The Quiet Time

Here’s 100 words for Friday Fictioneers in honor of a friend named Mystic whose picture below is this week’s prompt. Whenever he was in the pasture that abutted the back yard Mystic could see me through the window of the room where I write and never failed to visit late at night. He’d strum the bottom wire of the fence with his hoof to let me know he was there and I’d get up and go to the kitchen and grab an apple. I’d talk with him out under the moonlight while he made short work of his treat and together we communed with the stars. Mystic was a good listener and an unquestioning friend when I most needed one. He wasn’t mine, but we shared a common bond and over seven years I grew to love him. He was sold two weeks ago because he was meant for more than ten acres could provide. He has a bigger pasture now, other horse friends and a seventeen-year-old girl who rides him every day. What more could he wish for?

An apple or two from an old friend, perhaps? I hope so.

I miss him.

 

 

The new moon has set.

Mystic has chosen a spot in the lee of the pepper tree to lie down, but keeps his head held high like a ghostly silver king holding court on a grassy dais. He watches as I walk the gravel drive down toward the barn and considers whether to stand and walk to the fence to see if I have brought him an apple.

We share the night, him at rest, dreaming of pursuit, me without rest, in pursuit of a dream.

I turn and head back before Mystic is tempted to rise.

I know peace.

 

 

(Well, shoot, you made it down here. Maybe Mystic’s made another friend.)

[I did pretty good last week. 60 out of 88 or so stories read. I'll try to catch up but the time moves faster than Mystic gallops. I'll do better this week, I promise.]

Aloha, D.

Tears in Rain

100 words for Friday Fictioneers, a mixed bag of writers who each week produce flash fiction based on a photo prompt. This week’s picture was graciously provided by Lora Mitchell. (Get well, my friend. We miss you.) All the stories are here. Check them out. Usually some diamonds in the rough.

I don’t offer this story lightly. Someone near to me is on her 11th day of fasting, waiting to move on. The time comes for all of us. I hope I can go with such grace when my clock winds down.

Aloha, D.

 

 

Ten days ago I stopped eating. This rest home’s food wasn’t bad; just comes a time when you no longer need it.

Woke this morning to lilies in front of the TV at the foot of the bed. On the screen a cityscape at night, the word SET prominent on the image.

Egyptian god of chaos’ name inadvertently displayed on our civilization’s graven idol, offset by a popular symbol of resurrection.

People mean well, but they’re so often blind.

I smile and remember Roy Batty’s soliloquy. “I’ve seen things….”

Gratitude fills me, for so have I.

 

Time to die.

 

 

 

(Well, you’ll either know who Roy Batty was or you won’t. For those who are curious here are two links to steer you in the right direction. Don’t click on these if you’re rushed. They’re not vital. Just trying to save you some searching.)

 

 

Saving Grace

 

Here’s 100 words for Friday Fictioneers inspired by the photo prompt below (courtesy of Jennifer Pendergast). It is a true story, or as true as I can make it from examining the flotsam and jetsam of history and imagining myself there that day in September, 1838. I first became aware of this story when I was 10 years old and it has resonated with me down through the years. Come back with me and ask yourself what you would have done.

 

 

With the dawn Grace Darling climbed the iron spiral to the lighthouse’s lamp room. The wind moaned outside and spoke to her of a sea that would forgive naught and call to task the very best seamen this day. She extinguished the great light, trimmed the wick and polished the night’s accumulation of soot from the reflector, then turned and surveyed the rugged Northumberland coast.

On distant Harcar Rock, a vessel had foundered in the night and nine survivors she counted clinging to the splintered bow. Grace flew down the stairs to wake her father.

Together they rowed into history.

 

Some links for your reading and listening pleasure

here

here

here

and here.

 

And, at last, since you made it this far, thank you to those of you who read my offering last week. Was up to my ass in alligators and no one was draining the swamp. I’ll try to do better on reading and commenting this week. Aloha, D.

 

 

 

 

Box 27, 1971-72, Important Papers, Do Not Trash

Habits are cables we weave a strand at a time….

Here is 100 words for the gang at Friday Fictioneers, inspired by the photo below from Beth Carter.

(With our numbers soaring into triple digits, my practice of reading and commenting on

every story has to change. Time was when we could blaze through eighteen stories and write comments and replies to comments in one sitting. Those days are gone. This is a result of the success of the format conceived by Madison Woods and ably shepherded by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, and is not a reflection on you or your writing [well, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.] Feel free to read my submission and move on without commenting. I won’t hold it against you because I won’t even know you tiptoed on by.)

Cleaning out boxes in garage because my wife had given me two weeks to move out while she and her new boyfriend went to Cancun.

Found a long forgotten graduation gift from my penny stock loving grandfather.

Saskatoon Gold Mines Limited. One-Hundred-Thousand Shares.

Internet search, phone number, yes, still in business. Twenty-eight dollars a share.

Apartment rented, I traded her Mercedes for cash and a clunker. Parked it in her pristine garage. Called a cab, then the time service in Tokyo. Left the phone off the hook. Walked away.

Compulsive hoarder, she’d called me. And that’s a bad thing?

Departure Clearance

65 words of mainstream fiction for Friday Fictioneers. Please forgive me. I ran out of time and loaned the other 35 words to a friend. Special thanks to my son, Scott Alan MacIlroy for helping me write this story. Could not have done it without him.

We are piloted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields and inspired by the photo prompt below (graciously provided by Rich Voza.) Please remain seated until Rochelle has turned off the seatbelt sign, then get up and wander around and check out all the other fine stories from all of the writers onboard.

My story is the text in the photograph below.

BASH

TFOA

Memories

800 years of life. What would you remember?

Friday Fictioneers is a large electric kool-aid acid trip bus full of bozos, babes, beach bums and bards, all driven by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields on a joyride through different worlds created from a single photo prompt (this week’s is from Claire Fuller. She is both the photographer and the sculptor) using a loose maximum of 100 words.

To quote Rich Voza, “You should try this.”

Centuries of solitude ended with the cold bite of an axe blade. Felled and shaped and planed, I became the keel of a doomed whaling vessel named Essex. Hunters became the hunted and all perished. I floated in the sea’s embrace, washed ashore at a settlement called Yerba Buena and became an altar until a great earthquake tore the church asunder.

What remains of me rests in an artist’s studio.

Vibrations of chisel on stone remind me of woodpeckers, the hammer blows of the pounding sea, and the mutter of the artist, the prayers of the penitent.

Still, I remember.

Gone Disc Golfing

 

Hi friends,

If you’re looking for a 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, go back to the icon mosaic and click on another author. The numbers are growing. This is just an update for those friends who have asked where I be. Thanks for checking in and I apologize for this side trip you have taken. Nothing to read here. Move along.

 

Still here? Cool. Right after posting last week I flew over to Maui and competed in the 2013 Maui Open Disc Golf tournament. Placed fourth in the +50 division at Poli Poli and came in first in the ‘had the best time’ category.  ESPN missed it all. Weather was stellar and I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun at an event.

Today instead of writing a story* for Friday Fictioneers I practiced at the Hawaii Coffee Mill Disc Golf Course in Mountain View on the east side of this volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

(*It’s not like I didn’t try. Three stories written earlier didn’t make the grade. I think that that was Nature’s way of saying, “Get your priorities straight.”)

Thanks for your patience re comment replies and touching bases with all of you. Tomorrow starts the 2013 Big Island Open so I won’t be reading any of the past two weeks stories until much later in the week. I miss you guys and gals.

Aloha, D.