Short Story

For What It’s Worth

Written for RDP where Punam’s word of the day
is ‘chimera’ and for Sue and Gerry’s Weekly Prompt –
The One Day Prompt
. Here’s where the prompts took me.

Continue reading “For What It’s Worth”
Short Story

The Arrangement

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See #309.
Here’s where the photo prompt took me.

Continue reading “The Arrangement”
Flash, Short Story, Very Short Story

Blonde On Blonde

Our gracious host, Rochelle,
encourages us to be creative
by writing a story in 100 words
or less using the photo prompt
below. This is Friday Fictioneers
and this is where the photo took me.

Continue reading “Blonde On Blonde”
Short Story

Timeless Connection

Written for Muse on Monday
where the challenge is to write
a story about an anachronism.
Using an image created by Kevin @
No Theme Thursday, here’s my take.

Continue reading “Timeless Connection”
Short Story

Eunice Blackthorne

Written for Six Sentence Story where we are
challenged to incorporate the word “frequency”
into a story of exactly six sentences. Here’s my six.

Immediately upon arriving at their destination, Camilla bolted from the car, slammed the door and stormed off, leaving a bewildered Nigel alone to weigh his options: go after her, call her after she’s had a chance to cool down or declare this date a complete failure and forget about Camilla all together, something he was not keen on as he was not the quitting type …. plus, he couldn’t get Camilla’s amazing breasts out of his head; after some thought, Nigel decided to go after her but first he needed to find a parking spot and then purchase two cappuccinos, one for him and one for her, in lieu of an awkward verbal apology. 

Camilla was at her desk, obviously engrossed in a conversation of great importance as she was speaking rapidly in an animated manner to a tall, thin woman with blonde hair when she noticed Nigel coming her way and quicky ushered the woman into a back room, closing the door behind them; however, Nigel was determined to wait it out when just then an unidentified man approached and informed him that “Ms. Saunders had left the building and gave no indication when or if she would be returning that day”; this new intel pissed Nigel off royally since he was not prepared to have Camilla pull a disappearing act on him .… a position he found alien, embarrassing and profoundly uncomfortable. 

In a huff, Nigel stormed out of the library and quickly walked to his car, arriving just in time to see Camilla and the blonde woman sliding into a white convertible which, of course, he followed, managing to stay far enough away without losing sight of the car which travelled a route which was extremely familiar to Nigel; the more they drove the more convinced Nigel became that he knew were the white car was headed but when the convertible abruptly turned off the road into a parking garage, Nigel was none-the-less astounded when he realized that Camilla’s companion lived in the same apartment building as he did …. or perhaps it was Camilla who lived there …. and just as the convertible entered the garage, Camilla glanced over her shoulder and, spotting Nigel’s car, was filled with consternation. 

Nigel kicked himself for not having learned more about Ms. Camilla Saunders while on their coffee dates for if he had he would have known this mystery woman was Camilla’s oldest and dearest friend from college, Eunice Blackthorne, who was also Camilla’s roommate right here in his apartment building; the agenda now was for Nigel to increase the frequency of his visits to his buddy, Vince, the doorman …. shoot the breeze …. buy him a coffee …. give him a few hot tips on the ponies and get him to spill the beans about Camilla, her blonde friend and which apartment was theirs.  

Meanwhile, Camilla was pacing the floor of the apartment she shared with Eunice; men like Nigel enervated her, demoralized, frightened and reminded her entirely too much of her overbearing, demanding, unprincipled father, brothers, classmates, boyfriends, bosses …. in fact, every man she had ever known in her life …. and knowing Camilla had had it with men was exactly what Eunice wanted to hear.

Little did any of them know they were headed for rocky times.

NAR©2024

This is “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

Flash

Bad Medicine

Written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #369
where we are challenged to write something clever
in exactly 33 words using the word “spoonful”.

Identical medicine bottles was how my non-English speaking grandfather almost killed my grandmother.

Alone for 15 minutes resulted in administering a near-fatal spoonful of massaging oil of wintergreen instead of dextromethorphan for coughs.

NAR©2024
33 Words

This is “Bad Medicine” by Bon Jovi

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

Short Story

Nowhere Man

Written for Six Sentence Story
incorporating the prompt word “bank”.

Ruth looked up from her book and stared at her husband Fred as he fiddled with his iPod; at one time, he knew every little detail about that thing but now the device totally confused him and in frustration Fred cursed as he threw the iPod across the room yelling “Damn thing’s busted!”

Ruth sighed and retrieved the iPod, placing it on the table between their recliners and glanced sadly at Fred who sat in his chair looking straight ahead; Ruth asked herself “Where is my husband of 55 years?” because for her it was like he was gone, replaced by this ‘nowhere man’.

In an attempt to help Fred settle down, Ruth calmly suggested they look at the iPod together after dinner to figure out what was wrong but that only seemed to anger Fred even more and he shouted back at Ruth that he was not a child and she shouldn’t patronize him; when Ruth apologized and told Fred she was going into the kitchen to make dinner, he snapped at her saying it didn’t matter because he wasn’t hungry anyway.

In the kitchen Ruth wept silently; it was like this ever since Fred’s diagnosis of early onset dementia and now they squabbled over everything, especially things he used to do without so much as a second thought, like paying the bills, but these days he got lost walking to the bank on the corner.

Fred used to be very handy but now he couldn’t even set his alarm clock and when Ruth offered to sort out his meds for him, he lashed out saying he could do it himself but he mixed up the dosage and had a terrible reaction leaving him feeling hopeless and helpless.

Fred came into the kitchen and, without being told, went straight to the spot where Ruth stored her cutting boards and knives and started helping her prepare the salad, perfectly chopping vegetables and chatting amiably about a movie his friend Jack thought they might enjoy; the old Fred was back .… at least for the moment.

NAR©2024

This is the Beatles with “Nowhere Man”

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and is not for use by anyone without permission. NAR©2017-present.

Short Story

Sock It To Me

Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge is once again
challenging us to write a Six Sentence Story
using the word “ace”. This is my story.

The other night as I was getting undressed and ready for bed, I pulled off my sock and saw something on the sole that looked like a bit of fuzz or a piece of string but upon closer inspection I realized it was something imprinted on the bottom of the sock itself; since I can’t see a thing without my glasses, I thought it was the letter A for the company name which is Ace USA but I soon found out it was the letter L, obviously for LEFT.  

What are the odds!” I declared to myself, rather tickled by the fact that I put the LEFT sock on my left foot without even checking the bottom of the sock, but when I took off the other sock, fully expecting to see the letter R indicating the RIGHT sock, I was confounded when I saw another L! 

“Just my luck” I again proclaimed to myself, somewhat annoyed that I would be the one to get a defective pair of socks, with two LEFT socks and no RIGHT sock! 

I promised myself that in the morning I would call Ace USA and encourage them to correct their oversight by sending me two RIGHT socks, one as a mate for one of the LEFT socks and the other as a mate for the other LEFT sock, leaving me with two perfectly functioning pairs of socks. 

The next morning I called Ace USA, explained my problem to Eleanor in customer services and requested two RIGHT socks to match my two LEFT socks; well, I’m sure you can imagine what a good laugh I had when Eleanor sweetly explained that the L on the bottom of my socks did not stand for LEFT but rather for LARGE.

Now I find myself rethinking that box in the front closet full of defective mittens.

NAR©2024

This is Aretha Franklin with “Respect”

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and is not for use by anyone without permission. NAR©2017-present.