It all ended at midnight, Fat Tuesday. Avoiding goodbyes, the sulking couple wandered, heads bowed, on a side street toward Canal, as if searching the ancient pavers on the Quarter’s cobbled road for advice on what parting words to say.
—-Steve Prusky, The Last Parade
New Orleans – Mardi Gras, Krewe of Zulu parade.
There are millions of Mardi Gras stories from New Orleans – a lot are the same.
Read it here:
from The Flash Fiction Offensive
this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up
—-Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Somewhere in the Caribbean
this is how you write a short piece
Read it here:
from The New Yorker
The sea-king known as Mysing was a trader and a warrior, with grey eyes and the nose of hawk. Many said he had the mind of a hawk, too: sharp, opportunistic, and sometimes cruel. Mysing and his men invaded the lands of King Frodi, drawn there by a low rumble of song. A melody of pain and torment and misfortune, blood and tears and separation.
—- Kat Day, How do you Sense the Sea, Child
Column Capital, Ellis County Courthouse, Waxahachie, Texas
Today we have a modified retelling of a old Norse story, with some inorganic and dye chemistry thrown in (I like that).
Read it here:
from the fiction phial
You are on the run. You are in love.
—-Cathy Ulrich, Something That Can Never Be Held
Bonnie Parker’s Gravesite
Bonnie and Clyde are from Dallas. Across the city you see spots that call back to their infamous history. I have visited the gravesites of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. It is a story that will forever be told and retold, the truth wavering in the background, changing as widely variable points of view shift in and out of focus. Today we have a bit of flash fiction inspired by an old photograph.
Read (or listen to) it here:
from FlashBack Fiction
Grave of Clyde Barrow and his brother, Buck.
Struggling to sit up, she squinted bleary eyes at the alarm clock across the room. Was that an eight?
—-Jordan, Rush
One day later.
I once woke up and looked at the analog clock and saw six. I looked at the window and saw twilight. I had to wait to see if it became lighter or darker.
Read it here:
from Write Then & There
Alyssa reaches down and squeezes her mother’s hand, so frail and thin compared to the one she remembers from her childhood decades before. “We’ll get through this, okay? You and me. Like always.”
—-Stewart C Baker, Against the Dying of the Light
Mural outside of Sandwich Hag, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
There is heartbreak and slim hope… and then there is writing about heartbreak and slim hope – which is something altogether different.
Read it here:
from Flash Fiction Online
Without thinking she tiptoed to the wild corner of the garden, her haven created for butterflies and bees, not mythical creatures. A noise startled her and the dreadful cat from next door shot out from under a bush, across the lawn and up onto the fence. She felt a stab of fear, birds were not the only creatures in danger from the cat, she tried to dismiss the image of thin green legs dangling out of the cat’s mouth.
—-Janet Gogerty, Staying Altert
Young Faun, by Brenda Putnam, Dallas Arboretum, A Woman’s Garden
During these times I have been working on my shade garden in front of my house. I had to give up on our back yard – the five dogs that belong to us and the neighbor have trampled and dug and killed everything. They will not allow for new green shoots.
The front yard is dominated by large trees and the lawn is dying there from lack of sun. So under the trees I am building a small patio where I can sit and read in dogless quiet and am spreading mulch and planting ivy and ferns – other shade loving plants to follow. My neighbors on both sides have professional landscaping in front – it looks very organized and symmetrical. Mine is a jumble. Hopefully, in a few years, once everything has had a chance to grow a bit (shade plants grow very slowly) it may look natural but now it just looks confused.
It is interesting to start finding fiction inspired by the current lockdown.
Read it here:
from Times and Tides of a Beachwriter
“All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.
—-
Deep Ellum
Texas
You’ve already read it, I know. Probably you read it, like me, in middle school. Still, maybe you haven’t. Doesn’t hurt to read it again… it’s crackerjack.
My son and I were watching a bit of some movie that wishes were involved in. I asked, “It isn’t a monkey’s paw, is it?”
He didn’t know what I was talking about. I guess there are people that haven’t read it.
Read it here:
Logically, she could just walk away. Walk away from this tree, from this hilltop, and never come back. What was the tree going to do, uproot itself and follow her?
—–Yann,Knowledge Takes Root
Do trees seem wise to you? Age can be wisdom, but it can be insanity too. Is it wise to wait and to let everything come to you? All you need is some sunshine and water… maybe a little phosphorus and fixed nitrogen. The only hard thing is to spread your seeds. Maybe the one-armed winged helicopter seeds blown by the wind are the way to go. Or better yet – feed the squirrels – so that they carry your progeny far and wide, bury, and hopefully forget about them over the cold winter.
Read it here:
from Gratuitous Text
And she really began to wither away because her heart was dried up with fear, and those who believe in curses die from curses.
—- Rudyard Kipling, Through the Fire
Coal and coke fire, Frisco, Texas.
We all remember Rudyard Kipling’s children’s stories when we were children, Just So. I wanted to read something that wasn’t intended for children, though, and today’s tale of doomed love fits the bill.
One nice thing about reading online – especially reading something set somewhere so foreign and exotic as Kipling’s Himalayan village – are the Wikipedia hyperlinks. With one click you can have the little mysteries resolved in the next tab over. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.
Read it here:
Bill Chance 