Flash Fiction Friday - The Bracelet

Flash Fiction - Five minutes of Frantic Writing!

Today's Prompt: She was speechless. This was the exact same bracelet he'd given her for Christmas last year.

She was speechless. This was the exact same bracelet he'd given her for Christmas last year.

Not that she didn't love it - she had loved it when he gave it to her a year ago, but the same present two years in a row?

Photo used by permission
of SomewhereInTyme

Kathy didn't want to start a fight on Christmas Eve. This was a running argument that neither of them ever won. It usually went something like this...

“Oh, thank you, honey.”

“You like it?”

“Of course.”

“No you don't. I can tell.”

“No, I really do, it's just that....”

And what would follow would be an attempt to tactfully explain why a three foot ceramic statue of an owl that he'd bought from a guy on a street corner wasn't exactly a gift that thrilled her heart. Or why a giant box of chocolates weren't a great Valentine's gift for a diabetic.

His goofy gifts proved that he just bought whatever struck his fancy...whatever was the easiest thing at the time, not that he ever gave any consideration to what she really liked or wanted, although she had dropped plenty of hints.

No, she wasn't going to let this happen this time. Instead of making a fuss, she thanked him, slipped the bracelet on her wrist and then pulled her gift for him from under the tree.

He opened it and said, “What the heck? You bought me a purse?”

“No, it's a “man bag”.

“Oh, thank you, honey.”

“You like it?”

“Of course.”

“No you don't. I can tell.”

“No, I really do, it's just that....”

(Copyright© 2010 Jan Christiansen. All rights reserved.)

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Would love to read your story using that prompt.  Just leave it in a comment.

Have a great weekend!

Flash Fiction Friday - The Dive

Today's prompt: The diver entered the hull of the ship through the gaping hole that had sank her.

I swept the murky seaweed aside and entered the hull of the ship through the gaping hole that had sank her.

She was the Sea Princess and she had gone down twenty years ago in the Caribbean, taking a crew of twenty and 117 guests with her – one was my father.

I had started looking for the wreck one week after the funeral and had spent the better part of those twenty years searching the ocean floor before I found it.

A school of fish looked at me curiously as they swam past. They were no more curious than I was. I wanted to find my father – to know what his last minutes were like. Did he go down with the ship or did he swim for hours before the sea took him? Did he think of me before he died?

In the inky blackness, I knew that my head-mounted light may be the only thing that would shed any light on the matter, but all that changed when I spotted the small, rusted metal box with my father's initials on it.

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(Copyright© 2010 Jan Christiansen. All rights reserved.)

Today's prompt was a hard for me.  I had to go back and work on this a bit after the 5 minutes were up, so I guess maybe that's cheating a bit.  (grin)

Flash Fiction Friday - 9/11

Our prompt for today was: Tim would never forget where he was when he heard planes had crashed into the Twin Towers.

Photo courtesy hisks,
rgbstock.com

Tim stared out the window at the New York skyline, nervously tapping his pen on the desk. Today was big. He was going to be presenting his ideas for the new ad campaign in just 15 minutes to all the company executives. He didn't know if he had ever been more scared in his life.

Suddenly the roar of a jet engine shook the building and Tim watched as it slammed into the other tower of the World Trade Center. He jumped to his feet, but stood paralyzed in place.

Sandy ran into his office and yanked him into action. They joined their co-workers heading for the stairwell and spent the next hour making their way to the ground floor, then tripped through the rubble strewn chaos toward safety.

Tim would always remember where he had been on the morning of 9/11.

(Let's never forget those who lost their lives, families who lost their loved ones and those who have given their lives fighting the war on terrorism. And let's never forget that no matter what tragedy we go through, God is with us.)

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(Copyright© 2010 Jan Christiansen. All rights reserved.)
 

Where were you on that fateful morning and how did you hear about the attack?

Flash Fiction Friday

Okay, so it's not Friday, but Flash Fiction Thursday doesn't sound as catchy!  I think I will make Flash Fiction a regular part of my Friday blog, though, so for once, I'm early, not late.

Flash Fiction is 5 minutes of timed writing.  I use it to get the creative juices flowing.  Here's today's exercise (with just a little editing).

Today's writing prompt: "Alice tried to remember who had given her the key."

Photo courtesy costiq,
rgbstock.com

Alice tried the door, but it was locked. Just one more thing that made her feel shut out of life.

Her parents died when she was 9 and she had been at the orphanage ever since. Then suddenly, last week, they had shipped her off to live with a distant relative in this big old house down south.

The only thing she had been brought with her was her clothes, sparse as they were and her childhood jewelry box, which had been locked up for the 3 years she had been at the orphanage.

She opened the box and fingered the skeleton key while the ballerina spun lopsidedly in place. The music had died a long time ago. How appropriate, thought Alice. She tried to remember who had given her the key, but no face came to mind.

The chances of it opening a locked door in a strange house were remote, but she gave it a try anyway. She was surprised to hear the click of the locking mechanism as she turned the key.

She pulled the creaky door open to reveal a rickety set of stairs leading upwards to an attic.

And....TIME'S UP!

(Copyright© 2010 Jan Christiansen. All rights reserved.)

I would love to read your Flash Fiction using the same prompt.  Just click on "comments" at the bottom of this post, set a timer for 5 minutes and write away.  You can clean it up just a little after the timer goes off, then click on "post comment" to share it with us.

Has anybody seen my muse?

I said I'd write and write I will
when I think of something to say
I tried last week, but words wouldn't come
I tried yesterday and today
Maybe tomorrow the words will flow
profound from the tip of my pen
In the meantime, I'll have to be content
with this pitiful poem instead.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe I haven't posted since the of November, 2009!

I was mid-way through Nanowrimo and writing my first novel, Vintage Roses the last time I posted.  I did go on to finish the novel, but still have to revise it and Nanowrimo is almost here again.  For this year's novel, I'm  planning to write a sequel to Vintage Roses.

In the meantime, I intend to get back to the daily process of writing, so look for more short stories, devotionals, flash fiction and poetry here soon (like, starting tomorrow)..

I am reminded of the quote that inspired this blog...

She fancied herself a writer, but she found that she had not engaged in "writer-like" behavior in weeks. You know, actually writing.