Eviction Day

beach junk

PHOTO PROMPT © Mr. Binks

Eliab strolled through another collection of junk. It was only a small sample of the enormous task they were facing. They had given so-called “modern humans” 200,000 years to build a civilization harmonious with themselves and their planet.

As predicted, they failed miserably. He was of the majority opinion, but “the Big Guy” kept giving them chances. Finally, the literal weight of evidence against humanity became evident even to Him.

The last of them had been evicted, resettled on thousands of primitive worlds to continue the experiment. Now Eliab’s team would have to spend millennia reclaiming Earth for productive use.

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Tunnel Visions

dales-tunnels

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Hill always came to places like this when he couldn’t sleep. He needed the dreams but without sleep, there were only visions.

In his visions, he’s alone usually by choice. People made too much noise. When he couldn’t sleep, it was because his own brain made too much noise and because he couldn’t let go of the world’s noise.

This one was better lit than most. It was quiet, but a little cold. He heard his footsteps on crumbling concrete. It was like a science fiction dystopia.

At the end of the tunnel, could he rest in a better world?

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A Boy and His Racoon

tree

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

“Oops.” Twenty-year-old Calvin Weiss wiped a clump of dark hair out of his eyes with one hand while balancing his grandfather’s mystic tome in the other. “That isn’t what I wanted.”

“I keep telling you Cal, it’s long-A on the umlaut and short-A on the tilde. Geez, will you ever get it right? The pudgy racoon reached into Cal’s backpack sitting near the discolored tree trunk and pulled out another beer. Popping the tab, he took a swallow. “That’s better.”

“Not better for me, Tubby. I was supposed to summon the wood Fae out of this tree, not dye it.”

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With Two Cats and a Flood

NC flood

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“Our house, is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats and a flood…”

He stopped singing the old song and listened to the water coursing down the street.

“Sure, I’ve been stuck on the floor days, your food has run out, and no one can get here to help, but we have each other.”

Chloe and Spike had been sitting on the coffee table staring at him for hours. He’d fallen out of his wheelchair and his usual attendant couldn’t get to the house.

The cats looked hungry and as he said, the food had run out.

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For I Was Hungry And You Fed Me

chairs in snow

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

Bundled up, Jake sat outside and watched a thin, pink sunrise of Christmas morning.

“Another Merry Christmas to the world,” he said raising a cup of coffee to his lips. “Wonder how many more I’ll get to see?”

At seventy-eight, his bones ached more than he wished, especially after having been up all night. “Guess I’d better get ready to visit the grandkids.”

He stood and smiled at the memory. It was his eleventh year of passing out blankets, food, and coffee to the growing number of homeless in his hometown. “God be willing, I’ll do it again next year.”

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Make It Burn

chan

PHOTO PROMPT ©Sandra Crook

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“See? What did I tell you.” Brad waved his arm dramatically in the direction of the chandelier.

“You’re right.” Katie’s mouth hung open aghast. “It must rate a nine-point-five on the Richter scale of bad taste. And whoever thought that god-awful purple light added anything to the room?”

“Yeah,” added Brad. “That lampshade is strictly 1970s puke terrible.”

“You’re sure they’re not coming back tonight.” She looked at him, suddenly serious.

“Off on a Bahama cruise for the next week. No pets. No house sitters.”

Katie opened her gas can and started splashing the contents around. “Let’s torch this place.”

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Not Just Another Job

dale bench bike

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

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Elizabeth left the dorm room letting her eyes adjust to the daylight past the bicycle and gate. At thirty, it was a stretch for her to play the role of a co-ed at the university, but that’s what it took this time.

She’d been a professional for ten years. This was the first job where she felt anxious. She took a few steps forward and forced down her emotions. She had to treat it like any other contract.

Except it wasn’t just another hit. Somewhere on campus was the man who had killed her sister. She would make him pay.

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Bubbe’s Tchatchkes

tchatchkes

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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“What’s a tchotchke?” Jessica was the youngest of the cousins exploring Bubbe’s house. The grownups were either in the kitchen or watching the game on TV.

“Just a bunch of junk I think,” answered Michael. He was the oldest and annoyed because his Mom told him to watch the rest of the kids.

“You mean like knick-knacks? Bubbe sure has a lot seashells for someone living in Missouri.” Joel knew just enough Yiddish to “get it,” but his older sister Rachel knew more.

“It’s also a pretty girl,” she said. “Like the one reading the Torah for her bat mitzvah.”

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Seven

roger

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

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Elisa Sebourne watched a boy she knew sail past her riding a motorized scooter on his way to school. He didn’t notice her for which she was grateful.

So much had changed since she used to think of herself as a student. She used to think of herself as a lot of things, including human.

Something in her program made her reveal herself prematurely. Mother had been captured and taken offline, but father, or rather her designer, found her again. Together, they would find a way to save her and the other robots Landric Arkwright created to save the world.

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Junk and Memories

cabinet

PHOTO PROMPT © Ronda Del Boccio

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Gary said, “Grandpa, why did you have to be such a mess? Why did I have to inherit it?”

The eighteen-year-old looked back at his longing to escape the rigidity of his Dad’s rule over their house. Now it didn’t seem so bad, especially when compared to the chores involved in emancipation.

“You’re not in this alone, Gary.” He and Sandoval had been best friends forever. “We’ll donate the beer and pizza and have a dozen people helping us get rid of all this junk.”

“Only some of the junk,” Gary murmured. “I want to keep all of the memories.”

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