Category Archives: Stray Stories- Challenges

GUMSHOE: #Weekly Word Challenge 7-5-20 DOGGED

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges

This post is created in response to MILLIE THOM’S WEEKLY WORD CHALLENGE- WORDS BEGINNING WITH THE LETTER D.

The word I have chosen for today’s piece of flash fiction is the word…

DOGGED-

adjective

having or showing tenacity and grim persistence.”success required dogged determination”

VERB

  1. 1.follow (someone or their movements) closely and persistently.”photographers seemed to dog her every step”Similar:pursuefollowstalktracktrailshadowhoundplaguebesetbedevilassailbeleaguerblighttroubletormenthaunttail
    • (of a problem) cause continual trouble for.”their finance committee has been dogged by controversy”
  2. 2.INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICANact lazily; fail to try one’s hardest.
  3. 3.grip (something) with a mechanical device.”she has dogged the door shut”

HERE IS MY ATTEMPT:

Private investigator Archives | El Dorado Insurance Agency, INC

GUMSHOE

I sipped my coffee calmly and turned the page of the New York times. I took a deep calming breath and lifted the paper in front of me as if the story I had just turned to was the most interesting thing in my world at the moment.

I crossed my legs and swiveled ever so slightly to the left so that I could get a better view across the top of my paper at the alley across from the cafe. The man who had dogged my steps for half a week was back. I had done my best to lose him three times, but this private dick was better than the last two Kramer had sent to spy me out. Well, so much the worse for him. I had things to do and a message to deliver, a message to a contact whose cover must be protected at all costs.

I folded my paper and looked at my watch as if I was late. I signalled the waiter and paid him directly leaving without the change. I grabbed my coat and left the open air cafe. I pulled my driving gloves out of my pocket and slung my London Fog over my arm as I dashed across the street and down a side alley adjacent to my watcher.

As I expected he followed. I had to admit he was good. He kept what would normally be a very cautious distance for a tail. Anyone less paranoid would have missed him entirely.

I ducked around the corner. It was such a shame to waste such talent.I would have preferred another route, but the man had made his choice.

He was surprised when he turned the corner and met my silenced revolver. I pulled his body into the darkness of a doorway and looked about to make sure I had not been noticed.

The way was clear.

Before I left I turned to the dead man and said, “That is what happens to gum on the bottom of my shoe my friend. Tell the others to stay out of my way.”

The Garden Of Requirement

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges, The Stories
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

This piece of Flash Fiction is written in response to THE FRIDAY FICTIONEERS CHALLENGE. CHECK IT OUT BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE.

THE GARDEN OF REQUIREMENT

By J. Lillie

Jared called it “The Garden of Requirement”, a play off of the Harry Potter books, his favorite reads.

Jenna called it a mess. Jared’s garden was a hodgepodge of broken toilets filled with violets and refrigerators filled with manure and beef steak tomato plants.

He haled it as repurposing. She complained it was just putting other people’s old junk on their lawn, but then the people began to come, just to look at the junk. Jared began to charge a walk-through fee. When Jared bought Jenna her first diamond necklace Jenna began to love the Garden of Requirement.

Just Call Me “Smoky”

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges, The Stories, Uncategorized

It’s time for THE WRITING CHALLENGE #FUN20119.

Check out the link for the rules and a list of the stories.

Here is mine:

Just Call Me “Smoky”

by J. Lillie

Z ear tuned his six string one more time. His nerves jangled like his mother’s dinner triangle at 5 P.M.

A piece of his heart wished for the simplicity of those days on the farm with his four brothers and three sisters. Life had been hard. The house had no running water and they heated with wood. The farm work was back breaking, but there had always been time for music and family and God.

Each night after the chores were done and supper was eaten, Momma would gather all the family around her rocker by the wood stove. She would read a chapter from the Bible Daddy had preached from and then she would have Z play his guitar and lead them in a hymn. After that they would sing the songs of the hills, the ones Momma had known since she was a little girl. They would sing until the moon rose high in the sky and the little ones dozed off by the hearth. Z always believed it was his father’s voice that sang through his mouth on those nights, not his own. It was all Z had left of the man who gave him life before losing his own.

Those nights with the family had prepared Z for his big break. They had birthed the story that would launch him to the stars and they had disciplined the talent his father had given him as a parting gift before dying two days before Z was born.

Zeruiah Teague had been discovered one Sunday in church by a Nashville promoter who was visiting his cousin in Robbinsville. It had been a banner day, a day that raised Z’s whole family out of the abject poverty they had always known. But Z had traded something that day when he became a star. He still thought of himself as “Z” but no one called him that anymore. Even Momma had given up using his given name or his nick name.

