My father was a Flint guy, Great Depression edition — blue-collar even when he was in management, hands-on, patriotic, optimistic, and altogether typical of his generation. As a young man, he played baseball, drank beer, smoked whatever cigarettes he could afford, and helped save the world for democracy. [Read more…] about Remembering My Dad
Prince Gerald had an epiphany. Half-way unto the breach, he feigned a leg cramp. Thus, brave brother Rainer surged ahead and climbed the rubble-pile first, closely followed by a hundred men-at-arms.
Rainer tumbled down as fast, an arrow through the eye. The whispers began immediately. Later, the battle won, the castle carried, Gerald marveled at his insight. I will be king, he thought. And so he was. With Rainer’s bones interred and his widow warming the royal bed, the whispers grew.
“A king must rise above mere rumor,” Gerald said.
His reign was long, enlightened and generous; his name, immortal.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #350 at Velvet Verbosity.
Gwen wanted to reset the relationship.
“Is there a button we push?” I asked.
We were in Nick’s, in a back booth, pound-jars of PBR on the table between us. Gwen studied her beer as hard as I’d ever seen her study anything. “It’s not working,” she said.
“I think it is.”
“Just stop it, okay? Stop pretending.”
“Pretending?”
“That you love me. I’m not dumb.”
“I never—”
“Loved me?”
“Thought you were dumb.”
“Lair!”
I started to object, but saw there was no point.
Instead, I pressed my thumb on the table-top.
Gwen smiled.
“Push hard. Sometimes it sticks.”
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #348 at Velvet Verbosity.
He was a peasant, a man of the soil. Or so he claimed.
She never believed him. He owned a farm house, but someone else owned the barn and fields. His hands were huge and strong, but sensitive. A potter’s hands.
“You’re an artist,” she said. “Admit it.”
They were in bed, katydids singing through the window screens.
“Don’t call me that, girl.”
“I could call you worse.”
“Yes. An old artist.”
“No! I wouldn’t!”
His hands were on her, transforming her indignation, and they kissed.
Out beyond the barn and the fields that were not theirs, heat lightening flickered.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #345 at Velvet Verbosity.
Nan wanted a bough or two cut off the big silver maple in our backyard. So I hired a crew. Then she was hot to put in her garden and didn’t like having to wait.
“It’s too early to plant, anyway,” I said.
When the crew got here, she was hot for the climber. “You should see the hunk trimming my tree,” she told her sister on the phone.
“Why don’t you go lick the sweat off his pecs?” I said. “You know you want to.”
“Hey, it wouldn’t kill you to work out, Bobby.”
Well. She had me there.
I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #344 at Velvet Verbosity.
When Carly read the notice to disconnect, she couldn’t decide whether to go shake Jack awake or strangle him in his sleep. So she just stood there. The front room of the double-wide [Read more…] about Notice to Disconnect