Tag Archives: drabble

Death’s a Beach

beach

PHOTO PROMPT © Peter Abbey

For everyone else, it looked like a normal December on the beach in California. Some folks still enjoyed a “too cold for me” dip in the ocean. More, like me, just wanted to walk in the semi-warm weather.

Death always haunts us since, after all, we’re mortal. However some deaths hit harder than others. Most of them are family and friends. Every once in a while, it’s a public figure that some love and others hate.

Then they seem to either get too much of one or the other, at least on social media. I’d rather be walking on sand.

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The Trickster Healer

alley

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

He finally found his prey in a tourist attraction. It took months, working with a couple of dozen patients on his caseload, listening to hundreds of hours of tape. Finally it paid off.

“Dr. Chiron.” Andrew looked up from the bench in the middle of the alley. “What are you doing here?” Andrew’s right hand twitched as if he wanted to reach for the gun in his jacket.

“I knew you’d be here at this moment.” Jacob Chiron pulled the trigger of his semi-automatic three times eliminating another serial killer. Being a psychologist was a good cover for hunting them.

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Fear Burns Like A Fire

market

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The dark woman looked nervous as she served the older white couple their coffee.

“Thanks.” He nodded his head and smiled when she set the tray down. His wife looked at the waitress, the owner’s granddaughter, with unbidden pity.

“This is the last place in town to get a decent cup of coffee,” he said putting two sugar cubes into his small cup.

“Harry, she was scared to death of us,” said his wife.

“I can hardly blame her.” He took a sip and decided it needed to cool. “The whole anti-immigrant movement has chased away most families like hers.”

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Through The Looking Glasses

glasses

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

“Dad?” Rod turned to his front door as his Dad Frank walked in. He was expecting him to bring the pumpkin pie, but the old man had something else.

“Happy Thanksgiving, son,” said Frank. “Where are Holly and the kids?”

“Kitchen and the backyard respectively.” Rod’s mouth was agape. “What’s that on your face?”

“These glasses?” Frank chuckled and looked around the living room.

“What was your ophthalmologist thinking?”

“Ever see the movie ‘They Live,’ Rod?”

“Yeah, but…”

“I can see you’re real. I just want to make sure about the rest of my family.”

“You’re off your meds, right?”

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Poof!

flowers

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

Jake sat his old bones down beside the Mumblebon bush again. He’d discovered it some weeks ago when taking his morning hike behind his house. The day he saw the strange blossoms; he bent over to get a closer look and…

“Poof.”

A blossom popped into his face and he could hear it talking. Since then they’d become fast friends.

“The world’s gotten so bad out there,” said Jake.

“The world is so peaceful in here,” said Mumble.

“I’m too old for this,” said Jake. “I want that kind of peace.”

“Come closer,” said the blossoms.

Jake leaned down.

“Poof.”

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Relaxing at Sunset

pool

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Harold thought it was great that his friend Jimmy let him use his place in the Arizona desert while he had to stay in Phoenix. At sunset, it was still warm enough to relax in the pool with a drink, and in November, too.

“This is the life,” he said sipping at another bourbon. “At least while the food lasts.”

The emergency news channel was coming across his phone. The narrator was describing the vampire plague sweeping every populated area in the world.

“It’ll take ‘em a while to find me. After Jimmy turns, I wonder if he’ll come home?”

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Who Puts Up Yellow Christmas Lights?

window

PHOTO PROMPT ©Yvette Prior

“Who puts up a Christmas tree in November and why only yellow lights?” Griffin thought. He turned from the window and back to his enemy.

Kemp developed the invisibility program for the government. Griffin was their guinea pig, but it was never about science. Griffin was their ultimate political assassin, an invisible man.

“You said you couldn’t bring me back,” Griffin mused. “You’re my next victim…”

Griffin’s skin lit on fire and he collapsed on the carpet. Kemp put down his smartphone and rose from the sofa.

“The yellow lights are my security system, Griffin,” said Kemp. “They’re killing you.”

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Feeding My Children

easel

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

“I want this all cleaned up,” said the Manager to his labor group. “You’ve been issued work gloves, shears, rakes, and trash bins. I gave you instructions about trimming these plants at orientation. Any questions?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Manager,” said Evie, a portly black mother of three in the front. “What about that painting and easel?”

“It’s junk,” he said, “Just throw it in a bin.”

“My oldest likes to paint,” she said. “I was wondering…”

“Your kids need to eat and so do you, all of you,” said Manager. “You want your SNAP benefits loaded to EBT or not?”

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Two For The Price Of One

rainy night

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

“Change the past to save the future,” complained Simon as he trudged through Queens in the October rain.

“Go back to 1946 and kill him as an infant, they said.” He patted the loaded pistol in his pocket. “At least they got me off of death row and out of the joint,” he snarled.

“I’ll show them change. Yeah, I’ll do the kid, but I know where the other guy is in Boston right now.” He turned a corner and headed toward Jamaica Estates. “I’ll hop a train and do him, too. History’ll be really messed up without both Presidents.”

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The Listening Tree

tree

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

Sixteen-year-old Keaton sat facing the bow tree as he did every day after school. Another tree to his back, he drove the lead pencil, its tip making familiar scratchy sounds across the paper in his sketch book.

It was his favorite tree and it listened. “I argued with my girlfriend again,” he told the tree. “Dad and step-mom are divorcing.” He was only six when Dad left his real Mom. “My grades suck and I can’t get to sleep anymore.”

He finished his sketch, stood, and nodded to the bow tree. “See you tomorrow, friend.”

Bow was a good listener.

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