Tag Archives: flash fiction

Friday Fictioneers: The Laska Steps

Posted on by under The Stories, Uncategorized

It is time for Friday Fictioneers again. Here is this week’s 100 word story based on the prompt given by Rochelle at

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/26-december-2014/

PHOTO PROMPT - Copyright -Björn Rudberg

When you have finished my story go to Rochelle’s site and click on the blue frog to read Rochelle’s other contributors.

The Laska Steps

Another scene from Higher Places

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/03/08/friday-fictioneers-higher-places/

By JE Lillie

She massaged the knots in my shoulders but I could not relax.

“Don’t be afraid. There is no power here that can touch us.” she whispered.

I smiled even as my insides rebelled against her words.

She might be safe. Her God was more powerful than mine, more powerful than any god I had ever encountered.

But would His protection extend to me? These after all were the forbidden Laska steps.

“I’ll go first.” She said.

Before I could count ten she was at the top.

I followed and entered the place my people could never go. Our love had survived.

Friday Fictioneers: The Unwashed

Posted on by under The Stories

Every week at Friday Fictioneers Rochelle challenges us to write a 100 word story from a photo prompt. This week’s prompt along with her contributors stories can be found here

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/12-december-2014/

Below is the photo prompt and my attempt at the story

PHOTO PROMPT - Copyright - Sandra Crook

The Unwashed

by JE Lillie

I walk along the shore and sort through the baubles. Papa has sent me to collect what I can for trading at the market. He’s not really my Pa just all I have left since that day.

I find a bar of soap partially dissolved in the goo. I wonder to myself how long it’s been since I took a bath. I bend to pick up the cleaner remembering what a hot shower feels like. I pull hard because the soap sticks and as it comes away from the ground the last finger that held the bar comes with it. Now I recall why I hate the water.

Friday Fictioneers: Encased

Posted on by under The Stories

flowers with Ice-Janet Webb (2)

Above is the photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers a flash fiction challenge offered up by Rochelle. You can find her response to the challenge and those of her contributors at:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/5-december-2014/

Here is my response.

Encased:

By JE Lillie

The days which followed the ice were dark and cold not  because they were dark and cold.We had no lights, no heat, no refrigeration, no phones, no computers but all that was expected. The felling of 10,000 trees had cut us off from the rest of society. It was the loneliness that nearly drove us mad.

It was a week before we heard the chain saws coming up our road. Someone in town hall had remembered we were out there and thought we might need help. That was the year Daddy stopped being a doomsday prepper and moved us into the condo in town.

 

 

Someone Else’s Island

Posted on by under The Stories, Uncategorized

Ireland 719

So the Daily Post has me stranding someone else on a desert island today

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/someone-elses-island/

His name was Bobby. I took him out to the island on a Tuesday and left him there after digging a well for fresh water and tilling a garden and leaving him plenty of seed to sow. I bought him a flock of sheep, after all shepherding while a lonely work is full of spiritual benefit. Bobby desperately needed that. I also left him a fishing pole so he could learn to fish and a Bible so he could learn to fish for men.

I’ll check back with him in a few years on Wednesday. If he isn’t stark raving mad he should be a better person for it. Maybe next time he won’t reject my invitation to church Mwahahaha!

Friday Fictioneers: The Potato Farmer

Posted on by under The Stories

Here we are for another week of Friday Fictioneers! Every week Rochelle gives us a photo prompt and asks us to write a 100 word story, beginning to end. Check out how the whole crew has responded to this week’s prompt at

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/21-november-2014/

And here is this week’s photo prompt

Claire Fuller (7)

photo credit: Claire Fuller

Potato Farmer

by JE Lillie

When Gramps  left me the shop and four hundred acres of rocky ground I thought I was dreaming. I should’ve known better. Gramps did look a bit like Freddy Krueger sans finger nails.

Five  hundred foreclosures later and I am left in a ghost town with nothing but a bunch of old rotten tires (everyone bought new ones on the way out) …Oh, and that four-hundred acres of  God-crete.

Last night I read how you can plant potatoes inside tires.

