Month: November 2014

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Widow’s Walk

Widow’s Walk
by Miles Rost

The seas were roiling with a tempest.

Tina Greene looked out from the cliffside at the ocean’s tantrum. She felt the winds as they blew sea spray into her face. The sea and the spray were very well reflective of her current situation and mood.

She was in the center of a storm in her heart, and the center of a storm in her life.

Her heart felt like it was ripped out of her chest, the crimson effluence pounding out what was left of the life she used to have with her husband, or rather, her former husband. The initial rip came from the delivery of the divorce papers at the summer cottage that they once shared, the site where Tina was currently staying. As she kept reading the papers, she noticed that he left her many things that would keep her pacified, but that the majority of what they made together would be left in his care.

Including their 12-year old daughter, Karin.

A fact that, upon reading, caused her to weep bitterly for hours.

She didn’t care about the summer cottage, or the 1.2 million in money that her husband was willing to part with. She didn’t even care about the half of the pension money her husband would have to give up after he retired. None of that mattered to her, none of it was important.

Her daughter was the most important person in her life at that moment in time, and there was no way she could fight her husband to get full custody. She would lose Karin forever.

It broke her heart.

She looked upon the seas again, seeing the swirling waves crash against the rocks below. She spotted a small dinghy as it crashed into the jetty a little ways off. The cracking and breaking of the wooden hull made a cacophonous echo that reverberated through Tina’s ears.

She looked down at the papers in her hand, the divorce papers that she long agonized over. As she sighed and shook her head, she pulled the pen out of her skirt pocket and signed the bottom. Putting them back into the envelope, she turned and walked away from the cliff, back towards the summer cottage which would now serve as her permanent home. Her new home.

She slowly walked to the back door, taking what old men called a “widow’s walk”, the walk of someone who lost someone or something very important and dear. While she didn’t lose a physical person to death, divorce was just as bad as widowhood.

And it would be something Tina would have to feel for a long long time.

– A tribute to all parents who ended up in divorce, and what they have had to go through in those times.

 

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Retired – Friday Fictioneers

Here’s this week’s offering. Other stories are on the way, just dealing with a lot more stress and recover  from said stress than I wish to divulge…

 

copyright Claire Fuller

Retired

by Miles Rost

After 35 years at the gas works, I never thought that I would still be working.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do after I got done with my career. The first year was the hardest. I had no clue, especially after Millie died.

I was driving down the A34 and was stopped to get petrol. I saw the building, the shabbiness of it, and the garage. I inquired with the proprietor whether he was interested in having another worker. He grumbled, but agreed.

My first job with him was to retread older tires, or to cut them up.

So, in short, I guess I can truly say that even though I’m working, I’m…retired.

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Friday Fictioneers – Manic Monday

Currently writing this on the road…in Suwon, South Korea (the capital of Gyeonggi Province). Enjoy what my mind throws up!

Copyright-Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Manic Monday

by Miles Rost

I never thought I knew of a place called hell. That is, until I found myself in a delivery job in Beverly Hills.

“You need to drop the first set of packages in the back alley behind the consignment store next to the Victoria’s Secret on Rodeo Drive, but not the Victoria’s Secret expansion across the alley,” my boss told me.

It was like he was speaking Korean to me. I looked at him sideways.

“What’s the name of the consignment store?” I asked.

“How am I supposed to know? I don’t do deliveries!”

So I went with my gut and looked for the Victoria’s Secret store. There were 5 of them within 2 blocks of Rodeo Drive. So I put them in the back alley, on a building that said “Rags to Riches”, next to the Victoria’s Secret.

I was fired the next day for incompetence. When my boss couldn’t even tell me the right place.

I think I’m going to go to the beach and punch a mime.

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Friday Fictioneers – Far Enough

Here’s this week’s submission!

 

Copyright – Jean L. Hays

Far Enough

by Miles H. Rost

“Charlie, you have gone too far.”

Doris MacInally looked out the window and shook her head at her son, Charles.

“How, Mom?” Charlie inquired.

“I remember when you were putting snowplow machinery on old Bel Air chassis.”

“Yeah?”

“Now, you’re putting a mobile oil derrick in the bed of a Ford F-250?”

“What can I say, Mom? There’s a need for more of them up here in North Dakota, so why not make them mobile?”

“Will it actually be able to stay and hold while oil goes everywhere?”

“That’s what the plastic tarp is for.”

“What plastic tarp…no. NO YOU DID NOT…”

“No one liked that tablecloth anyways.”

Doris began to chase her son across the yard, rolling pin in hand, as he giggled all the way.

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Friday Fictioneers – The Chairman of the Bored

A bit under the weather in this post-halloween time period. Sinuses clogged, lingering cough. This is one reason I don’t like teaching children. Anyhow, here’s the story for this week’s Friday Fictioneers

 

copyright – Melanie Greenwood

Chairman of the Bored

by Miles Rost

“Alright, so we finally got the plan together,” Chelsey said, pointedly.

“First, we’ll file our nails and act like we’re bored,” Natasha replied, pointing at a picture of a nail file.

“Then, when the professor’s back is turned, we’ll yawn loudly and fidget like a sugar-eating ADHD child,” Marie proclaimed, pointing to the open mouth picture.

“And finally, when he’s so frustrated with us that he kicks us out of the lecture, we go off and get drunk at The Corner!”

All three nodded and put their hands in the middle of the table.

“One, Two, Three! WE ARE BORED!”