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Archives for December 2014

The Presence

By Jim Anderson

poster: 100 words of fictionThe wind chimes were driving him nuts.

“They’re pretty,” his wife said, without looking up from her book.

“Pretty loud!”

“Go take them down, then.”

“All right, I will.”

He set aside his laptop, leaned forward in his chair, and then stopped. It seemed too easy. He studied his wife for a moment, sensing a trap.

“Really? That would be OK with you?”

“Sure. Go ahead. What’s to stop you?”

“Your mom! This could be her way of haunting me.”

His wife laughed. “She has other ways to do that.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“Take down her chimes, and you’ll see.”


I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #407 at Velvet Verbosity.

Another Cold Morning in the Tower

By Jim Anderson

As always, he’d put the kettle on for tea. She awoke to the whistle. Today I will escape, she resolved, throwing off the bedclothes.

She encased herself in her royal-blue robe and waited. The sad-faced jailer appeared. He set the breakfast tray on her table, and then dragged out the ornate chair.

“Tea again? I prefer milk.”

“Yes, but tea is what we have.”

“And sugar instead of honey.”

“Again, we make do, my lady.”

He bowed deeply to her.

“I will escape today, jailer.”

“There is always hope.”

“Yes,” she said. “There always is.”

She drank the honeyed tea.


I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #406 at Velvet Verbosity.

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