Wake up! Wake up!

(100-word flash fiction x 2)

“Wake up! Wake up!” heard William. It sounded like the cuckoo clock back home he had engineered, just to tease Mary. It was machine-gun fire.

When a bomb had exploded in their trench, they had scattered like disturbed, scurrying ants. Wounded, bloodied and dizzy, he had tumbled into another trench.

Something nebulous seemed eager to claim him. Was it Sleep? Or Memories? Floating in was the London bus he had met Mary on. Followed by the beat-up jalopy proclaiming ‘Just Married’.

A shadow fell across the Memories and a gun barrel took its place.

“Wake up! Wake up!” it said.

***********************

“Wake up! Wake up!” chimed the cuckoo clock.

Mary was startled awake from her afternoon nap.  She stood up suddenly and moved towards the clock that William, the appliance-tinkerer, had engineered.

Inside her, the baby kicked in protest.

“Settle down, ‘lil one.” She cooed, patting her bump. “The war will be over any day and Daddy should soon be home.” She picked up the telegram, which proclaimed, bold with hope, “COMING HOME FOR THE BIRTH”

“I’m home!” announced the doorbell.

She ran to the door, but it was just the postman with another telegram. It said, “WILLIAM, KILLED IN ACTION”

************************

I wrote the second story first but felt William’s story had to be told too. Hope everyone’s well and keeping safe and away from the Virus. Thanks Rochelle for bringing us together every week 😊

Photo prompt –

PHOTO PROMPT © CEAyr

CLICK FROG TO JOIN

Luminescence

(100-word flash fiction)

Grandma turned blind the day Grandpa died. It was a big mystery considering her vision used to be quite good.

She had been alone with him that day.

When we got there, Grandpa was gone and she was sitting beside him, her face bathed in beatific light, her vision completely gone. As though she had been given sight just to watch him live.

On her death-bed, she told us the secret.

“As Grandpa lay dying, he began to burst with the light of a thousand suns. He turned into an angel.  From then on, that’s all I needed to see.”

***

Had a shot at magic realism. Marquez happens to be one of my favourite authors. Thanks Rochelle for your wonderful captaincy of the Friday Fictioneers ship ♥

***

Photo prompt –

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

The link

(100-word flash fiction)

“I suppose the link between the spirit world and the human world would be memory.”

Bella says softly, sitting at her mother’s bedside, gazing at her father’s framed photo.

“You know, I never grieved Dad’s passing. His memories are so fresh and always gently loving.”

Bella feels she has to keep talking to her comatose and dying mother, as though the steady march of words would keep that faint pulse going.

“No! it’s not!”

Startled out of reverie, she looks at her mother with sudden hope.

Eyes clear, face radiant, with sudden strength, she utters her last words, “it’s love.”

—

For some reason, I am remembering my father a lot today.  The first thought that came to mind when I saw the prompt was his hand linked with mine, I in the human carriage and he in the spirit carriage. I never really grieved his passing. To me, he’s with me always, his silent presence a gentle benediction. It must be Friday Fictioneering for my father was an aspiring writer. I guess I’m keeping his little dream alive. Thanks Rochelle for the platform.

PHOTO PROMPT – © Jennifer Pendergast

CLICK FROG TO ADD YOUR LINK

 

Money

Poem for today’s NaPoWriMo

Sunshine

(100-word flash fiction)

He had come home one day and found them all gone, including his house. There was just a bomb crater in their place.

But his heart refuses to believe they are dead. By day, he combs the refugee shelters, eyes bright with not blinking.

At night, he soothes himself with memories. How little Fatima she would spring into his arms, smile brighter than sunrise, a tinkling santur for laughter.

He hears hopeful stories of boats and stories of death.

Finally, he spots her. The sunshine of his life. On a newspaper page.

Only, in her eyes, the sun had set.

~~~~~~

Tried hard to write a lovely, little sweet story, but my muse is a stubborn one 🙂

Thank you Rochelle, for hosting this weekly party of eclectic flash fictioneers 🙂 And, your photo is lovely!

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 

Sleep

(100-word flash fiction)

~~~

Her father had come home drunk. Again.

There are muffled thuds coming from her parents’ bedroom. Again.

Tomorrow there will be bruises on her mother’s body and her nose will be bleeding. Again.

