Walton’s Mountain“It’s been fifty years. Why did we wait so long?,” says John Boy to himself.To his right, Mary Ellen is softly snoring in the passenger seat.His responsibilities as English Professor at Princeton, his commitment to caring for Mary Ellen after the accident; marrying his one true love, raising their children, and losing her to…
Category: Friday Fictioneers
#FF — Units Available
Units Available Joy-Glen Apartments are nestled between quiet green mountains. Units are coveted for roominess, light, and all-inclusive utilities. Monitored surveillance cameras and twenty-foot electrified razor wire perimeter fences ensure safety. The waiting list to get in is longer than a dragon’s tail. Management insists applicants read the fine print of their leases. Most do….
#FF — Your Health Matters to Us
I leave Dr. Vargo’s office as I increasingly do, confused and discouraged. After five years of twice-weekly sessions of her trying to find trauma’s etching pieces in my early developmental puzzle –via talk therapy, hypnosis, and regression modalities, but finding nothing — still she insists on finding something that I have to conclude, just isn’t…
#FF — Keaton Island
Keaton Island My morning bike ride will take me to town, where I’ll pick up sourdough bread and assorted produce from the CSA share. I hear laughter before seeing them. Around the curve, in matching red Adirondack chairs, their gazes are fixed on Keaton Island. I stop and ask if they are on vacation. “Our…
#FF — Hand and Glove
PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart Hand and Glove Holling and I met at university, in the Forestry Program’s biology lab. We teamed up as lab partners, then as more. “Darla, we’ve been together six months. I want you to meet my family.” Flying in a small private plane over dense forest towards the northernmost tip…
#FF — Spoiled
PHOTO PROMPT © Lily Spoiled Although I’m sitting poolside at my villa, sipping Margarita, my soul feels like chipped, latex-coated lead: cheap, artificial, and toxic. The adage goes, how did I get to this place; but I know, know how, and who is to blame. When you’ve had enough trauma cast upon you as an…
#FF — Season One
PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz Season One Snow crunches under Mara’s slippers. Her feet, beyond cold, numb, pain, exist as dead grey. Wooden matchsticks now, she totters until a loud snap. Falling… Waking… Soft mattress, machine breathing, smell of antiseptic, low hum of conversation… Where am I? She opens her eyes and sees a video…
Tao-Talk 