It was like Gramps was sending me a message, ” Lemons and lemonade. Tires and potato farming.”

I always hated that old man.

 

Friday Fictioneers- Chilly-Chilly- Col’- Cold and the Lucky Traveller

Posted on by under The Stories

PHOTO PROMPT -Copyright-Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It is time once again for Friday Fictioneers! Here’s the place to find flash fiction a-go-go! Check it out!

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/14-november-2014/

Chilly-Chilly-Col’-Cold and the Lucky Traveller

by JE Lillie

So, here I am in sunny Florida! It’s November, the “perfect time” to visit Vacationland. I brought my suntan lotion and my Bahama shorts. The one thing I did forget was my winter jacket.

Of course, that really shouldn’t surprise anybody out there. I forgot to pack my rain coat on that auspicious trip to New Orleans in ’05 and my Volcano gear on that equally exciting trip to Iceland in 2010. Then of course who can forget my trip to Los Angeles in 1994?

I think I am boarding the next plane back to New England. It might save some natives.

Friday Fictioneers: Tonka

Posted on by under The Stories

PHOTO PROMPT - Copyright - Jean L. Hays

I am back practicing another Friday Fictioneers prompt.  This is a great exercise to stretch your writing muscles. If you feel inclined to try a piece of flash fiction yourself or if you want to read what others have extrapolated from this photo prompt go to

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/7-november-2014/

 

Now on to the story:

Tonka

by JE Lillie

He bought me the set one Christmas: forty little matchbox cars in a black case

I was dazzled by the red fire engine and the “yellow taxi- shovel”.

“Thanks for the tonka trucks, Daddy!”

“Matchbox cars.” he corrected me with that thin-lipped expression I was so used to.

“Matchbox cars.” I returned chastened.

I played with them for days and was sad when Mommy took them away because I couldn’t have anything from “Him.”

I found the set in her attic after she died.   I discovered then I could still cry for what had been stolen from my childhood.

Friday Fictioneers: Grandmother’s Promise

Posted on by under The Stories

©Tales_From_the_Motherland

 

It has been a while since I participated in Friday Fictioneers. Time has not allowed me the pleasure but this photo stirred something deep inside me that just had to come out.

GRANDMOTHER’S PROMISE

by JE Lillie

Alliara passed in grandmother’s arms. Liquid rage followed the creases of the old woman’s face carrying the promise  made down to the ocean of her heart.

Grandmother’s  loyalty had been beaten away with each stroke to Alliara’s body. The elders had been deaf to every plea for mercy. Now grandmother was deaf to any reason  for living.

She marched solemnly across the salt flats torch in hand. She came to the edge of the final rise, lit the torch and held it aloft signaling the tribe’s location to their enemy.

“Kill them all.” Grandmother softly prayed.

 

Check out stories from other author’s perspectives on this photo by going to:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/19-september-2014/

Friday Fictioneers: Ambience

Posted on by under The Stories

PHOTO PROMPT Copyright - Douglas M. MacIlroy

I haven’t been able to Fictioneer for a couple  of weeks but here I am visiting the Friday blog on Monday. Thanks Rochelle for the prompt.

Reader, when you have finished basking in the Ambience why don’t you go on over and read a submission or 10 from Rochelle’s other contributors.

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/6-june-2014/

 

AMBIENCE

by Joseph Elon Lillie

I light candles for ambience. Ambience is important to me. Somehow it makes the stacks of crap less crappy.

I’m sure she’d say, “You could clean.”

I use to… before.

But now living here, clean and dirty look about the same. It’s all still piles of stuff stacked against camper walls.  It only smells different and maybe that’s the point. I can stand the smell as long as I have candles to change the lighting.

There is something romantic about stink by candlelight.

I can remember the good times and nobody wants to get close enough to break my heart.

C.cada Bop Pt. 2

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff
C.cada Artists

C.cada Artists

 

C.cada (Cornerstone Christian artist’s day apart) was begun in an effort to give artists from every genre an opportunity to come together to discover, develop, and deploy their talents in ways that will better the church and the community.

