Friday Fictioneers: My Sin

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © C.E. Ayr

I’m later than a dead pregnant woman on this one. Too soon? Too late? It’s always too soon to joke about dead pregnant women, asshole. Fair enough. I’m later than me everywhere I’ve ever gone. I blame the holiday. No, not Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving plans were ruined by snow and road closures. I still owe $25,000 on that car. It’s staying safe in the garage. I’m talking about Black Friday Month. In addition to a much needed new car, I needed some appliances, a new bed that doesn’t hurt to sleep on, a new computer… I’ve spent the week shopping and researching and cleaning. In addition, there’s a dog in heat in the home and another with a bone, if you will, and a puppy who refuses to be house-trained. She peed on my bed two nights in a row. Of course, she’s also currently on my lap. What is it about cuteness that conquers all? My roommate’s a breeder. I would have much rather been in the Bay Area con mi familia.

My Sin

My skin is my sin.

I has to be. I didn’t do anything else wrong. I was walking home from school when the police pulled up and demanded to see my I.D.

I’m 13. I don’t have I.D.

They shoved me onto the car. One cop frisked me and held me while the other went through my backpack. Nothing illegal, so they released me.

How do I deal with this? Hate myself for my skin? Return the hatred? No. I hate the ignorance and pity the ignorant.

My skin is not a sin. Judging based on skin is a sin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My goddaughter, who is Black, Hispanic, and Original American, so dark-skinned, recently saw another Black kid get slammed to the ground and handcuffed without provocation. This is, of course, according to her. You know how kids don’t always get the whole story. However, given the recent news and the history of police brutality against those with dark skin, I don’t have a reason to not believe the story as she told it. So, it’s been on my mind a lot. I can’t believe humanity hasn’t moved passed judging people based on skin color yet. Maybe someday we’ll learn to focus on our commonalities instead of our differences.

Friday Fictioneers: Sweet Liberty Johnson

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Sweet Liberty Johnson

I met Ms. Johnson when I moved in down the street. She had just turned 83. She didn’t have any family, so I would go over and help her with whatever she needed. I became her garbage man, weed puller, and overall lifter.

She paid me well. Of course, all the cookies and brownies meant I had to step up my workout routine. She was just a treat to be around. At least, that’s how I used to feel.

Things changed when she asked me to bring up some boxes from the basement. I awoke sometime later in a cage.

~~~~~~

Sweet Liberty Johnson and I go way back. She first came to me while I was showering. For no reason I can remember, I started singing Oh-ho! Oh, Sweet Liberty Johnson. It quickly became a whole song, of which I recorded three versions. One of those featured my dad on guitar shortly before he died. Later, she became a part of the retirement community The End Of The Road, my attempt at creating an adult cartoon. After three versions of a song, 15 scripts written for episodes that are way too politically incorrect to ever be produced now (Come on, Netflix! I have never worked so hard on anything in my life. I have literally spent less time on the four books I’ve written combined than I did on planning and writing that show. I have a second season mapped out.), she is being resurrected for a Friday Fictioneers.

For those with a sick sense of humor, here’s the original song. I’m pretty sure I made alterations, but these are the lyrics I found. I’m not going to upgrade my account to add audio. You’ll just have to take my words for it.:

Oh-ho! Oh Sweet Liberty Johnson
she lives right down the street
on the corner of 3rd & Swasson*
she’s someone you should meet
Oh Sweet Liberty Johnson
she just turned 83
Oh Sweet Liberty Johnson
she’s a beautiful lady to me
she makes me cookies and brownies
I just love to have her around me
at least that’s how I used to feel
till I learned of all the people she’s killed
she kept them in a freezer in her basement
until she cooked them up and she ate them
oh Sweet Liberty Johnson
now the psycho kids think she’s awesome
they wanna be like her when they grow up
until they think of eating human and throw up
Oh Sweet Liberty Johnson
Oho Sweet Liberty Johnson
now I wish I never ate at her house
and I wish I never ate her out

*Yeah, that should be Swanson. I don’t know why it’s not.

Flash Fiction: Stormy Windows

This was written for Carrot Ranch’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Each week’s challenge is to write to a prompt in exactly 99 words. This week’s prompt is to write about storm windows. I did not take it literally, which is unusual for me.

Stormy Windows

My windows fogged up as she talked. An illness, a preexisting condition cost them their home. A burden on family and friends, they were left to the streets.

Child protective services took their children. They couldn’t know how they were fairing in the system. It had to be better than the streets, right? Right?

She prayed for God to bless me for the dollar I gave her. It was the least I could do but more generous than most.

At my warm, cozy home, rain fell from the windows to my soul as I wished I could do more.

Friday Fictioneers: I Remember

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

Click the picture of Kermit and God to see more stories or add your own.

I Remember

My mother wanted to name me Susan. My father, Steven. Neither would happen.

I was taken from my parents shortly following my birth. I never saw them again.

I was brought to this building. This is where they did the experiments. Not in the building but deep beneath it.

I escaped during the purge. I was one of the few. I escaped but only physically.

I remember everything… everything with a clarity only rivaled by what one sees with one’s eyes.

I am SG9783210. I will stop them. I will have my revenge because I remember. I remember everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope this doesn’t come out too much like the opening monologue for a crappy ’80s show:

“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…

… The A-Team.”

“Dr. David Banner: physician; scientist. Searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have. Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation interacts with his unique body chemistry. And now when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursued by an investigative reporter. [Banner:] “Mr. McGee, don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” An accidental explosion took the life of a fellow scientist and supposedly David Banner as well. The reporter thinks the creature was responsible. [McGee:] “I gave a description to all the law enforcement agencies; they got a warrant for murder out on him.” A murder which David Banner can never prove he or the creature didn’t commit. So he must let the world go on thinking that he, too, is dead, until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him.”

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home…”

Friday Auctioneers: Sold!

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo. There’s also a frog involved. This week’s is an odd one. I’m not sure why anybody would see this and feel an undeniable compulsion to photograph it then share it. I’m now very curious about the photo selection process. Rochelle?

PHOTO PROMPT © Ronda Del Boccio

Sold!

The fight began over dishes. It ended with Julia in cuffs.

“Why can’t you soak the dishes?” asked Julia.

“Why are you always nagging?” asked Alex while searching the net via implant.

“It’s easier to clean the dishes if they’re soaking instead of the food drying and hardening on them, which you would know if you ever did dishes.”

The electrocuffs appeared on Julia’s wrists, seemingly from nowhere. She screamed and struggled before giving Alex a look that would kill if it could. “You can’t.”

“I did.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in Somalia.”

The credits appeared in Alex’s account as Julia dematerialized.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry about Alex. He’ll buy someone else to take care of him. The real question is in a world where one can search the internet in one’s mind, sell someone in seconds, and transport them across the world instantly, why can’t we make a dishwasher that actually cleans dishes?

I woke up with this idea in my head, before I even saw the picture, what if we could buy and sell people? Anyone. A friend, relative, random person on the street. What if Capitalism becomes so powerful and human life so cheap, not unrealistic, that it becomes legal to sell each other just so the government can collect the tax? It’s like a duel. The first one to click sell can sell the other. I wanted to build the world and set rules, but there’s not time for that in 100 words.

Friday Fictioneers: The Party Planner

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © Fatima Fakier Deria

The Party Planner

The jugs of alcohol and Tupperware of cocaine had been consumed. One would think the party was passed its zenith, but that’s not how a Megan Nguyen party played out.

Megan Nguyen had not become the preeminent party planner to the powerful by being basic. Anybody could get coke, liquor, strippers, animals, fireworks, bands… None of them offered the Nguyen Experience.

The party. The private island. The game.

The game is why they came. The game is why they stayed. The game is why they paid. The gambling. The competition. The blood.

The contestants were many. The winner was one.

Friday Fictioneers: Mom!

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt for the past seven years, which is longer than I’ve been alive by some stretching and breaking of the rules of mathematics. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © Jean L. Hays

Mom!

“Mom, the knee on my pants tore when I slid,” said Billy.

“Mom, will you fix my ballet slippers,” asked Jenny.

