It’s the sound of water
Lapping at the dock
As my daughter dangles
Her feet in the midnight blue
Of a summer lake.
Walden Pond
It’s a walk around the block
With my little dogs
And a grey rock
Steeple reaching for the blue heavens
On an autumn day.
Kylemore Abbey
As the moon sings
Her cyclic songs
Over all the world
I forget if only for now
That the world is loud.
It’s the swish of shovels.
Snow piled high,
Plows hold the world hostage.
And I am in
A season of rest.
It is time for Friday Fictioneers again. This week my story is going out ahead of time! Even I cannot believe it.
Let me encourage you to read my story and then to hop on over to Rochelle’s page and follow the little blue frog to lots of other stories. Here is our prompt for the week
PHOTO PROMPT – © Connie Gayer …(Mrs. Russell)
All These Dusty Miles
by JE Lillie
“Just a little further.” Momma says.
Those words are her mantra. I know she is frightened, so I will not complain even though my feet bleed and my shoulders ache with the weight of the pack.
“She knows the way” I say under my breath. Still she has never walked the distance. We were city dwellers. Then the bombs fell, the soldiers came and we ran with nothing but these bags slung from our shoulders and the clothes on our backs.
“We are here!” Momma says.
The ocean opens before me. Suddenly I wish to go back to the desert.
PHOTO PROMPT – 
Dale Rogerson
It is time once again for Friday Fictioneers. 100-ish writers gather from all over the globe to write 100 words on a photo prompt supplied by our hostess Rochelle. You can find the other 100-ish of us by clicking on the underlined link which will tak you to Rochelle’s blog. From there follow the little blue frog.
My piece this week is a bit conceptual. I looked at the prompt without my glasses and saw a snake. From that point on this idea was stuck in my head.
Leviathan Lives
by JE Lillie
This was Eden. That stupid girl, that foolish boy ruined everything. Yet, I am the one left slithering on my belly in the muck.
Even “He Who Shall Not Be Named” was against me that day. He saw my glory and demanded it be taken away. As He did in Heaven so He has done on Earth.
“Thy will be done!” they pray!
“Enough!” I say!
He has had His way for far too long. It is time for me to crawl from these tidal waters. It is time for the sons of Adam to behold the beast that restores the world.
.
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It’s time for another episode of Friday Fictioneers. Our hostess Rochelle is celebrating three years of fictioneering. To join in the celebration pop on over to her site by clicking HERE
Here is the weekly photo prompt and my story
Photo Prompt by Ron Pruitt
Leaving the Slow Lane
by JE Lillie
The bus had stopped just outside her bowling alley for years. Jessica had never minded. It seemed almost like free advertising. After all few things drew a crowd in Jefferson like the bus out-of-town.
Today was different though. She stood at the glass door and cursed the bus outside. She cursed the big man in the brown Stetson.
He was going to make his fortune, he said.
He was leaving her behind is what he meant.
He turned one last time to wave good-bye. He blew her a kiss. She caught it and nestled it to her heart. The tears fell and she turned away.
Copyright – Marie Gail Stratford
Well it’s time for something a little lighter than my last entry “Kicking the Dust Off”. I am going totally Sci-fi, Hitchhiker’s Guide on this one folks. Also by way of explanation when I first wrote this piece I saw the mouse as a Zoomba automatic vacuum cleaner. It wasn’t until reading several other posts that I realized I was dealing with a remote mouse. Anyway rather than change the story I went with my original interpretation of the picture. Thanks as always to Rochelle for providing the inspiration. Check out her site when you’ re done here to see what other stories this photo prompt inspired.
Bazoom and the Dangerous Waddle Boxes
by JE LIllie
When humanity created the waddle boxes no one thought they could be dangerous. After all they were only supposed to be automated mail delivery systems for interoffice communication. But give a box a brain and they think it’s the green light to take over the universe. It’s always been that way with squares. Think about it.
All it took was a simple adjustment to their vortex transceivers and the waddle boxes went from teleporting mail between Ciprotech and Genofirm to transporting humans into the eye of Jupiter.