Last month you will remember our group project was a writing challenge using the Bop form of poetry. A few months before we were challenged to write a piece of flash fiction from a prompt. Here are some of the results.

Deb Maciorowski 

C.cada writing exercise in Poetry

The Bop

 

 

That Light

 

The end of the month is coming

If time could stand still

All could be accomplished.

I could earn more money

Maybe an oil change

Would smooth things out

 

Focus, focus, distracted by the light!

 

Hopeful that the light goes out

Call Bob to schedule

Next Wednesday at 6pm

Drive in, light still on

How long will it take?

Where will the money come from?

Keep on praying!

 

Focus, focus, distracted by the light!

 

Disconnected the wire

Light finally out!

Picked up, turn lights on and off

Left turn signal now the right

Failed inspection again- Drive out

Turn corner at stop sign—Nooooo! Not again!

 

Focus, focus, distracted by the light!

Sandy Freeman

CCADA writing prompt

“Ben’s Crossing”

 

“Poppy, just one more story, PLEASE!!!”  Eliza pleaded.

“Alright, then it’s off to bed, agreed?”  Poppy sternly stated masking his grin.

“Tell me the one about Christoff,” Eliza burst out, barely controlling her excitement.

“Let see, how does it go?  Oh, yes,” Poppy closed his eyes as he stroked his goatee.  “School was out promptly at 2p.m., Christoff sauntered off towards “Big-Ben”.  It was October; the leaves were explosive with color as if splattered across a woody canvas.  Christoff loved autumn; the air was breathable, not sticky with humidity but soothing scarcely requiring a sweatshirt.  He adorned one about his waist; it helped hold up his weary jeans, frayed by the treading of his red canvas sneakers, one inevitably needing to be tied.  This day particularly stood out for Christoff as he grew older, his heart would be perpetually changed; though he would not acquaint the transformation till years later at a once close friend’s funeral, Pastor Quinn.

Christoff and Sean became immediate friends upon their first meeting at church.  They typically met at “Ben’s Crossing” after school.  Now “Ben’s Crossing” was situated deep in the woods, a place where the explosive painting became somewhat smudged due to the obvious lack of sunrays.  Here is where “Big-Ben” stood.

“Do you remember “Big-Ben” Eliza?”  Poppy inquired.

“It’s only the biggest, gigantic old oak tree ever made by God!”  Eliza exclaimed.

“Well I guess you have been listening to your old Pops after all,” Poppy grinned with a twinkle in his eyes.  “Now where was I?  Oh yes, “the race”.”

Usually they would spy each other from a distance; and then “the race” was on to see who could reach “Big-Ben” first.  For some reason Christoff reached “Big-Ben” ahead of Sean.

Sean usually edged Christoff out by one-hundredth of a second.  But this day Christoff had victory, he outran Sean for the first time ever.  Christoff pranced around Sean like a proud peacock, unable to see the lack of expression on Sean’s face.

“CHRISTOFF, PLEASE STOP!” Sean squeaked.

Christoff immediately halted, “WHAT!  Can’t a guy enjoy such a historic event?”

“My parents are getting a divorce!”  Sean snapped out fighting back the tears welling up in his eyes.

Christoff stood dumbfounded not really knowing what to say or how to comfort his friend.  Then Christoff remembered the theme at VBS last year, “Pray for a friend in need”.

“Let me pray for you?”  Christoff said softly placing his hand delicately on Sean’s shoulder.

Sean nodded with an unspoken yes, as a tear streamed down his cheek.

Christoff spoke softly with his hand still upon Sean’s shoulder, “Dear Jesus, please help my friend and his parents, let them see you in each other and in their son, Sean.  Oh, Jesus they need you!  Amen!”  Christoff raised his head, his jaw dropped.

“What?”  Sean said puzzled by his friend’s expression.  He heard the crunch of autumn leaves behind him.  He turned…there stood Mr. Quinn, Sean’s father tears streaming from his eyes with outstretched arms.

Our next C.cada meeting is coming up on May 24th. If you would like more information about our organization check us out at

artistdayapart.com