(Author’s note: I’m trying to get things done earlier most days, but the last couple weeks have been killer on me. Hope to have everything a few hours earlier starting next week.)
“The party is about to start, and you’ve done nothing!”
Maria smiled as she looked at her scolding sister.
“I’m learning a lot! When I become a dancer, I won’t have to worry about cleaning.”
“Maria, when you become a dancer, you’re going to take care of me!”
Maria looked at her beautiful, yet busy sister and grinned.
“Only when you finally marry Fernando.”
A plate dropped and clattered. Maria’s sister looked back at her, aghast.
“EH?! FERNANDO?!”
Suddenly, a head popped into the kitchen.
“Did someone call?”
Maria smiled. Her sister sputtered, as he waved and closed the door.
(Author’s note: February 21st is moving day. I hope to have something already ready by then for Fictioneers. Otherwise, it’s winter camp prep and stupidity. Cannot wait until this stuff is done for good. Anyhow, here’s tonight’s fictioneers, based upon a true story.)
Donna was about to walk in, when she saw it, and screamed.
“What’s wrong…” her friend Lisa started to say, before she turned and screamed.
Hasty dialing commenced. Within 5 minutes, their friends arrived. An engineer, a computer technician, and a former Navy SEAL, all looked inside, then grinned at each other.
“It’s Spider Stomping Day!”
After much crunching and squishing, they came out covered in goo.
“Alright, the good news is, we got all the spiders,” SEAL said, “The bad news is, your walls have spider guts on them.”
“Yeah. Took about an hour to do, but she’s still in good condition,” his brother, Peter, replied.
When they first saw the old jalopy, they knew that they had to have her. But it cost almost everything they had to get it from the owner, who hated what it was and was leaving it to rot.
“Can’t believe how much it took to get her out of that prison. But just wait, with a little time, we’ll get her running again. I mean, we already got her looking clean.”
Author’s Note: Back again after a week where things went really weird, and having no time to post before today, I am back with a Fictioneers special! I shall have more coming soon, so keep your eye. And if you haven’t read the story “Angel In The Snow” yet, please do so. It’s one of the few that I really plan on expanding down the line, and could use good feedback.
Copyright – Rachel Bjerke
The Fairy’s Call
by Miles H. Rost
Harry MacInnes brushed his hands on the moss-covered fountain, muttering to himself at just how much cleanup it needed.
He pulled out his brushes and de-mossing tools, carefully scraping and removing the green from the stonework. He was intent into his work, and didn’t notice a small voice creep up behind him.
“Hi!”
“GYAH!” he exclaimed, as he jumped nearly out of his skin.
“I see you’re cleaning up the area!” the voice said, coming from the mouth of a small but quite beautiful sprite.
“All places need attention,” he said, matter of factly, “This one should be restored.”
The sprite clapped and smiled.
“Because you’re doing so, I am going to grant you a wish in gratitude! What would you wish for?”
He looked at the sprite, thought for a moment, then smiled what one would consider an almost evil smile.
(For those who are interested in Part 1 and Part 2, click the links.)
Stepping on Shadows (aka Mayumi’s Story, Part III) by Miles Rost
A business card with a number written on the back.
Mayumi found it on her counter, and she never noticed it before. She looked at it and twirled the card and the number around in her mind, thinking of where it may have come from.
In the intervening week between her emotional breakdown and the current time, she was able to get her mind back in order and was focused on moving on. She was pleased, but she knew that there was a lot of work to be repaired within her soul, her psyche. She refocused her efforts on developing her life away from the addiction to her ex. She felt as though things were finally starting to get level.
Saturday morning came quickly for her. More than a week after dealing with all those feelings, she felt like she was on solid ground. Which meant only one thing: Time to clean the house. She washed the dishes, cleaned the living room, and started cleaning off the stand-alone counter where she would have her mail and her dinner.
The card dropped from a stack of mail. Hidden among the junk mail was a business card for a garage that she used to take her vehicle when she was dating the idiot. She looked at the back of it and saw a number.
I wonder where this came from? I don’t remember asking for a card from the garage the last time, she thought to herself.
For a long time, she just sat at the bar and twirled the piece of paper over and over in her hand, debating about whether she should call the number and see what was at the other end, or whether she shouldn’t push it. The battle raged inside her head for a while, but eventually, her curiosity got the best of her logic, and she grabbed the house phone. She dialed the number on the card, and just waited nervously. After about three rings, the phone picked up.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
The voice was unmistakable. The annoyance found in the voice was immediately recognizeable.
She had mistakenly called the idiot in Western Australia.
She immediately hung up the phone and started to panic.
“I can’t believe it…WHAT the hell just happened?!?!” she shouted into the air.
She stood up and started to pace, figuring out how she was able to contact the idiot. She had been trying to get rid of him, and now all of a sudden, he was back…even for a moment.
Mayumi unplugged the phone from the wall socket, then walked over to the couch in the living room. She sat down, feeling incredibly nauseated by what just happened. She felt disturbed by it in a way she never felt before, and it was turning her in knots.
She laid down on the couch, the right sleeve of her sweatshirt covering her forehead, absorbing the sweat and the feelings of nausea rising off her head. In the few minutes that it took for her to blank her mind and do some cleaning in her head, she turned her head and looked next to her.
“Lord, ah don’t know what to do. I wanted to keep it away, but ah didn’t throw the card away. I kept it, and explored it.”
She looked back up at her ceiling, and shook her head. She asked for forgiveness in her mind, trying to ease the feeling of self-betrayal in her. As the minutes turned into hours, she felt her gut slowly become calm and her spirit start to rest. She felt a wave of peace come over her, as one thought crossed her mind.
It’s not the end, and not a start over. It’s a mere stumbling block, and you’ve gone past it. Keep running.
As her eyes slowly closed, taking Mayumi into dreamland, she realized that even with this problem, she would be able to still continue and survive. She could bank on that.
Here’s another Friday Fictioneers story for you. Don’t forget to read all of my other stories, including Changing Tides, and one of the more talked about stories “The Beginning of Something New”. Can’t wait to hear what you have to say. Now: ON with the show.
copyright D Lovering
Everything It Touches
“So, when did that thing get down here, Charlie?”
“Well, Burt, it was about 2 days ago. We all thought Noor was playing a practical joke with her streamers, when it just landed there.”
“Has it done anything we should know?”
“Not from what I can see, but I did smell lemon and ammonia coming from the houses that it touched.”
“Wait…lemons and ammonia?”
“Yeah. Anything you can think of?”
Charlie called up to his house.
“Hey, Meriel, how does the house look?”
“Clean as a whistle, Charlie. Now get up here for supper!”
Music and Fiction 