PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll I’ve been at the conditioning center a decade; not a bad patient; just not a real good one. Today Snowy, who’s been here longer than me, cracks, “Fake it ’til you make it, eh, Green?” Snowy decorates the floor with her blood. Confined in Reflection (i.e.solitary,) they assign Dr….
Category: fiction
TSM 243 — Daddy Needs a Drink
Photo by Kyle Thompson Maybe it’s being locked in the closet. Maybe it’s the surprise knuckles to the middle of my back. Maybe it’s seeing my breath on the air as I curl under the thin blanket. Maybe it’s his forcing himself into me. The day of my liberation it is mid-January. Daddy is drunk,…
#FF — Alternative Programming
PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda Chimes flutter at six. Each of us in the dorm are dressed in identical cream scrubs. We stand as one from straw floor pallets. We hygiene and breakfast. At seven we converge on the temple, to hang our egos at the door and cleanse our minds. We sit cross-legged, eyes…
#FF — Chicken
PHOTO PROMPT © Fleur Lind I am a gloomy sort. Doom shrouds my world in shades of carnage red and cancer black. I confidently sidle and stalk through days and nights as my sleaze blends with darkness and my conquests beg for the mercy of release. Yesterday I notice I am being followed. Does the…
#FF — The Call
PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot My dingy descent didn’t happen overnight. Each step is an independent entity containing a varied amalgam of components including conscious/unconscious conditioning, fear, impulsivity/ premeditation, peer pressure, focus, practice, tap dancing, blind leaping, thoughtfulness/ thoughtlessness, kindness/cruelty, and so many other motivations/de-motivations. Addictions, also motivated by these, have lubricated the process. Likewise-situated…
#FFFC 200 — Waterfall
Six months ago, she’d been told to wait, and she trusted him. He was competent and he promised to return. Winter and its monotonous gray skies made the days long and the nights longer. One morning she stopped waiting. Bundling up dried rations, she and Star, the wolf dog, set out. She knew he went…
#FF — Street Life
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields As seeds we’re imprisoned from the moment we’re released from our mothers’ branches. Pressed by rough fingers into prepared medium in small plastic squares, our sprouted roots escape through drainage holes to touch our kins’. As seedlings we are shifted to larger squares until mature enough to be burlap-sacked. For…
Tao-Talk 