(Author’s Note: I am doing a little bit better, but won’t be on the full track for a little while. It’s the end of the term at uni! That means…so much fun. There is a possibility I may have to go dark for a week, but I am hoping that will not be the case. Here is today’s Fictioneers!)
“How many applications did you put out this week?” Miguel asked, as he chewed on an apple.
“30 as of Thursday, with 15 more coming up,” Carmen replied.
“And how many do you expect callbacks on?”
“Probably about 5, at best.”
“Why do you do it, Carm?”
Carmen sat back, leaning herself against his leg.
“I think it’s because I want to be useful.”
“But you don’t necessarily have to work to be useful.”
She gave Miguel’s knee a kiss.
“I want to be useful for you. That’s why I do it.”
(Author’s Note: I am not sure about the things that are going on in my current life right now. I will update as I can, but I am not sure when I’ll be back to extra writings on the blog besides Friday Fictioneers. Here’s today’s offering.)
Author’s note: I hope everyone is doing alright. I’ve been in a real big funk when it comes to writing new stuff, mostly due to the fact that my school writing has been taking up most of my time. However, I am planning on putting up a bunch of stuff over the next week as I have a mid-semester break coming up. Whether it gets posted or not, that’s a different story. But we shall see.
Also, there were some questions about last week’s story. The answer It was an allegorical story that was related to a slate of issues on college campuses in America, where men and even some women have been accused of rape. They get taken through tribunals on campus instead of through the legal/police process. It ruins their lives, and indirectly, all parties’ lives. So for those who were curious, now you know…the rest of the story. (RIP Paul Harvey)
The young lady was pulled back from the railing, the man holding her back against him.
“You’re going to be fine,” he whispered, clutching the crying woman as she let all her misery out.
He didn’t plan to be there. He was just driving, and there was someone where he was just a few months ago.
He just held her close when he heard a loud bang.
He turned around, and saw the bright lights of another car bearing down upon him. She looked up and screamed.
He pushed her away, seconds before the car hit him, carrying him over the side.
She screamed in horror as she heard nothing but the sound of the car hitting the water.
She sat, screaming and shaking as the ambulances approached.
Author’s note: Hey everyone! I keep promising more stuff on the blog, but school and job hunting gets in the way. Once something comes along, there will be more posts. Otherwise, you get to enjoy Friday Fictioneers from me! My good blog-father, David Stewart, got the picture for this week, and I think it’s a beauty! Enjoy the story!
The rust on the gate was quick. Brand new last year, now tarnished.
Only one rainfall came that summer, but it was a blessing. A year’s worth of crops came in a month. It was incredible.
Then they came to the house. Claimed all sorts of charges, all sorts of lies. They said the rain didn’t want to come. I asked them how they knew the intent of the rain.
They didn’t tell me much, didn’t even allow me the chance of getting a lawyer.
(Author’s note: Things have been quite busy this week. Bad experiences abounded, but good things are to come. Week 6 of uni has almost come to a close, and there’s another 7-8 weeks left to go. But, some big stories will be done soon, as I will need time to just sit and write and detox from writing essays. You all may be recipients of the work. Anyhow, here’s today’s Friday Fictioneers, with a bit of Australian flair involved.)
“What’s the number on this one?” Senior Constable Alistair MacKaye asked.
“Looks like this is the fifth one,” his partner, Constable Jacklyn Brandt replied.
“And I’ve been called out here six times in the past month.”
“I don’t understand, is there something about this place?”
Alistair just gazed at his young charge.
“Jackie, do you know anything about icehouses?”
“Nah. Never heard of them back in the bush.”
“It’s a nuthouse. They like the walls. Sometimes they climb them.”
“And then?”
“Some of them fall off.”
“Isn’t that a travesty?”
“Eh, I don’t mind the walls. They keep us safe.”
(Author’s Note: Hey folks! Hope you’ve been paying attention and watching things. Even in the weirdness of school, I have had time to write. You all should be able to read my latest piece, Her Last Performance. The music will really make that one pop. Otherwise, here’s this week’s Fictioneers offering! Enjoy!)
Sandy closed her eyes off from the rest of the audience, as she moved her body to the sound of the music. She wanted this time, this period, to be focused on her and all the good she could do.
Sandy remembered her pain from nine months ago, as she swung her leg around and jumped onto the ball of her right foot. She remembered the stage, and the warning from the front of the house, two seconds too late. She remembered the air below her, the crash onto the metal chairs below in the orchestra pit.
She recalled the pain of the ambulance ride as she twirled once and lept across the stage. The heat and electricity burning up and down her entire right side as she was driven to the hospital she understood well. The words of her doctor, telling her that she would never dance again, and her response of “That never stopped me in the past,” were ringing through her head.