That’s when the humans made me. I’m Bazoom. If mailboxes can take over the world, vacuum cleaners should be able to take it back. Think about it.
I haven’t participated in F.F. for several weeks/months. Ministry had kept me busy. But I am jumping back in this week to tell a story in 100 words from the photo prompt above. If you would like to participate in Friday Fictioneers or if you would like to read other takes on the prompt click on the underlined link and it will take you to the F.F. home page.
Kicking the Dust Off
by JE Lillie
Sam eyed the cars behind him as he slowed down at the edge of the bridge. He half-expected them to slow down and park too. None did. The traffic continued on oblivious to the man with the cardboard box.
“It should be different,” he thought. There should be a funeral, a luncheon; But Bridget had no friends. She had lost Sam all his.
She got cancer.
He stuck by her.
Her dying words… “You’re worthless!”
Sam put the cardboard box down on the edge of the bridge.
He kicked.
She was gone.
Sam Cried.
“It should be different,” He thought.
photo by: C. Hase
It is time once again for Friday Fictioneers the flash fiction writing group led by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click the word “Fictioneers” above and it will take you to her site. A quick click on the little blue froggy and you will be deluged in a sea of stories based on the photo prompt above.
Here is what I took from the picture.
Letters From Malta
by JE Lillie
What’s left of the ship still surfaces during low tide. I come to see it everyday, still amazed we all made it out alive. Paul said we would. God tells Him things and no one doubts that now.
When he got bitten by the snake after the shipwreck everyone was sure it was the gods’ judgment, but the man walks in the miracle. He didn’t even swell.
Now he’s been invited to the magistrate’s house. We hear there is dysentery there so of course off we go. Paul says “Every problem is just a miracle in disguise.”
This is a snapshot of Acts 28, Paul’s time in Malta.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Land of Confusion.”
The Daily Post has asked us,
Which subject in school did you find impossible to master? Did math give you hives? Did English make you scream? Do tell!
I was a pretty good student throughout school. I was one of those kids who did his homework between periods. I studied while walking to school and still got A’s in everything. Then I met geometry and before long I realized that if I didn’t do something radical I could very possibly ruin all my chances at joining the Honor Society (yep I was that kid). So I studied (that didn’t help) and after squeaking through my first semester with a low C (which really alarmed my parents) I got a tutor. I made it through but determined that I would move away from higher math as quickly as I could.
Years later I was hired at a high school as a Special Needs paraprofessional. My mornings were given to a young man with many challenges. I just loved this part of my job and felt called to it by God. However the young man only stayed on half a day as he had a vocational placement in the afternoons. So the school opted to put me in a classroom as an instructional aid. Guess where I landed? You got it! Helping out in geometry class! I was terrified but then the teacher began handing out the lessons and strangely I got it! I guess that part of my brain finally turned on. So tenth graders don’t give up if you don’t get it just yet. You might just be waiting for a part of your brain to come on-line.
Time once again for Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle at Addicted To the Color Purple.
Each week our hostess challenges us to write a story in a hundred words based off of a photo prompt of her choosing. That prompt is below and you can go to Rochelle’s page and find her other contributors’ stories on the blue frog link.
photo prompt: @Madison Woods
Boys Must Play
by JE Lillie
The two boys danced around the spigot cups in hand. They had worked hard all morning and figured they had earned a break.
Heedless of the gathering crowd,they filled and tossed water at one another until their shirts were drenched.
Sister Amelia stormed through the press and tore the cups from the boys’ hands. The youngsters’ laughter drained into the scowls of the Mexican crowd.
“We came to minister to these people.” Sister Amelia hissed into the oldest boy’s ear.
“Instead you waste their water.”
The desert wind howled the lesson.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Your Life, the Book.”
The Daily Post has asked, From a famous writer or celebrity, to a WordPress.com blogger or someone close to you — who would you like to be your biographer?
In spite of my writings here and the fact that I live a very public life as a Staff Pastor in a New England church there are few people who know me intimately enough to do the job of writing my biography. While many see the outside there are few who have watched the interior workings of my life and even fewer I would entrust my journals too.
I think it would have to be my children.
Maybe my sister
Or my best friend Jody.
Lillie-Put 