Tag Archives: flash fiction

Friday Fictioneers: Behind the Bamboo Curtain

Posted on by under The Stories

Here is another posting for Rochelle’s Challenge, FRIDAY FICTIONEERS. This challenge involves writing a 100 word story from a photo prompt provided by Rochelle. You can click the underlined link to read Rochelle’s story and those of her contributors.

The photo prompt  and my story are below:

PHOTO PROMPT - © ceayr

Photo by: ceayr

Behind the Bamboo Curtain

by JE Lillie

My memory is long. As far back as I can remember it has always been me vs. him. Nephew vs. uncle. Reynard vs. Isengrim.

We have amassed and lost fortunes to each other. Throughout history The fox has  outwitted the wolf. The wolf has overpowered the fox. He is stronger. I am smarter.

  I think though, I have finally lost. He has trapped me behind this bamboo curtain. The magic woven in keeps me in human form. To weak to transform I cannot heal from the knife he has thrust in my back. Reynard, the fox, at last is dying.

 For more on Reynard the fox…

 

Friday Fictioneers: When Grandma Played

Posted on by under The Stories

photo by: Jan W. Fields

I am sharing from Friday Fictioneers’ prompt once again. Close to 100 writers share stories on this prompt spot hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Please click the link to track their tales after you have read mine below.

When Grandma Played

by JE Lillie

 I was born with a needle in my veins. The “system” had me by the time I was six months old…would’ve kept me to if it weren’t for grandma.

 ADD, ADHD,  oppositional defiance disorder made me a real joy to be around. When I would act up Grandma would just go to the old piano pull out her hymn book and start to play.

She’s gone now but on very stressful days  I can still hear her playing “This Is My Father’s World.” That memory holds me and helps me deal with the men and women I counsel at the center.

Friday Fictioneers: The Most Important Thing

Posted on by under The Stories

PHOTO PROMPT © Melanie Greenwood

PHOTO PROMPT © Melanie Greenwood

It’s time to write another bit of flash fiction here at Friday Fictioneers, the place where 100 writers use 100 words to write 100 different stories about 1 picture.

Thank you Rochelle for your time and effort here at Friday Fictioneers. I so appreciate this exercise in word-smithing!

Check out Rochelle’s other contributors by going to her site HERE

The Most Important Thing

By JE Lillie

Les stepped on to his private jet for the first time. He poured himself a drink .

“We’ll be readying for take off in five sir.” The pilot called.

Les sat and buckled in. As his belt clicked into place he was back at the mini-van buckling his son in for the last time.

“I don’t want to go with them Daddy.” The boy said.

“Your grandfather’s a rich man Elias. He can care for you better than I can.” The door slammed shut on Elias’ cries.

The chauffer reached into his robes and pulled out an envelope “The amount agreed upon. Your plane awaits.”

In Other Words: Knowing My Place

Posted on by under The Stories

In Other Words

I am writing another bit here at “In Other Words” from this week’s awesome quote from Patricia

