#Friday Fictioneers Whitewash

Dear readers and writers,

Time for Friday's 100 word response to a photo posted by Madison Woods (http://madison-woods.com) along with others all over the world.  I always appreciate any input to make the writing better along with reactions to the content.  Cheers, Lorelei

Whitewash

No teenagers live here, so my chances of selling off the whitewash opportunity are nil.  This whole wall has to be done by tonight, Nico said.  I wanted to go to school today too.  We were going to see a movie about pirates but of course, he has to have the back of the inn whitewashed.  And for whom?  Who will ever see it in this narrow street back here, except for old Stefanos and his donkey picking up the trash barrels?  Of course, his daughter Maria sometimes comes along.  Okay, I'm getting to work.  But first, let's see how I can make my hair come to a point.

#FridayFictioneers: Shadowed Kitchen

Hi readers and writers,
Time for a new 100-word fiction piece inspired by www.madison-woods.com #FridayFictioneers challenges. This week's photo is by Raina Ng.  If you go to Madison's website, you can join in...it's fun to write these and even more fun to see all the different responses to the same image.

I would love any input readers have for me on how to make this snippet better, as well as (of course!) any comments of enjoyment.

Shadowed Kitchen

Here I sat every day in the sweet-smelling shadows after school, after the bus dropped me off.  The smell of the cumin, coriander, ginger, cinnamon from the jars on the wall always made me daydream of food while I solved the math problems or English analogies.  In those days, every teacher gave us 25 short answer items a night.  Their mantra was "homework works."  In today's world, Adam only learns from the focus of his attention: his computer.  He almost doesn't even watch television any more.

Friday Fictioneers: Trolls

Hi readers and writers,
It's Friday Fictioneers again.  If you'd like to "play" along then go to www.madison-woods.com, where on the blog you'll find all the details about Friday Fictioneers.  The photo prompt this week is pasted below (Photo by Sandra Crook).  We write a 100 word response between Weds and Friday and link them all to Madison Woods' blog.  I am always amazed at how diverse the responses are, given the same photo!

Trolls

As soon as I went through the open gate, I felt it.  A menace hung in the air, especially over those rocks.  I passed the red crystal over the one to the left.  The crystal intoned, "Troll."  How had they been turned into stones?  Was it safe to go this way?  Would they reanimate at night and track me down?  Vancu needed the crystal and I had to try to get it to him.  I wrapped my drab cloak tightly around me and walked down the steps between the troll rocks.  As I passed between them I heard a bass "thrum" and creaking noises.  I started to run.

Octodancing: Friday Fictioneers

Hi friends,
I've been away from Friday Fictioneers for several weeks while I got my arthritis pain back under control, so this week I picked my favorite photo I've missed to write about.  cheers, Laura

Octodancing

If you only had eight legs yourself, you would understand now much you are missing when you try to dance.  The freedom I have to move fast in any direction is awesome, if I do say so myself.  Of course, I believe in restraint and tradition so you don’t see me driving all over the place like Lulu who took that LSD the other day and made something she called a web.  Excuse me, it was just a mess.  But here you see an example of what I mean.  Isn’t it cool to turn around and make a tiny round web within one space of a bigger one?  

Ranges and Clouds---Friday Fictioneers

Hi readers and writers,
Here is the photo prompt for the Madison Woods photo challenge this week.  My 100 word response is below.  I welcome any comments or critique.  Join in, and do read all the others.  I am always amazed at the range of responses to one photo.
cheers,
Lorelei

#FridayFictioneers Fork

Dear readers and writers,

On Friday, people all over will post their responses to Madison Woods' photo prompt, which you can see here. Do write something and join in!  Mine is below the photo, which is copyrighted by Lura Helms.  I'd be interested in any reactions and/or critiques you have of mine.
cheers,
Laura

Fork
People eat with forks.  They use forks with two, three tines so they can easily lift or stab their bites.  Humans call a split between two of my branches a fork too.  Well, what about a fork in my trunk where some stupid old man wedged a hose joint twenty years ago, forgot all about it, and now I've grown around it until it's almost a part of my structure?  Almost, but not quite.  The hose is rotting and the metal ions leach off and run up and down my xylem, subtle poisons that make me creak in the wind.

