No Escape

Below you will find my 100-word (actually, 99-word) response to this week's Flash Friday Fiction, brought to us as usual by MadisonWoods. You can visit her site and read all the other stories at http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/pathways/

No Escape

We call them “wasps”. This is because of the low buzz that drones from their bodies, but they are much worse than an irritating insect. When they sting, they almost always destroy more than one house or car. They circle endlessly over our mud-walled huts, using electronic and infrared devices to seek out those whom someone has identified as a “terrorist” for small sums of silver. If we use the old pathways through the forest, we can sometimes travel without detection, but that is getting harder to do. No one is safe. How can we fight a non-human enemy.

The Heist

This week's 100-word Friday Fictioneer prompt can be found at
http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/vertigo/

The Heist

Sirens wailed in pursuit as he raced through the streets, tires screaming in protest at his haste because he had never expected Agents to be waiting for him, but it didn’t take long to lose them and soon he pulled into The Park and, snatching the precious valise and slinging it over his shoulder, he leapt from the car and sprinted to the ball field searching for the rope ladder he knew was waiting to take him away, but when he finally reached the hatch his heart stopped because something was horribly wrong.

This wasn't the MetLife blimp he had ordered!

Desolation

http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/desolation/
This week's 100-word Friday Flash Fiction
Photo credit belongs to Douglas McIlroy
(Actually, I wrote two this week, and both are one hundred words ... I guess I liked the prompt)

In The Lab

He straightened his tie, brushing stray wisps of fluff from his lab coat. He hated the fact he always had to tinker with the models at the last minute to make them work correctly. Damn! Someday, Federation funding would be adequate so he could do things right, instead of improvising. But there was no more time for whining. They were here, silently filing into the Observation Quarters. He cleared his throat against the deafening silence. "Gentlemen. We believe this is how tectonics work on this Blue Planet." He pressed the small button on his console, and gears began to grind.

Omens

Perhaps they should have heeded the omen on the desolate mountain pass before descending into the land of whiteskins. Altan shivered at the quiet. It was wrong. Their ponies shied at a rattling wind as they rode through fields grown wild from neglect. Shriveled fruit hung from branches. No tracks or prints marked the unkempt road. They crossed an empty bridge, coming upon clusters of wooden huts. No fires. No lights. The dark land was empty. Then, the crumbling ruins of a village. Human bones littered the ground near the largest stone building.

They must have come here to die.

It's In The Genes

May 24, 2012 Flash Friday Fictioner 100-word story from Madison Woods prompt at http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/moths-at-the-drive-through/

It's In The Genes

“Here we are!”

“What’ya mean? That sign says MacDonalds!”

“You sure? … I thought it said Monsanto.”

“Wishful thinking doesn’t bring us home.”

“Ok, Mr. braniac, what’s ‘MacDonalds’?”

“It’s like that Mobil station where we stopped last, only this place is for people too lazy to prepare their own meals to line up and get meat, not gas. I knew I shouldn’t trust you. Dark ones just can’t seem to learn to read”

“Are you saying I’m lazy?”

“No, not laziness … just a question of genetics. Aw heck … since we’re here, we might as well go inside and get some horsemeat.”

Rainbow Promises

Friday Fictioners 5/18/12
This story is written in response to the prompt found at http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/rainbows/

Jason stood arrogantly to the side. Phineas Barnum finished another mouthful of dove and grapes. Iris disappeared into the rainbow from whence she came, while Calais and Zetes hovered nearby. The rest of the crew lounged near the banquet table.

“Step right up, son,” Barnum finally bellowed. He added, “You seem trapped between twin dangers.”

“Literally and figuratively,” Jason muttered.

“Well, normally you wouldn’t leave before I found a silver lining in this crowd … but you did rid me of my harpies. Just take one of my doves and follow it closely between the rocks … you probably will get through.”

“Isn’t there an easier way to Georgia?”

Changes

Friday Fictioneers 5/11/12
This story is written in response to this week's photograph at http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/moon-and-sky/

Changes

Lying alongside her in the dry grass washed away his fears like the rain that was sure to fall tomorrow would rinse an entire summer’s arid dust from the leaves of his crops. That golden halo augured reprise from a drought that threatened his and everyone’s harvest. The moonlight danced on her face, radiating hope and courage and satisfaction. It had been eight years, to the day, that he had lost his beloved Sasha in the flash flood. Work had become his lifeblood. He had avoided others, erecting a barren cocoon of isolation. Until now.

