Patriarch

 

“If your journey is of God then my blessing will be unnecessary,” the Patriarch explained to his son. “And if it is not of God, then my blessing will be useless.”

“But Father, I cannot go without your benediction.  That is the law.”

“Son, if I said that I thought the venture was foolhardy and unlikely to prosper – what would you have said?”

“I would have replied, that you could not possibly know and that I would prove your opinion wrong, and then I would ask for the required blessing.”

“And if I then said the formal words, but without a godly intent, or my heartfelt belief in your cause – what would you have done?” the old man asked.

“I would have knelt to receive my blessing, and then ran off to join my friends at the pier,” the son replied.

“Then, as I have said, my blessing would be truly useless.  Therefore, I shall not sully the sacred words by thus uttering them.”

The young man stared at his father in disbelief, and then shouted, “I hate you,” and ran off into the fields to feel sorry for his misfortune of having such a hateful father.

While the young man moped, his friends set sail to find their fortunes.  Later that day the tiny ship was caught up in a freak storm and was lost with all on board.

When word of the tragedy reached the village, the Patriarch turned his face heavenwards and said, “Thanks for the heads up.”

 

Padre

 

Tale Weaver – #284 – Blessing

 

Image: FreeBibleImages

 

 

 

The Dragon Hunter Part 4

Pixabay

As Wilfred entered the flickering glow, he discovered that the passage was lined with an assortment of high quality, state of the art armour.  There was no coherent pattern as far as he could detect.  There seemed to be Nordlanic, Ralulee, and Kingdom styles, yet each bore the rearing dragon sigel of Hanon.  As he slowly passed these, there was an  occasional roar, as if a great burst of breath was being released.  These bursts echoed through the cavern.  Each of them was accompanied by a momentary increase in the brightness of the passage.  At the last of these, he noted a bunk wedged in among the racks of armour and weapons.  On the bunk rested the other sentry, a blindfold of sorts shielding his eyes from the periodic flashes of scarlet light, as he slumbered.

Wilfred wasted no time, but quickly repeated the procedure whereby he had captured the other guard.  The man thus incapacitated, Wilfred rounded a bend in the tunnel towards the sound of the incessant metallic pounding.

What he discovered was a group of Dwarves working a huge set of bellows and working anvils on which they were affixing dragon crests to armour, or replicating weapons in the styles of those Wilfred had seen in racks.

“Who are you, Boy?” one burly Dwarf snapped, “and where are the guards?”

“Guards?” Wilfred repeated.  It was only then that he noticed that the Dwarves were shackled.  “I – I um – tied them up.”

“Well then what are you wait’n for?” the lead Dwarf challenged.  “Come and unlock us.”

“But, I don’t have a key,” Wilfred replied.  “Why don’t you just use your tools to break out?”

“Why don’t you just use your tools?” the Dwarf mocked.  “Why didn’t we think a-that? Becuz the chains is bleed’n magic ain’t they?” the Dwarf spat.  “Why don’t you go and fetch the bloody key?” the Dwarf said coldly.

Wilfred hurried back to the bunk, and there on a hook was a key with mysterious runes on it.  He went back to the Dwarves, and held it up.

“Yes -yes.  That’s it,” the lead Dwarf said, “So get on with it.”

“First, tell me where the dragon is,” Wilfred insisted.

“There ain’t no bleed’n dragon, you dunce,” the Dwarf responded.  “It’s all a ruze. A ploy.  Them Hannies made up the bloom’n dragon caper so they could steal the armour and weapons to equip their army.  This place ain’t got no iron to speak of, and no good smitties that’s for certain. So they lure heroes ‘ere and ambush ’em.  That’s how they got me and the lads as well.  But they kept us alive to do their dirty work.  The rest they strip, then toss in the furnace – just long enough to char them – mind.  Then they take the bodies back to the border to build up their dragon yarn.  Now, about the bloom’n key.”

“I will let you go, but I need you to do something for me first,” Wilfred said.

“And what might that be?” the lead Dwarf asked with a huff.

“I want you to make me a dragon’s head.”

 

Padre

 

Rewriting History

CCC #88

It had long been believed that the extinction of the dinosaurs had been the direct result of a meteor strike in the Caribbean.  Though no one at NASA or NOAA had ever acknowledged the fact, a deep ocean scan in the 1960s had discovered that rather than a large meteor, the object that struck was in fact a large spacecraft which hit at a much lower velocity that originally believed.  This craft had been examined by a joint American and French team with recovery operations led by Jacque Cousteau.  Much had been learned, but the cause of the crash had never been adequately explained until an amateur photographer in the English county of Norfolk happened onto a huge nut, of an unidentified alloy, along the coastline.  The mystery had been solved.  Official explanations for her discovery, however, have been covered up under the Official Secrets Act, and buried within a series of photo-prompted sketches on a popular blogging site.

 

 

CCC #88

 

Padre

High and Dry

Google Hub Photo Frame

Extinction took a different connotation during the third peak of Covid 19.  Lock-down was accompanied by “shoot to kill” orders for violators.  Extinction, with this new mutated form, was something that even Right Wing deniers had to accept.

Extinction took a different connotation; Extinction Rebellion was all but a footnote.  Lock-down led to work from home orders.  Long nights of lights burning, and the constant demand on the internet raised electricity demand three-fold.  In order to cope, governments recommissioned coal fed plants.

Extinction took a different connotation, in light of the power drains and the thawing of the last of the Ross Ice Shelf, as well as the ice from, the now green, Greenland.  David ignored the last stay at home order and grabbed Barbara and the kids and made his way the the High Sierras.

Extinction was far from David’s mind as he stepped from his little cabin at New Sierra.  He took Barbara’s hand and they gazed into the Pacific sunset outside their home.  Tomorrow at low-tide, they would picnic on the beach.