#FridayFictioneers: Cherrystones

Hi readers and writers,

This week I am off to St. Louis on Friday, so I'm posting my #Fridayfictioneers 100 word piece a bit early.  Am I always early or late? No, once or twice I've done it on Friday!  But summer is a time of travel, so dates must bend and sway to accommodate my schedule.  Do visit Madison Woods' blog to read more and join in to Friday Fictioneers. She always welcomes new Friday fictioneer writers!
I would like criticism and/or comments.  Cheers, Laura

Cherrystones

On the beach below Nobska Lighthouse we built a fire.  In flat pan with an inch of water and a handful of Fucus seaweed strewn around rested dozens of Cherrystones, small clams in white shells, tightly closed.  We put the pan on the fire.  Mickey and Royce capered around doing cartwheels while Zooey and I melted butter with a squeeze of fresh lemon in it.  As soon as the clams opened into butterflies, we snatched them off the fire, pulled out the meat, dunked it into the butter/lemon mix, and ate a bite of heaven.  The shells went back into the water.

Silent Scream #Friday Fictioneers

Hi readers and writers,
This week, Madison Woods' posting is gruesome but surprising. Her photo shows the results of a vertical series of cutbacks of vegetation along her road by a road crew...kill or cure this plant invasion seems to be the message.  Such a painful looking response to a cut of a grapevine!  Anyway, by Friday I had to write 100 words about this. They appear below.  Visit Madison's website to join in the #FridayFictioneers fun.
cheers,
Laura

Silent Scream
I welcome criticism or any kind of suggestions for improvement.

They told me I would understand the animal when I wore this ring.  But this is stranger, more painful, not at all what I bargained for.  Those road workers just wanted to keep the woodsy road clear for vehicles I'm sure.  But the wholesale hacking got these reactions from the plants, especially the grapevines, reactions that felt just like they were screaming with pain.  Can a cut be like a burn?  I don't know, but that's what I'd describe it as, after listening to these agonized vines for two days.

I know I could take off the ring.  But I bargained to get it so I could get a message from the birds, and I don't have it yet.  I'm stuck listening to any being with something to say.  Please, vines, heal yourselves fast.

#Friday Fictioneers late, Grape Arbor Danger

Hi readers and writers,
I'm getting back into town from Arkansas and Texas, and so I'm posting my Friday Fictioneers piece late again.  See Madison Woods' blog for details and to see all the other photo responses.

I'd love any suggestions for improvement or responses to this posting.

Grape Arbor Danger

The grapevines climbed over the arbor.  Lucy looked around for Mark but didn’t see him.  It was an odd place to meet. 

Suddenly there were hands over her eyes.  “Guess who?”

“Mark?”

“No.” Something hit her over the head.  When she came to, her eyes were covered and her arms and legs were tied up.  The man picked her up and carried her for a few minutes, then dropped her.  She heard sounds of fighting, then crashing through the brush. 

Mark said,  “I’m so sorry, Lucy.  This is not your fight.” He cut the cords and took off the rag from her eyes.

Friday Fictioneers: The Buzzard

Hi readers and writers,
Madison Woods, on her blog, challenges writers to come up with 100 word responses to a photo prompt each week in Friday Fictioneers.  Here is mine for this week.  I would love any constructive criticism or general reactions to this piece, as usual.  Cheers, Laura
                                                           
                                                               The Buzzard

Roger said, “C’mon, Susie.  They’re beautiful, how they soar up there with so little effort.  See how they go around in spirals to rise up so high?”

“I know, but they eat carrion.  Not birds of pleasure for me.  Never can see them without a shiver.  If one of us dies out here, they’ll get us, right?”

“In the Australian outback, people put dead bodies on a platform, giving them to the buzzards to eat.  It’s not wrong, it’s part of the whole schema…”

I got up and left.  I’ll just go for a run and let him sit under the tower.  

Friday Fictioneers: The Power of Adobe

Hi readers and writers,
I was cruising in Glacier Bay, Alaska last week, so I missed the usual Friday Fictioneers exercise.  But I'm back, and now I can't resist the photo prompt, so I will write it late.  If you enjoy reading the many, various ways people can approach the same stimulus as much as I do, go to Madison Woods' blog here and check out the responses.

To Friday Fictioneers who drop by later than late:  I'd appreciate any constructive criticism on my 100 word piece.  The photo is by Amanda Gray and is called "Outside Pecos."

