Three Word Wednesday - "Service, Opportunity, Quarrel" & 55 Flash Fiction Friday - 4/29/09

Once again, I have combined today's prompts of "service, opportunity, and quarrel" from 3 Word Wednesday with the constraints of using only 55 words from 55 Flash Fiction Friday. Those prompts led immediately to this thought.

They had just had another, alcohol induced, quarrel. He retired to the couch and she flew solo in the king-sized bed. A foreboding thought flashed into his mind as he gazed longingly at his service revolver. He had investigated enough cases to know he could never get away with it. Opportunity, means, motive. The trifecta.

3 Word Wednesday - "Deceit, Indulge, Oath" & 55 Flash Fiction Friday - 4/22/09

I have combined today's prompts of "deceit, indulge, and oath" from 3 Word Wednesday with the constraints of using only 55 words from 55 Flash Fiction Friday. This is the first thing that came to mind.

He had taken an oath…....”until death do us part.” That was nearly fifty years ago. Who knew she would live this long? That he would? They had both outlived passion and attraction. He considered indulging in an illicit tryst, but he didn’t have the energy for the dalliance, or the memory for the deceit.

Three Word Wednesday - 55 Flash Fiction Friday - callous, interfere, persistent - 2/25/09

Once again, I am combining two great MEMEs: G-Man's 55 Flash Fiction Friday and 3 Word Wednesday. It is a fun challenge. I recommend you try it. This week's three words are: callous, interfere, and persistent. Whether or not this is a work of fiction depends on the statute of limitations.

He had learned not to interfere with the persistent warfare next door.
He was not callous, but he had jumped into such a fracas before, only to see the bruised and battered woman return for more.
Until one day he witnessed the dirt bag beating his dog.
That was when he went over the fence.

55 Flash Fiction Friday - 3 Word Wednesday -Validate, Rabble, Disarray - 2/11/09

Combining two great MEMEs: G-Man's 55 Flash Fiction Friday and 3 Word Wednesday is a fun challenge. I recommend you try it. This week's three words are: disarray, validate, and rabble. My fractured imagination came up with these 55 words:

They were back.
The cornfield was in disarray once again.
She no longer attempted to validate her claims.
It would just end with more ridicule from the rabble of the small Iowa town.
She had learned to control her terror and lead a “normal” life.
Anyway, it was time to get Klynor5 up for school.

Three Word Wednesday - 55 Flash Fiction Friday - Illicit, Nerve, Crumple - 2/4/09

Once again, I have combined the Three Word Wednesday prompts with the constraints of 55 words presented by G-Man at 55 Flash Fiction Friday.
These words immediately conjured up this image.

The illicit affair was against his values.
But he could not resist her.
He planned to end it tonight, but had lost his nerve.
He picked her up at the usual location.
Suddenly, his car was crumpled by an unseen vehicle.
As he lost consciousness, he saw the driver smile.
Or was it a grimace?

Three Word Wednesday - 55 Flash Fiction Friday - Caress, Jagged, Ruthless - 1/28/09

The prompts for Three Word Wednesday (caress, jagged, ruthless) conjured up a woman that every man has known. My initial jottings formed an exact 55 word image. That never happens. It usually takes a lot of wordsmithing. I left my first draft alone. I hope you enjoy it.

Her caress was both velvet and the jagged cut of a serrated blade.
A wound that would never heal.
Her love was equally ruthless and tender.
He now understood the close proximity of pleasure to pain.
He knew she was a succubus, but his soul ached for the sweet danger she brought into his life.

Three Word Wednesday - 55 Flash Fiction Friday - 6/4/08

I have not submitted to 3WW on a regular basis. Sometimes I read the words and nothing immediately comes to mind. Then suddenly it is Thursday and I know that I am too late for anyone to read it. But I realize if I want to consider myself a writer of any value I must be able to write even when not inspired. So, today I challenged myself to complete a 12 Word Wednesday using the last four prompts that I did not respond to: blurred, illegal, match, deny, smile, uncomfortable, cautious, human, maybe, average, neck, and scratch. And to challenge myself further I made myself form the words into a 55 Flash Fiction Friday.

I have always been uncomfortable in my own skin. Maybe it is because my self-concept is blurred by my image of the average human, which I don’t match. I am cautious and seldom risk my neck. I have pretty much gone through life without a scratch, but I don’t deny myself an occasional illegal smile.