 

Padre

 

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #74

 

 

The Arrangement

Pixabay

 

Monreal plopped down on the straw-filled mattress raising a cloud of dust that made his eyes water.  Fighting back a sneeze, he fished the stub of a pencil and some scraps of paper from inside an old boot which served as his pillow.  Monreal Dorb, one time lawyer and now convict, began to scribble blank verse onto a scrap.  The arrangement was simple, Monreal would write a poem and the guard would claim the verse as his own, and the accompanying profits.  In exchange Dorb received more paper.  Little did the guard know that these verses contained coded messages.

 

Padre

 

Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge: Monreal Dorb

 

 

Up-Cycling

MorgueFile April2020 de7d4bbd9d9bd75223d4b1456286f256

“It looks like it’s had better days,” Deidre said as she looked at the peeling paintwork.

“It don’t look much, but I assure you the timber’s sound,” the old fisherman said.  “Been storin’ my nets and tackle her for right near fordy years.  Only selling-up cuz I’m retirin’.”

“Only 1200, you said?” Deidre asked.

“Yessum, and twenty a month for wharf access if you’re wantin’ it.”

“Okay, when can have your nets and things out?” she asked the old fellow.

“Well all the best tackles been sold already,” he replied.  “What’s left goes with the hut.”

Deidre looked at the assortment of net fragments, old floats, and a well rusted boat anchor, and said, ” Okay. It’s a deal.  My lawyer just wants you to write 1200 here,” she said pointing to a place on a crisp contract, “and sign here and here.”

Thus Deidre acquired the Bayside Studio for Maritime Art.  A few licks of varnish over the peeling paint was all it took to capture the rustic appeal. As for those odds and ends inside they quickly were incorporated into her first commission for an up-market couple from Boston, who said it was “Just perfect to remember their romantic seaside getaway.”

(200 words)

Padre

 

FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFUL PRACTITIONER

 

 

Lucky Shirt

Pixabay

“Bubba, didn’t you wear that same shirt yesterday?” Colleen challenged.

“And the day before,” Drew added for effect.

He merely replied, “Yep.”

Henry “Bubba” Tate was one of the most talented “hunters” and collectors of Native American artifact in the state.  He had uncanny eye.  He could follow behind a group of fellow hunters and still pull several pottery fragments or projectile points from a creek bed that had been missed.  At nineteen, he had already out-shined hunters twice his age.

“Bubba why don’t you change that darned shirt?  It’s getting embarrassing to say your my brother,” Colleen said curtly.

“I can’t go after arrowheads in some other shirt!  This is my chert shirt, it’s like an artifact magnet,”  Bubba retorted.

“Can’t argue with logic like that,” Colleen’s boyfriend Drew said as he put on his seeker’s sneakers.

 

Padre

 

Tale Weaver – #283 – Shirt

 

 

Daylight

Tatyana-Sanina at DeviantArt.com

Miranda awoke in a dark corner of the subway passage.  She knew she had drank too much last night, but that wasn’t unusual for a Friday night.  But she had never not managed to get home before, or at least to her friend Caren’s.

Okay, what could she remember?  Caren went off with that stock-broker type.  And then – and then there was the hot guy with the wavy hair.  Bryan – no Ryan, that was it.  They drank, and danced, and then drank.  Wait, he got that third round from the bar by himself.  Had he drugged her? she wondered.  She instinctively reached down to check her panties. Well that was a relief.  Her neck was a bit sore though.  Was he that juvenile to give her a hickey love bite? Anyway, she would look at it in the mirror when she got home.

As she headed to the stairway, she had a instinctive terror.  She stopped unable to step any closed to the sunlight streaming down the stairs.  What was going on?  Why did she “know” she couldn’t step into the light?

Padre

 

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #73

Blame

Pixabay

The public had stumbled along as if asleep.  It was almost as if the land had returned to an age of bread and circuses.  The Vox Populi was all about personal rights and privileges, yet not a single word was uttered about responsibilities.

It began in a way so imperceptible that almost no one ever saw it coming.  Never would they have perceived that rejecting the ardent cries of the oppressed would lead to their own freedoms fading.

Nor could they have imagined that the meteoric rise of a charismatic leader, and yet one who had no experience in the field of governance, would have such eerie consequences for so many.

How could this happen in such a place as this – one of the world’s leading liberal democracies?  Who in the end deserved the blame, when the nation descended into the blood orange oblivion of their own making –  the leader they adored, or they themselves?

 

Padre

 

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

                                                                                                                     Pastor Martin Niemöller

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle:

Vox Populi– the voice of the people; popular opinion.
Asleep
Fade
Stumble
Reject
Field
Meteor
Eerie
Never
Blood Orange
Blame
Place

Sorter

Pixabay

Jan De Vries had been a gem sorter for his entire adult life.  In fact, August would mark his thirtieth year in the trade.

It had been a rather run-of-the-mill day at the Exchange when the new hire, Daan Van de Walle called to attract his attention.

“Meneer De Vries, I think you should see this,” the young man said with air of excitement.

“What is it now?” the master sorter asked dismissively.

When he reached Van de Walle’s table, the apprentice handed him a stone.  Jan put his glass into his eye and scanned the gem.  “Yes, it is a flaw,” he announced.

“Yes Sir, it is, but please look closer,” Daan said as he handed him a magnifying glass.

In nearly three decades, De Vries had never heard of such a thing, much less witness it.  But it was irrefutable.  There before him was a discovery that would change our understanding of the world. There encased in the stone was a tiny channel and in the channel was an even smaller ladder.

 

Padre

 

Maybe Horton was right!

 

Sunday Photo Fiction