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth.
We are all crew.”
Marshall McLuhan

~~~Spaceship Earth~~~

Please check out Patricia’s place HERE and after you have read a bit consider adding your own two cents into the mix.

Here is my piece entitled:

Photo Credit: flickr.com

Guided

by JE Lillie

When I awoke here I couldn’t move. My arms and legs were like lead weights in the ship’s heavy gravity. After months floating in the juice I had all I could do to breathe and eat never mind move.

Everything about the ship was different and scary. Gravity, light, breathing air instead of liquid and the complex language of the crew. I spent months orienting myself to the point where I could walk, feed myself again and understand what was going on.

The Captain assigned me two guides to help me train for my position on the crew. I count that fortunate. Some of my fellow newbies only got one guide assignment. Theirs was the greater learning curve. Even so guides are just that, guides. Though they start telling you everything like: when to eat, when to sleep, when to get up, by the time it comes to the really big questions like how to live out your purpose on the ship and what your position is on the ship, they can only really make suggestions.

One of my guides manages one of the ship’s many commissaries. He started training me for the work. At first I thought it would be easy. What I found out is that feeding the ship’s hungry is no small task and managing and organizing supplies is a bigger job than I am skilled for.

My other guide is a healer. She is a no nonsense woman who could push dead people back to health given the time and proper equipment. I can’t put bandages on right.

While I am not skilled in either of their professions what I have learned from them in my time aboard ship is that guidance is not so much about similarity with another person as it is about sympathy for another person. In that I have found my purpose. Soon I am to be commissioned as a ship’s counsellor.

This is a link to another great story from Josie Twoshoes http://www.josie2shoes.com/2016/01/no-free-rides.html

Braided:Weekly Writing Prompt 18

Posted on by under The Stories

This week THE SECRET KEEPER  has given us these five words to help us in our creative process:

| WAIT | MEET | TEAR | ACCEPT | CEASE |

Based on these themes, I have chosen to write a a short story this week entitled:

“Braided”

by JE Lillie

I  gazed into the mirror hardly recognizing the man staring back. My beard had gotten long and gray.The hair that lay over my shoulder in that long braid was threaded with the same silver that speckled my chin. I looked so tired and old. When had that happened?

The answer flew to mind immediately…no delays there. Life had changed a year-and-a-half before when she left to “find herself”. I wept. I shouted. I begged. I threatened. Nothing worked. She packed and was gone.

That’s when I began the fast. I made a Nazirite vow that day. Maybe it was a little extreme. Maybe it was a little Old Testament. Maybe I couldn’t do the sacrifice part with the lamb, but the rest I was determined to accomplish. I was going to show God I was serious about wanting her back.

In those first months I sent flowers and cards. I called her cell and texted when she wouldn’t answer. I spent my mornings and evenings begging God for her return.

About month five, I began to hear that Inner Voice repeat again and again “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” I studied the verse from Isaiah; Ruminated on it. I learned that the word “wait” meant to be braided together with God, intertwined completely with His will.The day I learned that, was the first day I braided my hair symbolically to embrace God’s will whatever it was.

Somewhere in the journey the fast stopped being about my marriage and started being about me. In the braiding and unbraiding of my hair a hundred times I learned I was not the man I should have been. I stopped crying for her return and started crying for my own return to the true Lover of My Soul.

She was getting remarried to a good friend of ours even as I looked into that mirror and saw the old man before me. That hurt, but I knew one thing. I no longer needed the braid. God’s will had been done and in spite of my pain I was at peace with it. And that was worth waiting for.

I took the scissors and cut through the braid. It was time to move on.

Friday Fictioneers: Looking Into the Sun

Posted on by under The Stories

It is time once again for Friday Fictioneers. That’s the place where 100 authors share 100 words to tell 100 stories from 1 photograph shared by Rochelle our hostess.

Take a peek at all the stories Rochelle’s contributors have shared from the photo below by clicking the underlined link above.

Here is my story:

Copyright Jean L. Hays

Copyright: Jean L. Hays

Looking Into the Sun

by JE Lillie

I smiled. The movement was as unfamiliar to me, as slow dancing in the rain. Now I had done both of those things.

I ran nervous fingers through my sopping hair and looked at her, the inspiration for smiling and dancing. I sipped my coffee and wondered how it had grown to this.

“You’re quiet.” She said.

She twisted water out of her own curly locks into a hand towel she had hidden in her purse.

It made me question, did she dance in the rain often?

She smiled at me and I no longer cared. It was like looking into the sun.

 

 

Friday Fictioneers:Reflection

Posted on by under The Stories, Uncategorized

Friday Fictioneers time folks! The time of the week when 100+ authors share 100- words with the world. We base our stories on a photo prompt given by our A number one hostess Rochelle. Check out all the stories by following the little blue frog at THIS SITE.

Here is the prompt and my story is below that.

Kitchen Window

photo by: © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Reflection

by JE Lillie

The sun is setting again. She is at the sink doing dishes. I am at the table in my usual spot drinking coffee after dinner.

We are stuck, she and I, in this maddening loop ever since the day I sent him away. We eat dinner in silence. She does the dishes. I drink my coffee. She looks out the window. I catch the longing in her eyes turned outward. Then I see her glaring back at me in the window’s reflection. It echoes my own thoughts, suggests what we both think. I should have gone.

Friday Fictioneers: My Father’s Secret

Posted on by under The Stories

Welcome to Friday Fictioneers the place where more than hundred authors come to share less than a hundred words regarding a photo posted by our hostess Rochelle. Check out all the stories HERE.

My own story is posted below the photo:

PHOTO PROMPT © Luther Siler

photo by Luther Siler

My Father’s Secret

by JE Lillie

My father looked like any other man. He acted big like any other man. Drank beer, smoked and cussed like any other man.

He often said, “The day’ll come Buddy when you have to stand on your own. I won’t be around to save you.”

The invasion came. They called themselves them the Purrex. Humanoid cats.

They found my father. Sawed him in half with some laser sword. That was when he transformed into his true form, his bird form.

The stress of it all brought my own wings out. They carried me to the mountains. Now Purrex are hunting me!

Okay a little weird this week. Maybe I have been watching too much ScyFy.

Friday Fictioneers: The Garden At Life’s Edge

Posted on by under The Stories, Uncategorized

Here is another episode of Friday Fictioneers, the post where 100 authors share 100 words off of a photo prompt provided by blog-hostess Rochelle. Check out the diversity in the stories shared by clicking the link above and by following the blue frog to the stories.

Here is the weekly prompt and my story:

Photo by: Roger Bultot

The Garden At Life’s Edge

By J.E. Lillie

We used to climb the stairs to the roof every weekend. She would hand me the garden claw and I would bend to weeding her roof-top garden while she deadheaded the flowers. We were both younger then.

It’s been years since we made that climb together. She barely reaches the last step. I can hear her weeping as we step into what’s left of the ruined roofscape.

I place my hand on Nana’s quivering shoulder.

“We’ll fix it, Nana.” I say.

But she knows there is no fixing this garden at life’s edge.

Friday Fictioneers: The Waves Won’t Wait

Posted on by under The Stories

Welcome to Friday Fictioneers, the place where 100 authors gather to share 100 words apiece to describe a photo offered by our hostess Rochelle. My story is below the photo prompt but you can find 99+ other stories by going to Rochelle’s blog HERE

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

Photo by: Sandra Crook

The Waves Won’t Wait

by JE Lillie

Every day I scrabble up to the top of the cliff. I sit on the ledge and let my feet dangle over the waves crashing below. They are like the people in my life: Angry, noisy, promising a nasty end if I let them touch me.

I sit alone at the top of the world beyond their reach, sealed away by the emotional distance I have placed between us.

I wait until sunset then clamber down the slope. As I hit the beach I can hear my parents screaming at each other. I go home anyway. The waves won’t wait.