Wish With Care

Pixabay

---

At the streamside among the stones the butterflies ascended to take a drink.  The occasional droplets splashed onto the bank provided enough to meet their meagre needs.  As they waited for the current to provide them with the next sip, a dragonfly circled and then then skimmed the waters surface to take a deep drink.

“Oh, I wish I could drink whenever I wanted,” Addie the smallest of the butterflies said.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Bia responded.

Just then a trout leapt from the water and devoured the hapless dragonfly.

“I see what you mean,” Addie gasped.

---

Padre

January 7 Flash Fiction Challenge:

Butterfly and stones in 99 words

The Victor

August de Richelieu at Pexels

---

Donny had never really taken life to seriously.  He had been the class clown in high school and coasted through college with an art degree which he admitted was based on work that was derivative at best, or just throwing colour randomly on canvas.  He got himself a job at a gallery by connections with a girl he had dated in college and lost it about as fast as he lost her.  So how could he now be standing in front of a cheering crowd as their mayor? He had only registered as a candidate as a drunken dare.

---

Padre

Flash Fiction Challenge: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about something a character never dreamed would happen.

Field Day (Chores)

Pixabay

---

“Okay Marines, liberty is scheduled to commence at 1100.  Unless this field day is finished, not a single one of you wastes of space is setting foot out of this barracks,” the sergeant snapped, before turning on his heel and heading back to his office.

“You heard him,” Corporal Chin said to his squad.  “Meissner and Reece empty those shit cans.  White and Cortez get this deck swabbed.  Doc, you and Smitty get the head swabbed.”

The head was a daunting proposition, but Hospitalman Davis used Navy ingenuity, finishing on time by overflowing the toilets to speed the mopping.

---

Padre

Flash Fiction Challenge: Chores

A sadly semi-autobiographical tale.

Dusty Wind: Double Ennead

Pixabay

---

Is that the dusty wind
that from West has blown?
From places turbulent and forlorn it comes.
My mood darkens as the
sky is thus obscured.

Dust, my dry nostrils fill.
Sand gets in my eyes.
So fine is the powder, that I cannot block
its bite, no matter how
I might dodge or try.

Lord, let this wind die down.
Let the sun return.
I would rather sweat and have a sunburned face,
than my mouth filled with sand.
Lord, it’s in your hand.

---

Padre

CARROT RODEO #2: DOUBLE ENNEAD SYLLABIC POETRY

‘is blown from the sky’ from “The Springtime Plains,” by Charles Badger Clark

Coffee

Pixabay

---

Coffee was one tough hombre.  Some said he’d more likely shoot you than look at you.  Three things set him apart from other gunslingers though.  The first was his refined English accent.  This feller could really talk pretty, and used the sort of three dollar words most folks weren’t too akin to.  The second was that he made one mighty fine cup of coffee, thus his moniker. But oddest trait of all was them there white kid gloves he always sported.  Who would have thought that the deadliest fast draw in the Dakota Territory used to be a butler?

Padre

October 8: Flash Fiction Challenge – kid gloves

Scorcher

Pixabay

---

It was a scorcher for sure, easily ninety degrees in the shade.  Too bad there weren’t no shade.  George Mason, took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a sleeve.  The dust clogged his throat despite the scarf he wrapped around his face. 

He had been doing scouting ahead of the train for about two hours or so, and the water holes were still an hour or so ahead of him.  The terrain looked tolerable enough, but he was concerned that the dust raised by the wagons behind him might call some unwanted attention to Captain Little’s train.

Padre

Carrot Ranch – Dusty Trail

 

Crowning Glory

 

Pixabay

Dora was the plainest maiden in all the kingdom.  Some even said that she was ugly.  It was precisely that fact that led to her retaining her virtue far beyond the time in which it was relinquished by her peers.

This purity, however, was also her crowning glory, for she could see and converse with unicorns.

“Oh, I wish I was as beautiful as you,” she said to Daisy, one day.

“And I wish I had your lovely voice,” the unicorn replied.

They were suddenly transformed, but Dora could tell no one – for she had become a little horse.

 

Padre

 

Flash Fiction Challenge

 

Common Land

Image by Marjon Besteman-Horn from Pixabay 

 

This wasn’t some Seuss Lorax or a Horton saving a clover.  No, this was the real deal, the council was trying to sell off the water meadow for development.  Had they considered the added run-off and flood risk? Of course not, they were trying to make a quick buck to balance the books.

Many were up in arms over it, as it was one of the few unspoiled places in the entire town, but it looked a done deal, especially when the words “affordable housing” were uttered.

That was until Mary Denning found the Medieval deed to the property.

 

Padre

 

Flash Fiction Challenge

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

 

 

The Recital

Image: Pexels

It had been four years since Dave and Reena had visited Reena’s sister, Tracy.  With things being slow in the shop, they thought that the invitation to their niece Carrie’s recital would be the perfect opportunity to catch up.

They arranged to meet at the concert venue, and Carrie was already backstage when they arrived.

Carrie made a spectacular solo performance.

As she stepped from behind her cello to take a bow, Reena said, “She has really blossomed.”

Dave whose gaze was firmly locked on the sixteen year old said, “She certainly has,” gaining him a well deserved slap.

 

Padre

 

Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction: Blossom