“Mr. Teague? We are at places in five.” The stage manager popped her head in the door to say.

Z smiled back at the pretty woman and replied, “Not Mr. Teague. Just call me Smoky.”

Friday Fictioneers 5-1-20

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges, The Stories, Uncategorized

It is time for Friday Fictioneers for the week.

This is the challenge where flash fiction writers create a 100 word story from a prompt supplied by Rochelle our hostess. Check it out by clicking the link above.

Here is the prompt and my story:

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Lost In White

by J. Lillie

Hugh stood with his mother and his mother-in-law in the empty dining room. It was the first day they were actually related and it was the last.

“I blame you.” His mother-in-law said.

“You have got to be kidding!” Hugh’s mother spat out, “Hugh was the one your daughter left at the altar.”

Hugh looked back at the toile-draped arbor, then out through the snow covered windows into the complete white out of the setting night. He didn’t care whose fault it was. He just hoped Karen was OK. Even as that hope dawned, he knew it was false.

Rebuilding From the Table Up.

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges, The Stories

This post is in response to WITHIN CAVE WALLS #FUN20083 WRITING CHALLENGE.

You can learn the rules of the challenge by clicking the underlined link above.

Below is my chosen prompt for the challenge and my story:

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Chasten and Catherine’s favorite date location all through high school was The Lois’ Cafe just outside the drive-in theater. Their table was table three right at the edge of the chained courtyard. From there, they could sip their shared malted as they waited for the previews of the movie to start. It was at that table that Chasten first proposed, and it was at that table that Catherine first told him, “Not yet.”

Chasten and Catherine went off to college. Chasten proposed every year on the anniversary of his first proposal.

Each time Catherine said, “Not yet.”

By the time they graduated The Lois’ had burned down and the drive-in had closed. So, on the sixth anniversary of his first proposal Chasten took Catherine to the overgrown lot where the Lois’ and the drive-in had once been. Now all that was left was table three.

The lovers sat together at the favorite table in the long grass. A pizza and a bottle of wine was the “romantic fare” Chasten had chosen for their dinner. As the couple finished the last piece of the small pie between them, Chasten got down on one knee and presented Catherine with a piece of paper.

Catherine read the first line “Deed of purchase.”

“It’s mine now Cat.” He said gesturing to the panorama around them.

“Ours if you’ll have me.” He finished the annual proposal.

“We’ll rebuild it from the table up!” Catherine said, and she kissed her fiance’

SWC-2: The Watch Human

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges, The Stories
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I looked out the window on the back yard and my heart turned to ice in my chest. The masters were in the back yard where they often took their afternoon bones brookside. Ordinarily it was perfectly safe, our town being accepting of small dogs in spite of the prejudice that ran through our country about them.

The shepherd gang had come into town last night, though, and it was well known they did not like our kind. The masters were surrounded by six large dogs whose fangs were bared. Mercedes our matriarch and alpha had drawn Jacopo and Snug behind her protectively, but I knew they didn’t stand a chance if left to themselves. This is exactly why small dogs purchased attack people.

I sprang to the back door and pulled it open using my opposable thumbs and sprinted out into the midst of the pack. In one hand I wielded my oak club. In the other a sharpened stave.

“Back off!” I hissed.

The Shepherd gang’s alpha circled in front of me twice with ears laid low. Then he spoke to my masters, “Don’t plan on staying long you Maltese scum! This town isn’t big enough for both our breeds. If you’re not gone the next time I come to town, I promise even your watch human won’t be able to protect you from me and my pack.”

As one the pack turned tail and leaping the brook they were gone.

Mercedes was whimpering behind me, “Why can’t they just leave us alone?”

THIS POST IN IN RESPONSE TO SANDMAN’S WRITING CHALLENGE NUMBER 2. TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE CLICK HERE.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS: THE SADDEST GOOD-BYE

Posted on by under Stray Stories- Challenges

I have not been part of FRIDAY FICTIONEERS for over a year or more. Now life is changing and I am bringing my writing back to the front burner. So here is today’s picture and story.

PHOTO PROMPT © C.E.Ayr

The Saddest Good Bye

by JE Lillie

Paris was their place, their heart, their secret. Meme and Pepe met after the war. She was a nurse. He was a GI.

I grew up with the picture on their wall and the little love hints they would cast out when they walked by it.

“Remember that night under the Tower, love?” He would say.

“Joe! Not in front of the children!” She would chide saucily.

Meme died last year.

Yesterday I found Paris in the garage. The smashed frame in the trash can. Pepe didn’t remember what had happened.