Tears welled. He softly cried.

Scratching

100-word Flash Fiction: FridayFictioneers
A story inspired by this photo provided by Madison Woods.

Scratching

Dawn looked up, pensively. "What's that noise?"

Keith muted the TV. "Sounds like something scratching inside that wall."

"A mouse?"

"Too big. Listen! There are thumps, too!"

"Keith, should we call someone?"

"No. I'll open it and see what's inside."

Keith started carefully. Five years ago, he had repapered it himself, hoping to take Dawn's mind off the loss of their daughter. Soon, he worked more feverishly. The scratching slowed.

Finally, he had demolished most of the drywall and could see inside.

"It's Trina!"

"How can that be?"

"I don't know. But she hasn't changed a bit in five years!"

Wrangler

(This week's photo prompt for http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/barbed-wire-and-bulls/ ...)

Two efforts this time (to make up for being gone last week)

Wrangler

Leather gloves fit comfortably over his roughened and calloused hands. His chest and shoulder muscles rippled effortlessly under a loose-fitting denim shirt as he pulled the last strand of barbed wire taut. Only a thin bead of sweat dripping from the headband of his white Stetson suggested that the afternoon sun was taking a toll. Effortlessly he hung the coil of wire over the fence post, and stepped back. He had easily capped one entire side of the Enclosure with wire. Natives now would have as much trouble getting out as Settlers would have in getting in to get them.

Something's Coming

He believed it was a sign of Bad Times coming, but no one else agreed. Each morning, or maybe every third morning, he thought there was a new stretch of fencing in place. The coil of barbed wire was always looped over the last fence post. Just as it had been the previous morning. Except it was a new fence post, and the wire extended ten feet further than it had before. No one else seemed to notice. Maybe the orange water or the bread shortages concerned them more. But something bad was coming. Of that he was very sure.

Reaping The Harvest

(4/20/12 photo prompt for Madison Woods Friday Fictioneers ...)

Predictable. It's simply a question of selecting the proper seed. Just as we'll never bear the fruit of love by sowing fear and mistrust, so too will we never savor full and luscious flavors by using artificial fertilizers to speed the growing process. The trap must be carefully set.

This one fits the bill.

Wet moss and damp mud stimulates their enhanced sense of smell. An addictive craving for water draws them like bees to nectar. The drip must be slow to hold them still and in one place. Once they're relaxed, the net falls silently, and they are ours.

Sitting In The Sun

(This week’s photo prompt for Madison Woods Friday Fictioneers ...)

"Kristen, how well do you remember your mother?"

"Not much, Dad. Why?"

"Just wonder sometimes. Your mom and I used to sit on this bench."

"You did? Is that why we're here?"

"I think so. I haven't been here in a long time."

"What was it like?"

"It was fast. There wasn't time to think. Too many questions, so much uncertainty, so hard to commit. Things slowed here, for a while. But sooner or later, we always had to go back through that tunnel."

"Was it worth it?"

"Absolutely. Look where it got me! Sitting in the sun with you."

Sunrise at War Eagle Creek

The sun peaked through the morning mist over War Eagle Creek, like it had every day for thousands of years. A yearning but melancholy silence was pierced briefly by a sharp and rattling cry from a kingfisher. One last drop of dew fell from a low hanging branch into the creek, casting a ripple that arced outward, forever. Palpably frozen in time, a simple handful of soil embodied serenity.

Casually tossing the dirt over his shoulder, Jack hauled himself onto the backhoe. Its motor roared to life. He methodically spent the rest of the day knocking trees into the creek.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 30 of March

Yep, that’s my blue truck. Or, what’s left of it, anyway. It stopped running and Spotcheck was going to come up and help me get it started, but he left town and that was that. I then planned on using parts from it on the yellow truck I got next (I traded a roll of fiber optic cable, a sliding glass door, and a pallet of shingles for it), but the yellow truck stopped running, too. It’s over there, in the other field. By the Volkswagen and dune buggy. I just heard that Danny has a stake truck for sale.