I hope you will forgive me a longer introduction today. If you want to skip straight to the story, it’s below the picture (this week’s FF prompt, from longtime Fictioneer Ted Strutz). Enjoy, and please do leave your thoughts if you have time.
Now, an interlude. This is my 101st story for the Friday Fictioneers. Over the last couple of years I hope I’ve made you think, and feel, and occasionally laugh. In spite of my reputation for darkness, very few people have died (well, unless you count the nuclear bomb) and there’s even been a birth. There have been families, arguments, love stories and divorces and – OK – a good helping of grief.
As there are now 100 stories in my portfolio, I thought it would be fun to make a 100-word story out of their last words. So I’ve punctuated it, but not changed any of the words or word order. It doesn’t have much structure, but perhaps it’s like modern art, and there are things to see within the apparent mess!
Bet grave happy roaches progress up, dear. Litter buy shop, present her me. Soar, winter, know all flashlight dreams, all albatross music. Ridiculous it. It? Course father railing beautiful rosebush, Ryder had angry drunk. All shell engine dreams themselves, returns dust, waits. Victim boys, cold sunshine off world. Ted fall door start. Think Texans it microwave step me now, watermill entry silhouettes judgemental. Ago off back ever swoops horizon bush stream. More France again, that else daughter walls despair. Enough forgotten darkness, it away dreams. Will bone gone mushroom winter. Boulder promised second trees. Tail last success. Rebellion, sleep named.
Islandspeak
Back home, we’d call this weather mild, but I’ve been away long enough to class it as pissing cold, and the empty ferry suggests any would-be tourists agree. The Exit sign blinks, but no emergency on board could make me jump. The locals would call the water cool and choppy. Icy waves splash at the window and wash the decks outside.
It’s my upbringing that helped me survive the crash. As soon as the pilot said “slight technical hitch”, I looked for a parachute and a way out. But Gracie always bought into Islandspeak.
She’d have called this feeling “sadness”.
elmowrites 