A tear fell down her porcelain face as she remembered the nights of tears into her pillow, and the calls of Psalm 6 from her lips. The cries of being weary, as she worked on walking again; the continued tears as she slept on her bed; the afternoons of crying into the arm of her couch. As she pirouetted in the center of the stage, she saw her friend’s face. She remembered his hands, as they dried her tears and put medicine on her eyes when she had an eye infection as she recovered.
Tonight, though, tonight was it. She was able to make it through, and as she finished with a gentle falling splits, she helped put a cap on the year’s dancing. The crowd cheered loudly at Sandy’s return, the last performance of the year.
She would be back the next year. She would be better than ever.
(Author’s note: Welcome aboard! So after the adventures of being SO creative last week, I had to deal with a week of problems and work. It is likely I will only be posting Fictioneers stuff for this week and next week, as I have a lot of assignments due for workshopping this week, as well as getting things started for some of my larger papers. So, for now, here’s the latest Friday Fictioneersstory.)
Tom Corrigan extended his middle finger toward his unfinished project.
As he drove his gas tanker on the expressway, he passed by the old building that was to be his crowning achievement. Or, rather, the demolition that was.
“That damn building cost me my job,” he grumbled to himself.
For but a moment he thought of this, then switched lanes and exited onto a side street. He took another turn, heading back the direction he went. He reached the street that the landmark building stood on and sneered at it.
“I can’t let a job go unfinished,” he cried out, mashing the gas and shifting the gears.
(Author’s note: It’s been a busy week here at Music and Fiction. 3 different stories have been posted for your perusal, and I hope you can read them all. You can read the mini-fictions The Lament of the Scribe and 5 Steps, plus the longer fiction Walking On Ice (my current personal favorite of mine.) Make sure to comment on them, as a few of these were actually created as a result of class exercises for my university courses. Besides that, please enjoy today’s creation.)
We had just pulled up to the drive thru on Route 7. I was reaching for my wallet when Caroline shrieked.
“Honey! What’s wrong?”
“I can’t stand bugs! And there are two right under the drive-thru window!”
Being a valiant man, I reached over the seat to get them. In my haste to shoo the beasts away, I miscalculated my reach. I let out a “whoa!” just before my face landed in her lap. I heard a gasp, then a breath.
“My darling, if you wanted pie, you should have just said so…”
I looked up at her, and she cracked up. I can’t help but crack up now whenever she, my beautiful wife, asks if I want pie.
The Lament of the Scribe a.k.a. ABC a short story by Miles H. Rost WARNING: Some language may not be suitable for kids, even in the proper context.
I first really noticed it when they took the word ‘contemplative’. To be contemplative means to think about something. At least, it used to, until some people got a hold of it and conflated it with the idea of emptying your mind. Why must they take my words and abuse them so?
As I sit in my den, looking over my various manuscripts, I realize that I only started recently noticing this.
Even before then, now that I think of it, they took more of my words. ‘Progressive’ used to mean forward, as ‘conservative’ once meant ‘held in reserve’, just as liberal once meant generous, and ‘congressional’ meant moving backwards. They got hijacked by renegades in blue and red, using them as bats upon which to beat each other and bludgeon until submission. Oh, how my words must feel so awful.
But these, these are not new. These changes in my words, they haven’t been just limited to larger words. Oh no, me a simple scribe could not only have words taken away and changed, but have words that should not have been added, brought in specifically to raise my ire.
The history of ‘shit’ goes back to an acronym, “Store High In Transit”. It was referring to fertilizer, in the form of animal feces. While it was fine that it suddenly became a word to describe such things, it produced an image that would make the normal, everyday user cringe with its use. Suddenly, though, people started using it as a noun to describe everything! “Pick up your shit!” “I don’t give a shit!” Oh, my poor word! Used in such ways by such uncouth of folk. And to make it worse, they even turned it into a VERB! This is horror to me! Oh my precious words, why must you add more?
I remember when words were simple, and the things you said held weight. Now everyone throws ‘fascism’, ‘socialism’, ‘elitism’, and other words around like they’re horseshoes or baseballs. They have no more meaning! When someone spoke the word ‘fascism’, people thought of really Bad THINGS. But now, everything is fascism! It’s like the description of ‘Christian’, where it used to mean something set apart from others, but now is being used by people who have no business even calling themselves as such!
I think the worst was in the 1970s. They took the basic building blocks of my life, the essential pieces of my existence, and they turned it into a love song sang with the voice of a child! And what’s worse, is that it was only the first three letters. Why, Jackson 5, did you have to do this? Why oh why must you do this to me?
I suddenly heard a scream from far away, blazing into my ears. It shrieked, “Why must you torment us?!”
Music and Fiction 