Downhill From Here

FFfAW week 83 photo prompt (c) Joy Pixley 

Are we there yet?

Shush. We’re not even close.

No idea how long I’ve been going, it seems like forever already. And there’s no end in sight. All I can see looking down is darkness. I don’t want to turn around, I bet all I’ll see in that direction is darkness, too. Endless black, matching my mood.

Why am I here again?

Getting paid. I suppose we like money.

Oh yes, I like money. Keep thinking of payday. Keep going.

Do we like money that much, though?

Shush.

I wonder if I’ll ever reach the bright future they promised me.

bad times for writers of dystopia

what you make up
today

turns into reality
tomorrow

Ennui (Love Nudge)

photo by Henry McIntosh 

New flat; new (old) relationship status; promotion (the children live with your ex, there’s no need for you anymore to be home by dinner time); the upcoming trial of the other guy (which should end in a conviction because since you went to the police with the stalker photos he’d taken of the children, other women have come forward and testified to similar threats – this validates your decision to not be blackmailed into submission, even though you paid a high price for it).

And as of today, you’re on Tinder.

Excitement galore,
But be honest: you yearn for
Familiar ennui.

Uprooted

Sunflowers at Surrey Docks Farm – (c) Sonya, 2011

When I grow up, I want to be a sunflower. I want to stand in one place and turn my face with the sun. I want to be tall and bright and make people smile.

Dad says sunflowers will have a better chance than us. But by the time I’ve grown up, even they may need too much water. And they don’t actually turn with the sun. Cacti grows tall, he says. I’ll get to see them soon as we’ll move again and this time, it’ll be the desert.

Cactus, sunflower – I’ll take it, as long as it has roots.

***

It’s one of my pictures for FFfAW 50 – one I’d forgotten about. I love sunflowers and I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s stories.

All Star Mum

photo via Public Domain Images 

I remember the day I chucked my Chucks.

They had holes in the soles, the fabric’d worn so thin they should have fallen apart. Neither made me want to part with them.

It took Mum to come into my room and put her foot down.

‘Enough is enough,’ she said, ‘those shoes of yours are a disgrace.’

‘You don’t understand what they mean to me – they’re part of my identity.’

Mum smiled.

‘I understand better than you think. Let me show you something.’

In a box in the attic, her own Chucks, worn to pieces, lovingly wrapped in tissue paper.

***

What, it’s already week 4 of FFfPP? How time flies…

All the Wrong Weddings

photo by Josh Felise 

‘Any news?’

Mum pours tea and shoves a plate of biscuits my way. She reckons Coeliac disease is a fad.

‘I’ve landed the celebrity wedding of the decade. I’m working crazy hours, but it’s worth it. They’re spending more on flower arrangements than I’ve spent on my new car.’

Mum tuts – not the news she’s waiting for.

I’ve run my own, thriving business for a decade. But I’m 36. I’ve neither husband nor children. In her eyes, I’m planning all the wrong weddings.

I’ve stopped listening to her long ago. I hope Dad’s back soon so we can talk business.

***

Inspired by this week’s In Other Words: Remember no one can…

Faked It

photo by Krista Mangulsone

The video is so pixelated it’s impossible to tell if this is us or not. I know it isn’t. Fake me’s voice might fool everyone else, it’s not fooling me.

Like everybody, I loathe the sound of my own voice. I hate film premieres when I’m forced to sit through my latest blockbuster and pretend I enjoy it.

Whoever’s behind the tape, they know about the affair. Still, these are actors playing other actors in a sterile hotel room. They’re not us. Her voice doesn’t grate on me like my own does.

I smile at the journo.

‘It’s a fake.’

***

This is one of these stories I suspect may be too long to fit into 100 words. What do you think?

Out of the Picture

(c) Louise Bunting 

I’ve been wandering the beach by myself for hours, the sky overhead mirroring my gloomy mood. Dunno what made me look up but I’m glad I did. I’d have missed how the sunset lights up the houses otherwise. Stroke of luck, I suppose.

I’ve been walking to clear my head. I think I did but I don’t like these new thoughts that have popped up.

Then again, Tim and I’ve been going on holiday together for a decade. Isn’t it telling that I finally take a photo worth writing home about with the two of us out of the picture?

***

Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers week 49 – it must be Tuesday. Join in and/or read all stories here.

Oh, and before I forget again, my third Mslexia guest post has been up for a few days.

Local Attraction

(c) Barbara Beacham for MFtS 13 Oct 2014

The people waved at him from the bridge below.

He was a lurker, they weren’t supposed to see him. But it’d been so long since anyone had reacted to his presence, he couldn’t help but wave back. The children smiled and hollered at him.

From that day on, he lurked closer to at the edge of visibility. At first, most hikers didn’t notice. But soon word spread.

He has become an attraction in his own right and he never disappoints his audience. At the first sign of a hand raised in greeting, the waving ghost of the creek fades into view and responds. He’s the local tourist office’s dream.

***

It’s been a while since my first MFtS catch-up story, hasn’t it? It didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I’m writing with a massive headache today and that never leads to noteworthy prose.

Drunk Late Night Texting

photo by Steve Buissinne 

I know texting you is a violation of the injunction, but I am almost literally on fire. I’m sitting in the bathtub, breathing through a wet washcloth. I called 999; I don’t think they’ll make it in time.

I never apologised. I wonder if I’d apologised, we’d be in this mess. I would still have hit you, though. I wish I hadn’t hit you. You should see me now – anger management has turned me into a new man. I wish you could have seen him.

So, I’m only texting to tell you that you’ve nothing to fear from me anymore.