New Bride In Wyoming

This was written for Carrot Ranch’s 2020 Writing Rodeo Event # 3, which required six words from the song “Git Along Little Dogies” in a unique 99-word story in the genre of your choice. It won First Prize 🙂 Molly’s nerves were a-jinglin’ driving the buggy back to the ranch. As a new bride fresh …

Kerosene

This piece was written for the weekly Six Sentence Story with the prompt of Clip. In my old world, nits were removed with kerosene. Mothers bored into your ears to stop the potatoes growing in there and rubbed at your face with their spit on a handkerchief. Fathers twisted your ears as they dragged you …

Word Prompt Story – Miniature Planet

This piece was written in response to the Blog Battle prompt word of 'miniature'. It was not the way that Geoffrey Owen Davies had envisaged his retirement working out. A career public servant, he’d not just survived but thrived with the arrival of technology and the privatisation of government services via the anodyne sounding PPP …

Word prompt stories – The lifesaver

This piece was written for the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge with the prompt 'In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about life savers on any body of water. It can be a formal Coast Guard, historical or contemporary. It could be an individual who unexpectedly takes on the role. Go where …

Word Prompt Stories – Kurdaitcha man

This piece was written for the weekly 99 word Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge with the prompt of 'write a spooky tale told around a campfire'. I suggest you read this link beforehand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdaitcha This was the first cattle drive for the Arrente boy the whitefellas called Jimmy. The whitefellas couldn’t care less for blackfella …

Exotica

This piece was written for the monthly Blog Battle 1,000 word challenge with the prompt of 'exotic'. Harley had become stupendously rich (as in Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk and the like being minor players). His wealth derived from what others threw away. He had invented technology that mined dump sites for plastic and then re-constituted …

The radio kills people

This piece is in response to this week's Carrot Ranch prompt to write a 99 word story that includes something heard on the radio. It can be from any station or era. What is heard? A song, announcement, ad? Think of how radio connects people and places. Go where the prompt leads! The radio kills …

Fight or flight

This piece was written for the Carrot Ranch's weekly 99 word challenge on the theme of 'first flight'. Every schoolyard has it's Bomber, so-called for his propensity to drop tucked-legged from the high board at the local pool and make tidal waves that left smaller children spluttering. Big for his age, monobrow hovering over piggy …

Bodied, yes. Able? Not so much.

My response to Chelsea Owen's Weekly Hilarity Contest, (limit 200 words) with the following prompt. "..." [T]here really is no valid excuse for an able-bodied person going out of his head from being bewildered in the big woods so long as he has a gun and ammunition, or even a few dry matches and a …

Skidmarks

This 99 word piece was written for the Carrot Ranch challenge "What's the first thing that comes to mind when you are in absolute danger?" Not sure what would be the the first thing in my mind in that situation but I know what was in Mum's. My Mum was a stickler for cleanliness. One …