(Fiction) Friday -Bad news cures all things

This is my second week of playing along, when I first looked at these words my mind went blank, panic set in, I am never wordless! Within a few seconds I reverted back to my one-sided conversations - can't help myself, just love to write them, or maybe it is just all those one-sided conversations I have had with myself. No time to type quotations or anything. . .took me 6 or 7 minutes as it was. . . Draft, remember non-participants, just a draft. Now go out and write one yourself, it is pure freedom from all else in your lives.

Bad news cures all things. It does, I am living proof. Don't believe me? Ask John, he can tell you.

He does know. He witnessed what happened to me. I was limping around, my right foot was swollen.

Know, I don't know what I did to it. I just woke up with it swollen.

Bad circulation? No, I don't have bad circulation. Old people have bad circulation.

Funny, you are funny. I am not old, I am only. . . How old am I? Never mind, I know it is not old age.

Don't interrupt, I am trying to prove my point. So, I am limping horribly.

What do you mean I can't limp horribly? Of course, I can. I know how I limp. Quit interjecting.

It is not a big word for me. I know words like this: antidisestablishmentarianism.
I can even spell it, can you?

Thought not! So, anyway, I am limping around the house - horribly. Had to call in sick to work, couldn't have made it from the desk to the restroom and then out to the break room to get my coffee. I mean, I didn't want to get a cramp in my leg or a sharp pain in my hip trying to compensate. You know, walking weird to make up for it.

Weird? I am not weird. You're weird. Now, let me finish. So, Jacob called and said he couldn't come over this morning to help me clean out the drains. Of all times, when it is backed up with all that crap. And amazingly enough, at the thought of being home with all that crap overflowing into my house. My foot stopped swelling and I went out and played a round of golf. Bad things cured my foot. Just like I said.

Now, to your few crude people out of the millions of wonderful ones, copying is not nice, not acceptable, it is plain crap like that which was piling up at the fictional house. So don't. Thank you.

To find out more about (Fiction) Friday so you can join in the fun, click here! Everyone's brain needs to just free write it is, well, freeing.And what if five or six minutes out of your day if it 'frees you' from the drudgery around you for a few minutes. Why it may actually make a difference in how your day goes. Besides it will link you to all kinds of stories and poems based on the same first line and we don't all think alike, so it is no telling what you will find. I'm going to read them myself.

Of course, you could, first, quickly read about the woman who spends one hour and eighteen minutes cleaning men's floors, here!

3WW - Alley Jump

I am on a roll, not sure if it is good or bad, but I am having fun. Good old Bone posted three words today: stroke -- summer -- love. I looked at them and panicked. But this popped out of my blonde (with some gray) head. . . and how on earth I came up with this, I will never know, but it felt, for a moment like it was November and NaNoWriMo, I could have kept writing for hours. . . but, luckily for you, I didn't: And it is NOT a poem (obviously) and totally NOT true. I give you:

Alley Jump

This is my story and I'm sticking to it. Part 1

I was sitting in the back of Mac's shop, after hours, the window barely pushed open, with my tape recorder on to capture life in the alley after hours. After all, that is what writers do, isn't it? And I meant to make a name for myself quick! At 57 and then some, I needed to make up for lost time. Mac locked me in and left, told me he had no time for that bull, that he was going home to sleep. He gave me that look he gives me when I am about to do something he thinks is stupid. (You all know that look, I'm not the only one he gives it to.) So, I won't tell you about the other things I overheard in the hours before this. This is the story I like, so this is the one you are going to get. Yeah, it's between a gal and a dude.

"Stop doing stuff like that! I almost had a stroke!"

"Quit being such a wimp, it was just a joke."

"Scaring the heck out of someone in a dark alley is not a joke, Humphrey. I could have really had a heart attack."

"First, stop calling me Humphrey, I am not some stuffy old man that sits in a den filled with mildewed books all day whose skin has turned sallow with age and lack of sun and drink after drink." (He was after all 6' 2", with more muscle than the average man needed, but not so much to look gross.)

"Humphrey."

He ignored her word. "And anyone stupid enough to walk down an alley at this hour, deserves the heart attack, then maybe they would spend the recovery time in the hospital revisiting their brain."

"I had to get home."

"You didn't have to go to the pub anyway. You could have gone to the theatre with me."

"Oh yeah, me, go to the theatre with all the other stuffy old men, Humphrey? No, thanks. And you will notice, no one jumped out at me in this alley, except you, and you are supposed to be my friend."

"Just look over here, Ms. Priss. Here's why they didn't jump out at you."

She walked over to the garbage cans he was pointed at, straining to see in the dim light. She didn't hesitate to move one of the cans to see what was behind them, she was no woos. She had lived on her own for 5 years now.

Her initial reaction was deep bellied laughter. "Did you do this? Is that why your shirt is torn? And your hair so stupid looking?"

"Could you can with the stupid remarks?"

He held his right hand up so she could see it. Knuckles torn and bloody, one finger splayed at an unnatural angle, his wrist swollen.

"Had you gotten here first, it would have been you they jumped, in both senses of the word. Now, I'm hungry, let's go eat. I could use some of your scrambled eggs and toast. . . and maybe a jump, myself."


Hate was left behind in the alley for the cops or a drunk to find. After all, the summer night had just turned to a beautiful summer dawn. So, the first of many stories I've gotten on paper for you to read. Now, when is Mac going to show up and unlock this door. I could use some scrambled eggs and a jump myself, the loving kind.

MeeAugraphie
05/30/07

And please, I know one of you is shaking your head, but don't copy my words without permission. Thank you.

To find Bone and 3WW and the links to the other fun writers playing along, click here!

Flash Fiction Podcast: Left. . . but to be found

Note: this is the second flash fiction story I have attempted to write and the first I have spoken. You are witnessing my first attempt at storytelling. Critique if you wish, this is an experiment and I know it is rough, but I also know if I don't put it out there and learn from it - both the good and the bad, I will never get to the level I wish. So, here's your chance to help me learn and to say, "I helped her get started with this."

But if you just want to read, I hope you walk away with something from this: I hope you encourage someone you know to think before they act.

My 1:03 worth (minutes not hours!):

Gabcast! MeeAugraphie - Parenthetical and Otherwise #2 - Lost. . . but left to be found

Young woman with baby makes a hard decision.