find the way out.”
We moved on. Slowly, the tunnel changed. We saw its walls in sharper detail.
Then, a whole square of light.
“The way out,” Fatima breathed.
We followed, not knowing where, only knowing it was “out,” and Fatima would be there.
This story was written for the weekly prompt provided by Barbara W. Beacham on Mondays Finish the Story. She provides the photo prompt and the first sentence, and you finish the rest with 100-150 words. Click on the blue Inlinkz frog below to read other stories or to add your own.
Copyright Barbara W. Beacham 2015
Self-Preservation
(1st sentence + 149 words)
The mayor and the town manager waved as their next victim approached. Sherman was a town no one looked for, but some found it, because the mayor and the town manager arranged it that way.
They’d placed a sign out on the highway announcing a craft fair of local artisans.
“Don’t know why people pay for those,” Tom said, watching the enormous RV easing down the road.
“Too much money, too much time,” the mayor grunted.
A bald man in a t-shirt got out, followed by a blonde woman.
“Welcome! I’m Mayor Bates.”
The mayor ushered them in, promising directions. Tom hit the man’s head with a mallet. The woman tried to escape, but the mayor injected her with a syringe.
“A mallet, Tom? Melodramatic.”
“OK, Mayor Bates.”
“Let’s get to the site. If they don’t get people for those experiments, they’ll take us.”
Tom shuddered. “I’m not going back.”
The mayor picked up the man under the arms. “Then lift.”
Unmapped Country within Us 