Flash Fiction #277

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

FORTRESS MENTALITY

With the advent of COVID, Bruce’s neuroses finally became useful.  Social distancing?  Check!  He was a loner, something of a sociopath.  No physical contact?  Check!  He didn’t like to be touched.  Disinfecting?  Mr. Germaphobe carried his own hand sanitizer and wipes.

Work from home?  He was a ‘Prepper’ who’d bought this bunker of an old stone barn and was fixing it up.  He’d laid in a ton of government-surplus dried foods.  The windmill pumped water through filters, and supported a satellite dish for phone and internet.  The roof was solid solar cells.

“Call me when it’s safe to come out.”

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If you’d like to join the Friday Fictioneers fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Flash Fiction #140

PHOTO PROMPT © Danny Bowman

INFLATION

I know she has my best interests at heart, and hers, and the baby’s, but ever since she gave birth, she’s become super-scared and cautious.

One beer, over an hour, with the boys after work, and a careful drive home in low traffic, does not constitute ‘Drinking And Driving!’

I even called last week, to tell her that I was stopping at 7-11 for bread on the way home. Five minutes late, and I got home barely in time to stop her from calling the FBI, reporting me kidnapped.

She certainly has a way of making mountains out of molehills!

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Minutia VI

I composed this post way back in the early fall, and tucked it away in a Word file.  Then I got distracted by the shiny 100-word Flash Fictions and failed to publish it.  Just pretend that it is still late October/early November, and you still have a cold, snowy winter ahead of you.  That way, this submission from the late Archon won’t seem as bad.   🙄

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Everybody’s entitled to an opinion – so I’ll give you one of mine.  I have to get up earlier these days, just to have enough time to spread all of them around.

The voices in my head have decided that I’m imaginary.
I think paranoid people are following me.

My old eyes are still good enough to drive without glasses, but I do miss certain details.  Out driving with daughter LadyRyl the other day, I slowly overtook a motorcycle.  From a quarter-mile back, I knew there were too many wheels.  At first I thought it might be a Spyder motorcycle, which son, Shimoniac is considering buying. They have two widely-spaced wheels at the front, for greater stability.

As I got closer, I thought it might be a trike motorcycle, with two wheels at the rear, for carrying an extra passenger, but I could now see a single rear wheel….yet still, more than two.

Perhaps he’s got a sidecar – but a sidecar would be on the right – and I can see a wheel to his left.

As we finally overtook him, daughter, LadyRyl, snapped this photo.  Here’s a big, tough Harley-Davidson biker – with training wheels!  I’ve never seen anything like this, and can’t think of any possible use for this set-up.  I’m going to stop in at a couple of bike shops and ask.  Any of you have an opinion??

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Cardinals (the birds) are almost as cautious and unseen as Blue Jays.  You hear them, but you very seldom see them.  A pair nests in the big pine trees near the daughter’s place.  This spring and summer they hatched and raised a batch of chicks, which are now ready to fly.  They’re not quite as skittish as the adults.  About to leave the daughter’s place recently, I noticed a fledgling in the Rose of Sharon bush right in front of her door.

She quickly grabbed up the camera, but, by the time she got in position, it had fluttered to the concrete.  Slowly, quietly, she edged to the door to get a shot….and just as she clicked the shutter, it took off.  I had hoped to submit it to the local paper, which prints cute wildlife photos each day.  This is more “artistic” than real life.  I hope you enjoy.  What do you think of it?