Quoting: Feel Joy for the Miracle of Teshuva

God’s acceptance of our commitment to correct (“teshuva”) is a miracle greater than all other miracles.

The requirements of teshuva are: regret for what one has done wrong in the past, and resolve to improve in the future.

To the degree a person is aware of his wrongdoings and feels pain for what he has done, to that same degree his teshuva is of greater value. The essential thing is to feel extreme joy for the miracle of teshuva, and to praise the Almighty for this good fortune.

Sources: Rabbi Moshe Chevroni; Masaas Moshe, p.65; Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s Gateway to Happiness, p.228

An Ending in Fire

town

Photo credit: Anurag Bakhshi

Kurt stood on the cliff overlooking the tiny Southern California. It was 30 miles west of Santa Barbara and it was all his.

“It looks so peaceful from up here,” he said just to hear something besides the wind. Even the gulls and squirrels were gone, having deserted this doomed land if they could or otherwise having died, just like all the people.

He rubbed his left hand over his short-cropped gray and white hair. “Well, guess I’d better get to it while I still have daylight.”

He knew the National Guard had sealed off everything between Santa Maria and Ventura north and south, and Bakersfield to the east. No one would imagine anyone would want to stay in the danger zone with them, but Kurt did. His family was down there, what was left of them, and now that he’d wired the whole place to blow, he’d exterminate the last of the infected. He wasn’t planning to escape. His wife, kids, grandkids were turned into something like zombies or vampires by the mutant virus. Only he was immune. Standing in town with his back to the ocean, he pressed the remote and the next California wildfire began.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction challenge hosted by Susan. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 198.

I chose this theme for no particular reason other than it was what popped into my head. Although the limited word count didn’t allow for it, I set my tale in the small southern California town of Gaviota. I’m sure it doesn’t look like the image above, but I needed a location that was small and isolated.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

Quoting: Query Calm People

Would you like to become an expert on how to be calm in all sorts of challenging situations? Do not just rely on your own ingenuity. Keep asking people who appear to be calm, “Would you mind if I ask you how you are able to be so calm?” Most people will happily share their thoughts on the subject with you.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book, Serenity, p.72

Survivalist

garnet mountain fire lookout

© Google 2017

Forty-five year old Faith had been hiding from the Qu’Tufot for over six months, ever since she’d escaped the work camp near Logan. There’d originally been four of them. Jodi and Kurt got shot by the Guard, what the humans collaborators with the aliens called themselves, and Ernie had a heart attack during the climb up Garnet Mountain. He showed her how the alien field generator they’d stolen worked. As long as she wore it, her energy signature was invisible to orbiting and ground sensors.

Hunting near the Fire Lookout was good. Pa had taught her to be a survivalist. The battery on the softball-sized generator would last another year, which would also keep her warm and reclaim water from the air for drinking.

It was just dumb luck that this was a storage cache for the local Resistance. Now all she had to do was wait until they returned.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use a Google maps image and/or location as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.

Today, the Pegman takes us to Garnet Mountain Fire Lookout, Big Sky, Montana. I looked up the site at Recreation.gov and consulted a map of the general area for several hundred miles around.

The name of the aliens and the general situation is taken from a story I’ve submitted and that is still under consideration for an anthology about the fourth world war (yes, you read that right). The location and characters are different, but there are plenty of stories to tell under these circumstances.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com. Oh, I’m late today because we had our three-year-old granddaughter sleep over last night, and she’s been up since about seven this morning. I’ve got a bit of a window to write now that she’s taking her nap.

Quoting: Mentally See Yourself Taking Action

When you are not yet ready to take action, visualize yourself taking the action that you would really like to do. This way even though you are not in a frame of mind to actually take the specific action, you are mentally preparing yourself.

Your mental pictures will make it easier for you to take action. When you run pictures of yourself doing the things that you want to do, this mental rehearsal will shorten the amount of time it takes to build up your willingness to act.

Mentally picturing yourself taking action will help you overcome the resistance you are feeling. Anything we’ve successfully done in real life makes it more likely that we will take that action again. Anything that we’ve visualized doing is stored in our brain as if we actually took that action.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book: “Taking Action” – page 101

The Burning Woman

pelosi

“It’s like a manhood thing with him — as if manhood can be associated with him,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a private meeting with House Democrats. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

Okay, last one for today. The images are pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway. The one at the very top was taken of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer leaving the White House after a recent meeting with President Donald Trump. According to various sources including The New York Times, Pelosi pretty much “owned” Trump in that get together, and you can see in the photo above, she looks well pleased with herself. Sort of a cat vs. canary moment, and she gets to be the cat.