Three Word Wednesday - delayed, edge, focus - 5/21/08

Both of you who regularly read my blog know that I grew up in northern Idaho. At the same time a friend of mine, of about the same age, was growing up in North Carolina. The south was dealing with integration, desegregation, civil rights demonstrations, and violence generated by racism. I saw accounts of it on the television, but as with a lot of things that did not directly affect me, I basically ignored it. It was another world.

The only diversity that I was confronted was that some of my classmates had brown eyes. I noticed that in the 2000 census, Idaho was down to only 95 per cent white. A regular melting pot, we were (that sounded like Yoda). Oh, we had some Native American and Mexican students, but we really didn’t notice. The darkest skinned kid among us was Paul Richter. His photo is here. Though he had a very vile ethnic nickname (which I will not reveal here), he used his number 2 pencil to shade in the “white” circle on his SATs.

Most of us were third or fourth generation European immigrants with names like Dorendorf, Rinaldi, Birchmeier, McCoy, Burkhart, Blickensderfer (I think that is German for beautiful), VanHoose, Eixenberger, Wainright, Jasberg, Arnhold, and Schonewald. Our parents worked in the mines and forests.

My friend remembers white-only bathrooms and water fountains. Black people could not eat in restaurants, (my friend lived very near the Greensboro Woolworth sit in http://americanhistory.si.edu/Brown/history/6-legacy/freedom-struggle-2.html), were herded into the balconies of movie theaters, were banned from public swimming pools, and had to enter through the back door of businesses they were allowed into. I cannot relate to this. It seems impossible to me to fathom. Isn’t this America? Instead of worrying about the effect of the Berlin Wall, perhaps Eisenhower and Kennedy (Ich bin ein RACIST) should have looked at the apartheid in this country. Oh, that's right, blacks did not have the right to vote in the elections of either of these presidents. You do the math. But I digress.












I have since come to understand a bit more of what the south went through, particularly as it deals with education. During the hundred years of segregation following the civil war, each school district had to fund two separate schools. One black and one white. Since the south was very poor, that meant two underfunded and ineffective schools. Unfortunately for the black students, what scant funding there was ended up mostly in the white schools. Education was not paramount as about the only employment available was in textile mills and agriculture. One did not need to know the Pythagorean Theorem to prepare for a life of picking cotton or tobacco or making bedspreads.

In 1965, the schools were integrated and the black schools were closed. (Even though Brown vs The Board of Education, banning segregation, became law in 1954, its implementation was delayed in the south)

When the students were combined, it was found that the black students, through no fault of their own, were behind the white students. As a result, at least in my friend’s school, there was a distinct dumbing down of the white students to allow black students to catch up. The black students were pushed through with their age group. Students graduated with my friend that could not even read, let alone read at grade-level. The sons of wealthy white families had the alternative of private military school. But the girls, such as my friend, had no options.

My friend received a substandard education in North Carolina, while in Idaho I had the opportunity for a well-rounded and comprehensive education. I had some great teachers and facilities. Though through my own inattentiveness and fragmented focus I did not take full advantage of what was afforded me, I learned a lot by osmosis. If you throw enough paint at a canvas, you will eventually get a painting.

My friend is very intelligent but largely uneducated. As a result, she thinks of herself as dumb and lacks confidence. It greatly saddens me. She was a canvas that was never painted on. Of course, the upside is she mistakenly thinks I am smart. Who would have guessed that growing up in the wilds of Northern Idaho would give me an academic edge over anyone?

Three Word Wednesday - Empty, Highway, Ignored - 4/30/08

It was a dark, moonless, Wyoming night. He was driving US Hwy 20/26 from Casper to Riverton. It was 120 miles with virtually nothing in-between except empty highway and abundant wildlife.

He hated making this drive this late at night but the urgency could not be ignored. It was one of the loneliest stretches of highway he had ever driven. He was tired and the road stretched before him was very hypnotic.

He was glad that he was the driver and not a passenger along this route. A passenger endures the horror of seeing the glowing eyes of animals, both large and small, which line the highway and might at any time dart out into the headlight beams of an oncoming vehicle. The driver, due to his concentration, is spared from these visions. Heaps of road kill littered the roadway. The suicidal night creatures had not learned from the demise of their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and mothers and fathers.

He considered the parallel of this to a human drug addict.

His thoughts returning to humans reminded him of the precious cargo on the seat next to him. He increased his speed and his focus.