Fridays On My Mind

I've gone and put 50 selected Friday Fictioneers stories as a kindle e-book, Fridays On My Mind.   I find the 100 word format enjoyable and challenging and hopefully readers will enjoy this tiny edition of selected stories. 

The Knitting Sutra

Copyright Björn Rudberg

It was the winter of our discontent.  The stage was set earlier in the heat of the summer when we decided that it would be a great idea to relocate to the hills.  After all what could go wrong in the rejuvenating mountain air? If nothing it would give our flagging relationship the boost it needed.

So I ask you this, have you ever stayed inside a one-bedroom cottage with a snowstorm raging outside and cut off from rest of the town, while repairing a relationship?

 Knitting helps avoiding eye contact.  Knit one purl one, snow melts and I’m done.

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

To find out what the other writers have been knitting this week click here

I've gone and put 50 selected Friday Fictioneers stories as a kindle e-book, Fridays On My Mind.    My main reason for doing this was to provide some motivation to me to write longer stories.  Doing Friday Fictioneers over the years has rekindled that spark in me which I thought I had lost.   It made me write and submit short stories to other websites that got accepted and published.  The 100 word format is making me craft my stories better (or so I like to think) and hopefully this might just be the start of the writing journey that I seek.

Moth to a Flame

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

My late friend was drawn to a life of crime like a moth to a flame.  It started with money missing from bags in school.  Suspicion fell on a small group from the poorer part of town that were intensely interrogated.  My wealthy friend was never a suspect.

He only came forward after students were suspended.  Whether motivated by an altruistic desire or the chance to be famous, we never knew as he dropped out of school.

He stopped meeting us and hung out in a gang.  He was dead before his twenty-first birthday, shot during an armed bank robbery.

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

To read other stories from this week click here

Sometimes you feel a bit dissatisfied with your submission and today seems to be one of these days.
So as a result I am also attempting a translation of Allama Iqbal's poem "Shama-O-Parwana"

Moth And Lamp

Oh lamp why does the moth love you so?

Why does it sacrifice it's restless life for you?

Like quicksilver it adapts your style.
Have you taught it the etiquettes of love?

It circles around your lustre.

Does it burn in the flash of your sight?

Does it find peace in the throes of death?
Do your embers grant it eternal life?

Had your lustre not been in the world’s house of woe

This tree of grieving heart would not have been green.

Moth sinks before you making its prayer,
Tiny heart beating with passion keen.

It has the passion of desire as in the days of yore
You are the small mountain of fire, the moth the prophet

The moth with it's appreciation of the flame
A tiny worm desiring light!

Ice Maiden

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

My uncle lived in what our family knew as the fickle weather zone.  He could never figure out when the season would change during the course of a day.

It would fluctuate from being warm and friendly one moment to cold and frosty the next.

My aunt was a stunning lady and yet her moods changed in a flash.  My uncle once reminisced that as soon as he felt the change he took immediate precautions when the fragrance of a rose give way to a prickly thorny bush.

He never left her. Weathering all storms with love, trust, and medication.

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

Back home after a month and have to put a story in after missing a few again.  To read other stories from this week click here

Also seeing the coolest 75 year old dude on the planet tonight (In a concert not personally).  So why not end with a song by Paul McCartney

Rain into a paper cup

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The house was a mess.  What started out as a fix for the seepage spiralled out into a complete restoration project.   The walls scraped and plaster pounded out.  Water pipes replaced and the home rewired.  Rooms painted, furniture polished and then the cleanup.

Cleaning the dust laden house I came across my mother’s notebooks.  As I opened them her handwriting jumped out of the pages.  Engrossed I read as words raced from one page to another, covering philosophy, religion and literature encompassing poems, essays and translations.  To read her quoting Buddha and Thoreau was like being in her company again.

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

Returning to Fictioneers after supervising an unexpected restoration project.  This indeed was what occurred today. While cleaning up I found my mother's notebooks.  She used these to write on whatever topic was close to her heart at that time.  She wrote at frantic pace putting to paper the many thoughts that were overflowing in her mind, covering page after page till there was no more space left to write.
The words that I found in her notebook came from Atmashatkam mantra

mano buddhi ahankara chittani naaham na cha shrotravjihve na cha ghraana netre na cha vyoma bhumir na tejo na vaayuhu chidananda rupah shivoʼham shivoʼham

I am not the mind, the intellect, the ego or the memory, 

I am not the ears, the skin, the nose or the eyes,
I am not space, not earth, not fire, water or wind,
I am the expression of consciousness and bliss,
I am the eternal Shiva...

The title of my flash this week is a nod to lyrics from Across the Universe (for those of you playing at home).

To go through the closet and find other other stories from this week click here

Under the Tree

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

I know every inch of the tree at the bottom of the backyard. As a child I climbed it’s wind-beaten, gnarly limbs a countless times. My imagination giving it countless shapes but mostly it was a refuge from my parents warring inside the house.

My mother’s disappearance made headlines across the state.  The investigators questioned me but I told them to ask the tree.  The child is traumatised they told my father and left.  

The house filled up with our silence. I would tell the tree my secrets and let my words mingle with the susurration of the leaves.  

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

Back again to the Fictioneer's fold after some time away.

To branch out and read the other stories this week click here

Golden Boot

PHOTO PROMPT © Sarah Potter

Jamal lies on his bed his eyes dart towards the door willing it to open.  The room is sparse, stripped of the valuables over the years but the TV still remains.  Kabul hosts a soccer match tonight and his eyes light up at the thought.

Jamal loved soccer.  Every holiday he would sneak out in the morning to the dust bowl near his home and play.  Until the day they played on another ground and he stepped on the green butterfly.

Today Abba will take him to get a Jaipur leg fitted. The doctors say soccer is a possibility.

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

Afghanistan is one of the most mined countries in the world with estimates of up to 640,000 land mines laid since 1979. More than three decades of conflict have also left the country littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO). As a result, over 23,500 casualties were recorded between 1979 and 2015.

The title of the story Golden boot is a soccer reference of the award given to the top goal scorer.

I wrote this story on the way from from Brisbane to Sydney. Actually finished midway on the Pacific Highway while passing Kempsey.  And not while driving for those who want to know.  A father and his daughter are on this road trip and I trust my driver enough to take my eyes of the road (and speedometer) to write my blog.

Note: Edited to making the setting of the story more obvious.

I still need support for my entry in the Indian Blogger Awards 2017 run by Indiblogger. This is the last week to get votes.  Please vote for me by commenting on my entry page here.

To read the other stories with sole this week click here

Loaf is in the Air

 

PHOTO PROMPT © Kelvin M. Knight

“Bread? You want to write a story about bread?  Are you running out of dough?”

I knew that was coming.  

“It’s for my weekly fiction write.  I don’t knead to give you any explanations.”

“So it’s naan of my business then?”

“Cut the crepe, I asked because I value your opinion.”

“Really? Cos your response was a bit crusty.”

I should have walked away but I was on a roll now.

“We could go on for flours but I need ideas.”

“Deflecting, now that is a bread herring.”

“Use that rye sense of humour of yours and stop loafing around.”

**

Written for Friday Fictioneers Word Count : 100.

I know, I know you are all reading this and going "crumb again?". Some of you probably want to bánh mì from writing again but it was getting really late and I wanted put an entry in, even an half-baked one.

I still need support for my entry in the Indian Blogger Awards 2017 run by Indiblogger. Please vote for me by commenting on my entry page here.

To read the other freshly baked stories this week click here

And if you are still crusty here is a peace offering by Bread