A little perspective always helps

This piece was written for the Six Sentence story challenge, with the prompt word of 'improvise'. Relativity July 1953 Woodcut 28.2x29.4cm ‘Mr. Moneybags, sorry to call you but I’m having difficulty giving instructions to the crew working on your new home, including the carpenters working on the stairs, especially when the architect’s drawings you sent …

Re: Your proposed contract

This re-worked piece is for this month's Blog Battle challenge, with the prompt word of 'proposal'. Flynn was up early and well gone to his work on the farm, as always. Kate found the envelope on the kitchen table, propped up against the tomato sauce bottle that was already attracting flies in the burgeoning heat …

Lost connections

This piece, adapted from an earlier longer work, is a response to the prompt 'Connection' in the Six Sentence challenge. By the time I met the Australian rock legend Johnny O’Keefe in 1977, I was working as a roadie for a middle-of-the-road pub band and the band’s career highlight came when they were booked to …

Let the pawnishment fit the crime

This piece was written for the Six Sentence challenge, with 'pawn' as the prompt word. Bill droned on with a seemingly interminable tale about his grandfather’s prowess at chess and I had reached the point where my eyes had taken on the appearance of glazed doughnuts, so I interrupted with ‘So he was a pawn …

More bubbly?

This piece was written for the weekly Six Sentence challenge with the prompt word of 'effervescence'. After Arabella had finished lamenting the loss of her latest boyfriend, Babs breathlessly unloaded that the trouble with Arabella was that she was insufficiently bubbly, too po-faced, not enough fizz, and that guys don’t want to know about what …

Walking again

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge with the prompt word of 'walk'. Two little girls lay in Iron Lung Machines while being treated for Polio. Their family looks in from the window outside. Photo courtesy Getty Images It was the 1950’s and a three-year-old boy called out in the night for a …

Occasional Ravings – Don’t let the old man in

Last night I re-watched the Clint Eastwood movie 'The Mule'. Now, I don't buy the premise that a charming nonagenarian should be forgiven for running drugs that destroy millions of people and make the scum of the earth rich. But the film is worthwhile on many levels, including the central theme of family being more …

It’s a little hot in here

This amusement was written for D'Verse's prompt to write 144 words of prose that must include this line from Shel Silverstein's poem, Invitation. 'If you're a dreamer, come in.' If you are a dreamer, come in to Beelzebub’s Emporium of Chance here at the Hades Hotel in downtown Inferno. Every day’s your lucky day when …

For whom does the dead ringer toll?

It was Hamish who first noticed it. We were sitting in the back room of the abandoned offices that were our temporary home when he said ‘You know, we could be brothers.’ I was a little offended, given I’d maintained some level of decency in my attire and appearance in my fall from grace and …

Heroine chic

This piece was written for the Carrot Ranch's weekly 99-word flash fiction challenge, with the prompt of 'rethink the hero'. A ballsy Amazon, with a prodigious cleavage and legs that go all the way up to her backside, storms into a cave and kicks the crap out of The Devil Personified and, supposedly, women everywhere …