So someone used their vast Photoshop skills and created the following, which was supposedly projected on the side of the Federal Building in San Francisco. I’m sure a lot of people loved it.

arson pelosi

Image projected on the side of the Federal Building in San Francisco – Image attributed to @laureldavilacpa on twitter according to the Times article.

However, I immediately thought of the “evil girl burning house” meme and decided to “marry” them. I think it turned out well for a “quickie” job, it’s really funny, and I’ve already shared it on Facebook and twitter.

evil girl

My version of a Nancy Pelosi meme

The Time Travel Game

tt

Image from the box top of The Time Tunnel board game

I’m putting this here mainly to keep track of it. I like the idea of time travel as a game, maybe like a scavenger hunt, but I’ve got too many other projects going to sufficiently develop this one now.

When I was a kid, I loved all of those Irwin Allen television shows such as Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The Time Tunnel (1966-67) was high up on my list, even if it only made it two seasons. As an adult, I find all of Allen’s shows to be excessively cheesy, but I can tolerate some limited exposure.

I do periodically re-watch the Time Tunnel’s pilot episode Rendezvous with Yesterday, which introduces how our heroes get stuck jumping from one part of past and future history to another, and probably where a significant portion of the special effects budget was blown.

Continue reading →

The Return of Uncle Martin

laptop and globe

© Douglas M. MacIlroy

“Chris, what’s going on?” Susan O’Hara stood at the storage shed watching her husband tap at the laptop keyboard, attached to a rough, plaster globe wrapped in wire.

“Tracking his spacecraft. Dad said he’d come back. Found the diagrams and the frequency in his papers.”

“Your Dad was crazy. He thought his uncle was a Martian.”

The forty-four year old engineer kept focused on the screen with occasional glances at a blip of light appearing on the makeshift sphere. “I’m getting something.”

He toggled the volume up and a voice came through. “Tim. Help. The robots are taking over Mars.”

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields photo flash fiction challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction only 100 words long. My word count is 100.

Some of you may already have picked up references to the 1960s TV sitcom My Favorite Martian which starred Ray Walston and Bill Bixby. Walston played a martian stranded on Earth who is helped by a young newspaper reporter named Tim O’Hara (Bixby). O’Hara explained the martian to his landlady as his “Uncle Martin.” The show ran from 1963 to 1966 and I remember watching it as a kid.

Both Walston and Bixby are no longer with us, and I used the birth date of Bixby’s deceased son Christopher (he tragically died at age six) as the basis for creating the probable age of Tim O’Hara’s son, who has inherited the legacy of knowing there is life on Mars. Since we keep sending robots to the Red Planet, I thought I’d make that the source of “Martin’s” angst.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

Summer Reflection

reflection

© Sue Vincent

Twenty-nine year old Melanie Snyder stood sobbing at the shore of the lake where her Grandpa’s ashes had been scattered two years ago. She purposely had one hand inside her coat touching something precious she was wearing around her neck. The first rays of the April sun were just now creeping over the eastern horizon illuminating reflections of thin clouds, a pale azure sky, and the gnarled, barren tree under which he had taught her how to fish when she was five.

“I’m sorry I…” sobs shook her slender frame which was enveloped in the dark blue pea coat that sheltered her from the cold. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit…didn’t call that last year. I was so afraid of what I’d see…of what the cancer had done to…”

Long blond hair being slightly fluttered by the breeze, Melanie lowered both arms to her sides and clenched her fists in resolve, determined to finish her confession.

“You were always my hero, always strong, brave, kind. After Mom and Dad divorced, I could talk to you about anything, how I felt, how mad I was. You always understood. I thought you’d live forever, that you would never leave me.”

Continue reading →

Quoting: Learn From Your Role Models

When your first reaction is not to take the action that you really want to do, ask yourself, “Who do I know has a positive attitude about taking action? Now let me borrow his mind, as it were. Let me borrow his brain in my own unique way.” Make yourself feel the way you imagine he feels about the situation and task at hand.

On a screen in your mind, see this person taking action with zrizus. Now on the same screen, see yourself taking action in a similar way. Run through that picture over and over again.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book: “Taking Action” – page 95.