Category Archives: Story A Day

Left Turn

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Story #09 for Story A Day Challenge May 2016.

Black-bellied whistling ducks

Black-bellied whistling ducks

Left Turn

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Um, this is where my GPS said to go.”

“Nothing looks familiar. Let’s check the map.”

“I didn’t bring a map, that’s what our internal GPS is for. You’ve got one, I’ve got one, all migrating birds have one. Besides, I don’t have any pockets. Where would I put a map?”

“Maybe there’s a pond nearby where we can get some help.”

“Look, there’s some Canada geese over there. Let’s ask them for directions.”

“Canada geese? Are you telling me we’re in Canada?!”

“I think we should have turned left at Albuquerque.”

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With thanks and apologies to Bugs Bunny.
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Head Shot: Black & White

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Story #07 for Story A Day Challenge May 2016 as well as Cee’s Black & White Challenge.

Head (Gull) B&Ws

Head Shot

“You’re packing? Where are you going?”

“Hollywood.” Stuart avoided looking at his father in the eye.

“Hollywood? What the heck is in Hollywood? So all of a sudden the fish in New York aren’t good enough for you?”

“It’s not that, Dad. I’m going to audition for a movie. A starring role. I’ll be famous.”

“What kind of movie has a seagull as a starring role? Are you sure this isn’t just some kind of trick someone is playing on you?”

“This isn’t a trick. The movie is based on the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. A new wave of interest in the story grew after the publishers reissued the book in 2014. I’m going to audition for the role of Jonathan. Look, I got my portfolio ready.”

“Stuart, have you even read that book? Do you know the hardships Jonathan endured?”

“I can do this.” Stuart hopped up on the railing. “Dad, I gotta go. The wind is due to change any minute now and I have to catch the upper draft going west. Bye. I’ll call you when I get there.”

Stuart’s father stared in disbelief as his son took off, suitcase dangling from his feet. “Stuart! Stuart! You can’t be Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You’re afraid of heights!”
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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Heads or Facial Features

Run for the Roses

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Story #07 for Story A Day Challenge May 2016
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06 On The Trail s

Run for the Roses

Laura adjusted her ear buds and set her mini player to ‘shuffle.’ It was Friday and she was so tired from the work week, she couldn’t make any more decisions, not even which songs to play.

She had worked late – again – and the joggers on the trail were starting to thin out by the time she arrived. “Still time for a 3-mile loop before sundown,” she decided. She put herself on autopilot: stretching just a little, walking some to warm up, then breaking into a slow jog. It was hot and humid, but the shadows provided a little bit of comfort as she passed under the tall, older trees.

Somewhere around the half-way mark, Laura stopped, walking over to the water fountain. After taking a drink, she turned towards the lake and saw the rose blooms hanging from the pergola.

“So pretty,” she thought, “I bet it looks gorgeous from on the water. Anyone in a canoe will get a great view.”

Someone came up beside her. Jerry, a guy she knew from the trail. Every once in a while they finished running at the same time and chatted a few minutes before getting in their cars to leave.

“Hey,” Jerry said, removing his ear buds.

Laura took hers out, too. “Hey. Aren’t you here a little late?”

“Yeah, well, sometimes that can’t be helped. Even if I have to cut my run short, I still feel better for making the effort.”

“I know what you mean.” Laura nodded her head. She reached to turn down her music. She’d had the volume up to help block out the office issues that plagued her.

“Is that Run for the Roses I hear?”

“Oh, um, yes,” Laura blushed at getting caught listening to an oldie. “It’s a song my parents played quite a lot.”

“Must have been the thing back then. My mother loved that song. I think she was not-so-secretly in love with Dan Fogelberg. ‘Course, we lived in Kentucky and it got played over and over at Derby time. She never got tired of it.”

“Did you dance with her?”

“You better believe it.” Jerry laughed. “No southern gentleman raised in her house was going to get out the door without learning how to waltz.”

Smiling, Laura said, “Well, we have roses and the whole pergola to ourselves. Would you care to dance?”