~~~~~~

“Mom, this button came off my suit. I have to pick up Sae,” said Billy.

“Mom, I tore my gown. Graduation’s in two hours,” said Jenny

~~~~~~~~~

“Mom, Sae wants you to make the dresses for the bridal party,” said Bill.

“Mom, I’m starting my internship on Monday. These slacks are a little too long. Could you…?” asked Jenny.

~~~~~~~

“Mom really loved to sew,” said Bill.

“Did she?” asked Jenny. “Or did she just really love us?”

Friday Fictioneers: No Explanation Necessary?

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo, which Rochelle provided herself this week. Outsourcing be damned!

No Explanation Necessary?

“Hey, Ronnie. Hell of a job on those lights. All nighter, huh?”

“Thanks. Yeah, I wanted to take my time.”

“You don’t need to explain. You did a great job.”

~~~~~
“Sorry I’m late. I was…”

“Hey, Ronnie, no need to explain, bud. We know you were working on those lights all night. They look amazing.”

~~~~~
“Hey!”

“Don’t ‘Hey!’ me. Where the hell have you been?”

“I was working on those lights all night. I had a meeting this morning.”

“Yeah, well who’s this bitch posting on your Instagram? ‘Thanks for a great night, Ronnie!'”

“Uh…”

“Better start explaining.”

Friday Fictioneers: Two Pack: Faded Pictures

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

I wrote two today. One, the second one, is very disturbing. I couldn’t post it alone. I needed a buffer. I’ve written and posted disturbing things, but this is beyond anything I’ve written or posted. The fact that it’s based on something that happens in reality, albeit a reality most of us thankfully never see, makes it… I don’t have a word. Disturbing? Sick? Depraved? Appalling? Atrocity? Unimaginable? It’s beyond what my mind will accept as reality. It’s unthinkable. It’s not something we want to think about, but it happens. The fact that it happens proves that humanity’s potential for depravity knows no bounds. Some American presidents, at least one, even referred to an individual known to partake in these atrocities as a “terrific guy.” Why did my mind go there? I’ve seen documentaries, some I couldn’t finish, and other stories relating to this recently. Why did I write it in the first person? I think it made it more real. I wanted the reader to look through his eyes, for it to unfold as he sees it. I think it makes it more powerful. I hope so. If the first one bothers you, don’t read the second. I think my introductory disclaimer is longer than both stories combined.

Another Picture

The pictures were piling up on my desk. The questions piled up just as fast. The clues… The clues were nonexistent.

There seemed to be no pattern other than they were young women, even girls. From prostitutes to socialites, they were all open game to him. He didn’t seem to care about skin tone, ethnicity, or background.

This case chewed up and spat out almost as many detectives as there were pictures. They threw themselves all in until they burned out like the cigarettes that piled up in their ashtrays.

Another picture. Another girl. She was… not just another girl.

The Great American Myth

Pictures. There were so many pictures. Young girls. Some taken from their families. Some fleeing bad situations. Some coming to America to chase the great American myth.

Hispanic, Asian, Russian, Middle Eastern… They were all represented, even American runaways. Blondes, redheads… They were there, too. Their ages spanned from 12 to early twenties.

They were no longer human. They were pictures. They were chattel to be sold to the highest bidder.

One stood out from the rest. There was something about her that caught my attention. She was blonde with blue eyes, about 13.

“This one. I’ll take this one.”