ROAST POTATOES - a story in 100 words

ROAST POTATOES

It wasn’t even a proper fight – he said his mother’s roast potatoes were crisper than mine, I said he could go home to his mother any time he liked, he slammed out of the house, I tried to stop him, and my hand went through the glass door.

Blood spurted everywhere, and before the ambulance got here I’d bled half to death.

Then the police got involved, accusing him of attempted murder, and when I said I’d done it myself they assumed I’d tried to commit suicide.

How can I tell a shrink it was caused by roast potatoes?

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This week's Friday Fictioneers' prompt photo was taken by Dale Rogerson, and I hope the reason for her broken door wasn't as dramatic as mine. I wrote this story, tweaked it down to 100 words and posted it, in ten minutes flat, so I hope you like it. 

Thanks as ever to Rochelle for hosting our goup of flash fiction enthusiasts on her blog  https://rochellewisoff.com .

I have been busy this week promoting my latest book, Wolf Pack , which you can buy by clicking on the cover image at the top of this page. If everyone who reads my flash fiction buys a copy of my book - and leaves a review - I shall be a happy writer. 
Those who have read it say it's my best so far - why not try it for yourself and see if you agree? Please?

DREAMS - a poem for Friday Fictioneers

DREAMS

Each paper slip is a dream -

Green for walking in woods

where looming trees

grasp with gnarled fingers

Blue for drowning

yards from a shore

where no-one hears her screams

Red for dreams of sex

that leave her aching but alone

And the shells are those rare mornings

when she wakes refreshed

her subconscious washed clean

of a myriad hurts.

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers and to Priya Biapal for the image that prompted me this week to write a poem rather than flash fiction. Follow the links from Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/ to read what other writers were inspired to write.

BILLY

BILLY

Billy and his mum never went out - all their food was delivered.

One day Billy’s mum went to sleep and wouldn’t wake up, so he ate a box of dry cereal and all the chocolate.

The next day his mum was still asleep and the television was scary, but when he turned it off it was too quiet. He could hear people in the street but he couldn’t work his #swing high enough to see over the wall.

It was a week before the delivery man brought the next box of groceries.

AGE IS A GLACIER

AGE IS A GLACIER

Age is as implacable as a glacier.

To a casual observer it can appear static at times, but take your eyes off it, even briefly, and the changes are obvious.

More cracks appear on the surface.

Random debris is absorbed, adding to its weight.

The sheer inexorability of it grinds to rubble anything that attempts to halt its progress.

Age is a glacier, moving relentlessly towards its inevitable conclusion.
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This week's photo, taken by Russell Gayer and posted as a prompt by Rochelle, plumbed the depths of my New Year gloom. I realise that yet another year has passed and I've only published three of the books that are already half-written. So my resolution for 2019 is to get a move on!
I will cheer up soon, I promise, especially if I make a few more sales. If you would care to buy one, click on the image at the top of the page for WOLF PACK, the second book in my Living Rock series. The first book, A VOLCANIC RACE, is also on Amazon, as is HELTER-SKELTER, a novel of historic fiction, under my full name Elizabeth Young.
And do, please, leave a review. Thank you XX

WHEN GOD WAS A BOY - a story in 100 words

WHEN  GOD  WAS  A  BOY

Peaceful’s ancestors were goatherds when God was a boy – his grandfather maintained it was goatherds who visited the stable when Jesus was born, but the gospellers called them shepherds because goats were too common.

Peaceful loved his work. It was usually undemanding – you walked, the goats ate everything in sight, you moved on. He much preferred the gentle clonking of their bells to the honking of car horns in town.

But today the graveyard needed cropping, the fence would contain the herd while he ate his mother’s Christmas dinner, and he’d got a decent wifi signal on his phone.

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I hope you all had a lovely Christmas / holiday / festive season, and are now back to what passes for normal in your world. I complicated my life by accepting a challenge to post a Flash Fiction Advent Calendar, which is in my archive for December if you care to look. There were times when the daily prompt in itself was an added challenge, but I kept going to the end!

Thanks as always to Rochelle, who even posted a prompt on Christmas Day! Do follow the Blue Frog trail from her blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/  to read other stories prompted by Randy Mazie's photograph.

ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY 25

HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all my readers, friends and followers!

This is the last window of my Christmas calendar, and I'm missing Apollo 13 to write it. I was up early to fetch my mother for the day and there's not been a free moment since, but I am determined to finish the challenge. Today's was to write a story with myself in the centre, and I had to write a feel-good story on this day of all days., didn't I? I hope you like it, and will continue to read the stories I post on my blog each week. Also, when you buy my latest book WOLF PACK, or either of my other two novels, A VOLCANIC RACE and HELTER-SKELTER (which I wrote as Elizabeth Young) do please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It would make my year in 2019. 

NOT  AS  PLANNED

Christmas has never been the same since the kids left home – just Keith and me, a turkey crown, a bottle of red, and the Queen’s speech. We went to a hotel one year, but all that forced jollity was appalling so we didn’t repeat it.

This year was going to be more of the same until Fate took a hand – or rather, took my hand. I was coming out of the Co-op after buying a carton of cream to pour over our individual Christmas puddings, when a woman coming the other way let her dog lead wrap round my ankle and down I went. She was full of apologies and drove me to hospital, then home again with my wrist in plaster and, long story short, invited us both to Christmas dinner.

It was bliss - a house full of enticing smells, warmth and noise – and with my wrist in a plaster I couldn’t lift a finger to help  

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 24

The challenge today was to write a story without dialogue - a silent night of sorts - but I've been too busy to write anything new, so here's an adaptation of a seasonal story I wrote two years ago.

NOT ALL SANTAS

I still believed in Santa until he took off his red coat that time and hurt me. When the moonlight lit his face I saw he was my own Dad.

I was too young then to stop him, but this year I couldn’t face Christmas again so I packed my bag and headed for the motorway service station.

I almost didn’t get into Brad’s truck when I saw he was wearing a Santa hat, but I was more afraid of Dad catching me, so I chanced it and got in.

Then Brad stopped at this transport cafe and bought me dinner and I thought it was bound to be payment time soon, but he just sat there, showing me photos and talking about what he’s bought his kids.

Not all Santas are monsters after all.