PHOTO PROMPT – © Jennifer Pendergast
Fourteen-year-old Jerry Craft had shoved his mask deep into the back pocket of his dusty stained jeans five-hundred miles ago. He’d scurried into a boxcar at Denver and the inspectors hadn’t found him when they stopped in Salt Lake. Now somewhere in Nevada, August heat scorching him clean, he felt free. “No COVID’s gonna get me.” He suddenly coughed, doubling over and nearly falling from his perch just above the car coupling. Sitting down, his inner demon quieted and let him speak once more. “With Ma and Pa already dead, ain’t gonna let COVID get me before the cancer does.”
I wrote this for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 100 word flash fiction challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a wee tale no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.
I haven’t written for one of Rochelle’s challenges in a long time. I’d been more busy writing fiction for tons and tons of anthologies, that is until recently. Frankly, I dried up. Oh, I got a really great day job in May that I love a lot, but that other side of my writing just up and flew away.
But today, I’m actually feeling pretty good. Mind’s still clear this evening, and well, I want to write something, right?
Oh, it isn’t all bad. My short story The Haunted Detective was accepted for publication as well as a missive about a magical pre-school.
But that’s the past, and I need to start writing for the future, including chasing the elusive first novel.
To read other stories based on the prompt, click HERE!.
Oh, my title is based on the 1973 Lynyrd Skynyrd song Tuesday’s Gone.
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Dang… He’s between a rock and a hard place!
Congrats on the publication!
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Thanks. They come and they go.
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🙂
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Always good to see you at FF James, and congrats on the publications, sounds like you’ve been busy. Cancer or Covid, what a choice! This story kinda sums up the year 2020 for a lot of people. Here’s hoping for better times ahead, if not for your MC, then at least for the rest of us!
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It was inspired by so many comments in social media where folks feel as if you can’t die from anything other than COVID. Yeah, 2020 has been a real train wreck.
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One fist of iron, the other of steel. If the right one don’t get you, the left one will. Welcome back, James.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks, Rochelle. Nice to be back.
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That’s fighting spirit, poor fellow.
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“You can run, but you can’t hide.” -Joe Louis
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Good to see you back. Your character is in tough place.
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No way out, Mike. Thanks.
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I admire Jerry’s determination. A timely reminder that there’s more than one way to meet one’s end, even if the media chooses to ignore it.
Here’s mine!
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Thanks, and I’ve already read yours, Keith. 😉
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His first mistake, shoving the mask in his pocket, but then again, maybe not…
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He was already far away from other people and already terminal from cancer.
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Unique, and very sad, take on the prompt. At least he has the energy left to try to choose how he dies.
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Yes. In the world, especially now, many of the choices we used to have over our lives have been removed. Jerry took the only way out that offered freedom.
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it looks like he’s doomed, but i love his fighting spirit.
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Thanks. Yes, if he’s going to die anyway, he’d rather die free than as a slave.
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Wonderful prose look at hopelessness making the best of it. I enjoyed it.
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Thanks for the complement, Bill.
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Of course.
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Jerry needs a break, he is running away full of hope knowing he has nowhere to run.
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He has nowhere to run, but he’ll die free.
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Good story, though a bit close to home – my daughter in law has cancer, and two little girls, to cope with.
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I’m so sorry. I truly am.
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