The Power of Adobe
We barely survived, Ricky and me.  When I drank the last drop of water he shouted, "Lupe, no!"  We believed in the mirage of a tiny rectangle on the endless plains and we dragged ourselves here.  Behind the abandoned adobe hunkered a well with a pump.  Ricky jacked out water into his hat and we drank, laughed, poured it over our heads and down our backs.  And inside the house, the mud bricks sheltered us from the sun with their thick, earthy power.  But now, Ricky wants to go on.  Why can't we stay, make the power of the adobe our own?

Friday Fictioneers: Red Berries

Hi readers and writers,
This week I am getting ready to go on an Inside Passage cruise next week, so I'm ahead of schedule. Next week I'll be away and I may not be able to post, but this week I want to participate in Madison Woods' Friday Fictioneers 100 word challenge.  If you'd like to try it, check out Madison's blog instructions here. 

Red Berries

"Don't touch those, they're poisonous," Donna hissed at me.
"Silly, they're raspberries," I replied, snickering.  I ate one while she stared at me wide-eyed.
We walked on, and I saw her sneaking a glance at me every so often, expecting me to keel over and drop dead.  Finally she asked, "How do you know they're raspberries?"
I enumerated on my fingers, "Shape, size, three leaflets per leaf, thorns, juicy when red (blackberries aren't you know.)"
"Show off," she said, flouncing off down the hill.
She asked for it, didn't she?  I will never understand girls.

Development

Hi readers and writers,

Madison-woods.com has a new photo prompt up for Friday Fictioneers today, with 100 word responses due Friday. Do join if you like to write flash fiction; go to her blog for more info. Since I'm flying out Friday, I am jumping the gun and posting early this time.  I had written three 100 word pieces for the three Fridays before, each seeming to fit into the same story of perfidy, spying, and conflict.  But this week, the prompt took me in a different direction.  Would you consider being in an insect's brain science fiction?  Here goes:

Development

It feels tight under this rock. I’ve been here a long time.  I need to move around.  It’s hard.  I’ll rest a while.  Ahh.  Okay, now I can move more.  Yes!  The house is open, I feel the universe pulsing, smell flowers and rotting stems, fish, more.   If I wiggle really hard, I can explore. Now I’m outside.  I was in that broken box, how strange.  But look at this long green leaf above my rock.  If I let go, I can float up there and explore.  It’s so beautiful.  A suction, oops, it’s a huge mouth.  Good bye.

Friday Fictioneers--Woods of Danger

Hi readers and writers,

Madison Woods has given us a really idyllic photo of a path in the woods this week.  100 words about this might put me to sleep.  I don't know if it's good or bad, but I seem to have a group of characters in play for the fictioneers, and they want to have a military adventure in the quiet woods.  Okay.
cheers,
Laura

                                         Woods of Danger 

Five Bendizi warriors stood on the path, then they disappeared.  Cosima and Alex darted left, Miriam, Hector, and Wulfram IV dashed right. Cosima and Alex took refuge in thick brush. The others clambered high among the branches.  Tramping feet thundered louder.  The path teemed with armed changlits, marching fast, looking neither right nor left.  After they passed, the Bendizis  saw Brin and Rouxlan’s close advisor, Sevrin, cruising along the trail in an all-terrain vehicle.  Cosima feared the outcome of their conflict, now that Brin was against them.  If only the balloon had landed closer to Bendiz.  

Friday Fictioneers: Above the Clouds

Dear readers and writers:

I have caught the Friday Fictioneers bug.  Check out Madison Woods' blog and give it a try!  Today (Weds) she posted the picture below.  I've posted my 100 word response below the photo.  Cheers, Laura

“I don’t trust Brin.  Someone is after this list of our supporters,” said Miriam, scowling, oblivious to the cloudscape outside the blimp's windows.

“Calm yourself, enjoy the quiet up here,” growled Wulfram IV.  “We have enough problems without arguing. We need Brin with us, not with Rouxlan.” But he glanced uneasily at Cosima’s cast.  Gianni had been too badly burned destroying the first list to come along.

“She’s right, though,” said Alex, “Brin told someone.  It’s dangerous to try getting the list to him again.  I say, forget Brin.  He only has a small holding.”

There were nods all around, but everyone looked worried. There was a voice from the intercom.  "Pilot speaking.  Look down at 2 o'clock, armed troops on the march."