She counts the pills. Again.

26. She decides she has enough.

Tomorrow she will put him to sleep. Forever.

Later that night, a sound whiplashes through her skull and cracks open her sleep.

By the time she gathers her senses, her door opens and her mother stands framed in the passageway light. Wraithlike, in her pale, sheer nightgown.

When she speaks, she sounds spectral.

“I killed him.”

~~~

Oh well, here’s the fix for my Friday Fictioneers weekly craving. Rochelle, our able hostess, is to be blamed (for the craving)  🙂

Fiction based on photo prompt below –

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Suspended

(100-word flash fiction)

 

The chair topples on the first kick. As if on cue, she steps outside herself.

 

She is amazed at how the body is wired for survival, as she watches the legs, puppet-like, kick into thin air. Chest straining, by habit, trying to suck in air, so abundant outside. Face crimsoning as blood rushes to her brain. Bells going on inside, screaming ‘Mayhem!’ ‘Mayhem!’

 

She loses all sense of time. And that dreary greyness that had festered inside her like a light-sucking ghost. She crackles with an aliveness her body had never felt. Unimaginable lightness fills her being.

 

The door opens.

 

~~~

Rochelle has posted a lovely image for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt.

Photo  © Ted Strutz

Death poems

On dVerse Poets Pub Gayle sets the challenge :  To write in haiku or tanka style, to the theme of Jisei (Japanese death poems).

Gayle also says, “In ancient Japanese, Chinese and Korean cultures, a practice was used at the time of death to capture the last words spoken. This practice was called jisei (in Japan) or death poem and is the “farewell poem to life.” Jisei was written by monks, samurai, the literate and poets of these cultures. One of the earliest recorded jisei dates to 686 C.E. (Common Era) or in Christian terms, B.C. (before Christ) with the death of Prince Otsu who was the son of Emperor Temmu of Japan.”

 

JAPANESE DEATH POEMS – tanka

 

I hear the sea sing

in my veins, of homecoming.

Save your salty tears

 

for life and its sorry tales,

not me. I am going home.

 

~~~

 

This vain, heavy shell

I no longer need, fading

softly like daylight

 

surrenders to night, sighing

soft promises of return.

 

~~~

 

This shell will return

to its womb. My sinews will

turn into roots, limbs

 

into tree-trunks. And my song

will trill out from the tree tops.

 

~~~

 

Soon, I will be rain,

falling on seeds, springing them

into life. Lusty,

 

fecund, virile, alive. Death

is a mere wisp of a veil.

 

~~~

The revenge of the moths

(100 word flash fiction)

“Come on, we’ve come this far, let’s not falter. We’ve got to find our friend.”

“But, as far as we have found out, these strange arched eating places, they only serve cow, pig, fish and fowl. We won’t find him here.”

“A ‘lil bird told me this one’s different. They serve wildlife meat to only some people. We’ve got to get in and find out.”

“But, what are we going to do if we find they serve wild lion meat?”

“We will poison their food, so that no one eats here anymore. And do the same to all the others.”

~~~

Cecil’s death still haunts me. I need catharsis, I guess.

A bitter tale written for the lovely Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers for the photo prompt below –

Photo © Madison Woods

Too young to wed

(100 word flash fiction)

Saida’s husband has flopped to his side after heaving his 54-year old heavy, sweaty body on her 14-year one. Through her tears, she can see the moon outside the window emerge from behind clouds.

Fat-belly moon. Like her own growing belly. Wanderer of the skies. It reminds her of freedom. Of her short-lived school days.  Of her once fiery desire to be a teacher.

Yes! Fire could be her deliverer.

She tiptoes across the room to the kitchen. Thick, dark clouds are rapidly obscuring the moon. In the fading light, she finds the kerosene, douses herself and lights a match.

~~~

Can’t say I wrote this story. I only paraphrased a real-life story (or bits from lots of them). Watch the full feature on this National Geographic Live feature called ‘Too young to Wed” by Photographer Stephanie Sinclair and writer Cynthia Gorney. Heart-breaking stuff!

As always, writing for the lovely Rochelle’s photo prompt and joining in the Friday Fictioneers party is a pleasure.

PHOTO PROMPT -© Madison Woods