© James Pyles
“Hurry up, Androcles! We’re starving over here.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. I’ve been hauling cheese over here for hours.”
The crew of mice who had taken the Lion unawares had been laboring all day. Of course, they had to wait for a number of days after its paw was impaled by the thorn-bush for the predator to pass out from exhaustion and lack of food and water.
Then they set to work.
© James Pyles
The King.
Of course, it was a lion. It wasn’t cowardly. It was angry.
He seemed larger than a typical male lion, but everything seemed unrealistically larger here. His mane was the color of burnt wood and his fur was a rich golden hue. The King’s eyes were glowing green, the shade used in many comic books and cartoons to indicate radioactivity. Here, in this unreal world, it seemed a dangerous reality.
“You’ve caused us some trouble, young Daniel.”
© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
“What the hell happened to the car, Mom?”
“Sorry, Mark. I thought I had enough clearance pulling out of the parking garage. I must have hit something?”
“Hit something? Mom!”
Since Dad’s death, Mark was trying to help Mom out, but she was getting more forgetful and disorganized each day. Clearly she wasn’t fit to drive, but getting her to give it up was going to be tough.
“Damn! That last invader agent hit my car with a disruptor blast before I could get away,” she thought. “Hate lying to my son, but he can’t learn my secret.”
I wrote this in response to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers writing challenge. The idea is to use the photo prompt above and write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My story’s word count is 98.
My Dad passed away about three weeks ago. Afterward, my brother and I helped my Mom deal with a lot of the details in settling Dad’s affairs. My wife and I came back to help out some more, and Mom continues to have problems remembering important details. Eventually, we plan on having her move in with us, but giving up her independence will be hard for her.
No, she hasn’t had any car accidents, but then again, she doesn’t need to be driving either. In my wee bit of flash fiction, I recreated Mom as having a secret that makes being absentminded just a ruse. Would that this could be true.
To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.
© James Pyles
There was nothing but darkness, and then there was light.
Daniel woke up with a headache surprised to be alive. The last thing he remembered was Gerald the Rooster expanding to fantastic proportions, growing to become a prehistoric nightmare, and engulfing the ten year old in its ebony wings.
Then he was here, wherever “here” was.
“The farm?”
It sort of looked like the farm, but not really. There were structures in the right places, the farmhouse, the chicken coop, the barn, but they all had an air of unreality to them, as if they were just “bookmarks” for other objects.
© Yarnspinner
Mornings were lovely here. Jim sighed as he took his cup of coffee and book to the table in his garden. He could finally afford the peace and quiet a lifetime of working had denied him.
His wife had passed away and the children all had lives of their own. He tolerated the occasional holiday or summer visit, but found he preferred his own company.
“Hey there, neighbor. Welcome. Great garden. Mind if I have a look? Thanks.”
“Who the hell…?” Jim rose to his feet and found his right hand being vigorously shaken by a paunchy, balding man in baggy shorts and a garish Hawaiian shirt.
“Bill’s the name. Glad to see a new neighbor. Sure that we’ll be best friends. What kind of garden you got? How about a cup of coffee? Cream and sugar if you’ve got it.
Jim got coffee, the sugar, the cream, and added an abundant portion of strychnine, not enough to kill the pest, but enough to make him think twice about coming over for refreshments again.
This was written for the FFfAW Challenge of the Week of May 9. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to create a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long, with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 174.
To read more stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
© James Pyles
Daniel was in the henhouse gathering eggs, but he also wanted an opportunity to check in on Henrietta. Gerald the Rooster was elsewhere in the barn yard, so there was time for this clandestine meeting.
While the other hens appeared as they always did, the ten year old was shocked to find the talking hen missing feathers and with her left eye swollen. What had happened to her?
“Henrietta. Are you okay?”
© James Pyles
Ten year old Daniel let the screen door slam behind him as he walked into the kitchen. Uncle Ethan was working with the new horses this morning and Aunt Abby had gone into town. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with ice cubes from the freezer.
Ethan and Abby still had a freezer old enough to need ice-cube trays. The child momentarily considered this a charming anachronism in the 21st century.
He filled the glass with water and swallowed it down, attempting to quench not only the heat of an Idaho summer morning, but the growing sense of surrealism he was experiencing, particularly at the latest disturbance, a talking hen.
© A Mixed Bag 2012
Remember, Z’kin. You’re holding one of the most sophisticated computing devices ever conceived. It has multiple scanners to gather data on their entire environment, communications circuits allowing you to contact our ship in orbit, and a voice interactive interface which can instantly answer any question.
“Not, Z’kin, Commander. My code name is Gary Evans.”
“Right. Of course. We’ve landed in a wooded area just outside of one of their communities. It’s just before dawn, so after you leave the shuttle, we should be able to launch undetected.
“Thanks, Commander. I’ll contact you daily during my scouting mission.”
“Good luck Z…uh, Mr. Evans.”
His alien form altered to look human, “Gary Evans” exited the shuttle and walked the five miles to the city. By the time he got downtown, the streets were bustling with people going to and fro.
The alien reached into his pocket secure in the knowledge that his secret device gave him mastery over his mission.
Then he saw them. They all had one. Every person he saw was looking down at their screens, rapidly tapping out messages or talking to “Siri”. His secret device was all too common here.
I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction writing challenge. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words based on the photo prompt above. My word count is 192.
When I saw the photo prompt, I thought of how the hand-held communicators in the 1960s TV show “Star Trek” seemed so advanced, but now, today’s cell phones are so much more sophisticated. Imagine an alien race who wants to scout Earth thinking some of their technology is so superior only to discover we have the same thing.
To read other stories inspired by the photo prompt, go to InLinkz.com.
© James Pyles
Another morning, another visit to the henhouse for Daniel. Most of these eggs would be sold at the market, which added a modest amount to his aunt’s and uncle’s income. His experiences yesterday taught him to get in, collect the eggs, and get out.
Since his encounter with the frog, nothing amiss had happened to the boy. He and Towser had walked over to Ben Swigert’s farm, found his uncle and old Ben, and watched them struggle with and cuss at the thirty year old tractor until almost sunset.
Finally, replacing several hoses and a fuel pump later, the machine roared back to life.
© James Pyles
After leaving the pond, Daniel didn’t go back to the farmhouse right away. He spent a lot of time wandering around, looking at everything which, since his encounter with the frog, seemed perfectly ordinary.
He played “fetch” with Towser until the boy got bored (the dog never got bored with “fetch”), he found Fearful Symmetry and two of her three kittens (the pink one was still missing) near the barn and petted them for a while. He even peeked into the henhouse only to find it was still an ordinary henhouse with ordinary hens.
Finally, he slipped back into the backdoor of the house and into the kitchen.
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