A second of silence, then two.

Reaching out his hand, Jerry said, “It would be my pleasure.”

A cool breeze drifted in from the lake, swirling the rose fragrance around the couple as they waltzed under the blooms, music softly escaping from Laura’s ear buds they held in their joined hands.

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Suffering: Fiction Friday

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Story #06 for the Story A Day Challenge May 2016 and doubling up, as well, for the Friday Fictioneer Challenge.

Photo copyright Roger Bultot

Photo copyright Roger Bultot

Suffering

The room was small and dark. The radiator clinked and clanked without emitting much heat.

“Good,” Sean thought, unpacking. (His real name was John but he thought it too prosaic. Easier to brood as Sean.) He was A Writer and was here To Work.

“I will suffer for my art, just like the great 19th century writers.” (His suffering was temporary and self-imposed. His parents were quite wealthy.) “When everything is perfect, I will start writing.”

Night fell. He’d never been anywhere so quiet, so secluded.

Sean looked at his phone. “I’m lonely. Maybe just a couple of phone calls …”
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To read other Friday Fictioneer stories based on this photo, select the smiley blue frog.

Why Even Bother

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Story #05 for Story A Day Challenge May 2016
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It's in there. Just like Prego Spaghetti Sauce.

It’s in there. Just like Prego Spaghetti Sauce.

Why Even Bother

While others search for the perfect rose, wine, diving watch, or mountain to climb, all I want, Tina complained, is the perfect bath mat.

Oh, sure, the labels say they are washable but whatever that means to those manufacturers must not be what it means to me. What I want, not that anyone is ever going to ask me, is one with a little cushion and still fits into the washing machine without me having to bend it three or four times and shove it in. Because those are in the exact same position when I open the machine after the wash. I’m not sure the top of it even got wet, much less clean.

A bath mat that I like. How hard can that be? It’s not like I want to spend all my time gallivanting all over town shopping for a bath mat. I’ve already spent more time than I wanted to on this. And what have I got? More baths mats than I care to admit, mats that seemed all right in the store but not so much at home after I tried to wash them.

Tina tried to take them outside and rinse them down with water from the hose, but that didn’t really get them clean and she thought it was a bit old-fashioned, anyway. Tina scolded the washing machine, “If I wanted to be old-fashioned, I’d take my clothes down to the river to wash them on the rocks and I wouldn’t own a washing machine, now would I?”

Or a dryer. Sometimes that’s just as bad. For Tina, laundry turned out to be more than a chore, it was a challenge. Sheets, she was always having issues with sheets.

To no one in particular, Tina appealed, “I mean, is there some kind of secret sensor in the dryer so it knows when I put in sheets? I don’t understand why I can put in the sheets and then everything else on top of them into the dryer only to have all the small items wrapped up in the middle of a sheet, still wet when the dryer finishes its cycle.”

It just thinks it’s finished. But Tina has to unwrap the sheet, take out all the towels, pillow cases, and the other sheet, put everything back in the dryer and set it again. Every time.

Tina declared war, thinking she could outsmart the dryer. She set her kitchen timer for 15 minutes before the dryer said it would finish. She stopped the dryer, took everything out, rescued the towels and such from the innards of the tangled sheet and put everything back.

That should do it, Tina decided. That should be enough for everything to dry, separately.

That didn’t work. Opening the dryer door, she found that everything had, once again, found its way into the stomach of the sheet and it came out so wadded up it was ready to put on a pole, hoist it up on her shoulder, and head off to a hobo convention near the train tracks.

Maybe the problem is the time, she thought. I’ll keep adjusting it until I find the perfect time to interrupt the drying cycle, separate the sheets, put them back in and ta-da! A few minutes later everything will come out dry and nothing hidden.

Poor Tina. That didn’t work either. No matter when she set her timer, even if she washed the sheets and pillow cases all by themselves, the end result was the same: one big glob of sheets still not dry.

Why even bother? Tina asked the universe. Why do I even bother?

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