Home » Writing Prompt (Page 4)
SATURDAY 14th NOVEMBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/author/sammicoxwriter/
LEGAL LEFTOVERS
by John Yeo
The relationship was a triangle
When the tycoon finally died.
Lawyers, his wife, and his secretary
Were involved in an ongoing wrangle
Eventually the money was spent
There was nothing left to untangle.
(33 WORDS)
TUESDAY 10th OCTOBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
FIRST LINE PROMPT ~ Bacon sandwiches always reminded her….
SHOCK LIFESTYLE CHANGE
by John Yeo
Bacon sandwiches always reminded her of the time she spent visiting a smallholding in the depths of rural Wales. Philip Jones was a hard worker on his land and managed to come close to self sufficiency in food.
My college roommate Patsy, his only daughter, would always extend an invitation to spend time with her family on this beautiful smallholding. Patsy was a tall girl, with long red hair and freckles all over her face and arms. We have always been inseparable friends.
Patsy stopped me in the quad one beautiful spring day. ‘Are you coming to stay with us again this year again Belle? you know you are always welcome. Dad always appreciates your help and we can enjoy ourselves in the village again. They still hold the Saturday dance in the village hall.’
Patsy had a habit of shortening my name from Annabelle
“Yes please! I can hardly wait.’
During the History lecture that afternoon my mind drifted over the coming visit. I was looking forward to playing with the farm animals again, feeding the chickens, walking the dogs and mucking out the pig sty. I had grown quite fond of the friendly single family pig, I always had time for Priscilla, I swear she was extremely intelligent and I would converse with her while I was in the sty.
The last two weeks at college passed in a blur, and we were soon on a passenger train speeding through the beautiful green hills and valleys that famously go to make up Wales. We were met at the village railway station by Mr Jones who shook my hand.
‘Hi Annabelle lovely to see you again.’
He gave his daughter a huge hug and smiling broadly
‘Hello Freckles! climb aboard both of you.’ Patsy frowned at this old nickname.
In contrast to Patsy, Mr Jones was a short, stocky, well muscled man, with an unruly mop of brown hair that he kept in place with a fashionable Barbour hat. He loaded our bags onto the vehicle and we were soon on our way.
We arrived at the smallholding where we were greeted by Mrs Jones, with a large pot of tea, a huge plateful of bacon sandwiches and buttered scones. Mrs Jones was a beautiful lady, tall with long red hair; it was obvious which side of the family the freckled skin came from.
The bacon sandwiches were delicious and I couldn’t help enquiring after my friend Priscilla the family pig.
There was an embarrassed silence as Mr Jones pushed the plate of bacon sandwiches towards me and offered me another sandwich.
‘Such is the reality of life on a self sufficient smallholding.’
It was from that precise moment I became a life-long vegetarian.
©️ Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
MONDAY 9th OCTOBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
PROMPT ~ Describe ways in which your character does or doesn’t show piety.
UNEXPECTED CONVERSION
by John Yeo
An introduction is called for here. Allow me to introduce the obnoxious Dr. Ferdinand Dickus. A cold-hearted, uncaring scientist without piety of any description whatsoever. The Doctor was a firm believer in the Darwinian Theory of evolution, survival of the fittest. As far as the religious belief in any form of afterlife was concerned, there was no such thing. Dickus was an unbeliever. According to the logical scientific evidence, we were born on this earth with nothing and we would ultimately leave thIs earth with nothing. According to him the object of life on Earth is getting as much out of life on earth and to lIve as comfortably as possible in the process. Therefore he had no charitable inclinations at all.
In total contrast, his Mother, Lady Esmeralda Dickus was a devout Christian who worshipped In the local church and was extremely well regarded by the local community for her charity donations
One foggy winter morning, he stepped out of his private helicopter onto the helipad located on the roof of his laboratory.
‘Good morning Sir!’ said his secretary, who immediately fell into step with him as they headed towards the entrance to the building.
‘Hello Dorinda! What’s new? Is anything pressing?’
‘Well Sir, there’s an urgent message for you to contact your Mother as quickly as possible.’
‘Thanks Dorinda!’
Minutes later Doctor Dickus got through to his home phone number which strangely, was answered by the familiar voice of the family doctor.
‘Bad news I’m afraid Sir. Your Mother has had a serious stroke and a massive heart attack, she’s extremely close to death. I’m afraid there’s little conventional medicine can do now. Your Mother’s living on borrowed time. Your daughter is present I’ll put her on the line.’
‘Thank you!’
‘Daddy, I’m scared, please come home. They say the only hope is prayer. We are all desperately on our knees begging for a miracle. Please hurry!’
A few hours later the helicopter landed on the lawn at the family home. Doctor Dickus raced to his Mother’s bedside to discover she had made a miraculous recovery.
Later everyone, including the Doctor, proclaimed her recovery was unexplainable. Most said it was certainly the work of God in answer to the prayers of the family.
Afterwards in the fullness of time, Doctor Ferdinand Dickus became a devout believer.
©️ Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved
SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
Weekend Writing Prompt #182 – Bequeath
JACKPOT
by John Yeo
The Grimm family were seated around a table in the offices of Paul Dregson, the family solicitor, to hear a reading of the will of Garston Grimm.
His two children and their mother were surprised to see the attractive blonde-headed secretary of Garston Grimm’s pickle factory.
The lawyer began.
‘I leave my entire debt-ridden estate to my secretary, Betsy Carpenter, except for the enclosed envelope the contents of which I bequeath to my wife and children.’
The envelope contained a single winning jackpot lottery ticket.
(85 WORDS)
FRIDAY 6th NOVEMBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
PROMPT~ What do you like the least about your father?
MEMORIES
by John Yeo
This is a very tricky question for me as I don’t remember anything much about my father at all. This account will have to be made up of dribs and drabs of second hand information. I was born towards the end of the second world war when things were absolutely hair-raising. Enemy aircraft were in the throes of non-stop bombing raids on England. I was born in spite of this and I was living with my parents on a Canadian air force base in the depths of rural Surrey. From second hand accounts, I learned later I was wrapped in a shawl or blankets and deposited in a cupboard under the stairs during the aforementioned bombing raids. I can’t begin to imagine the effects of the continuous crash, bang, wallop, on the senses of a tiny baby lying in a cot in darkness under the stairs.
My younger brother arrived and the family were obviously surviving in spite of the rigours of living with the continuous uncertainty of war.
It will be obvious to anyone who has read this far that my Father doesn’t feature in this account at all. He was obviously a Canadian service-man based in the United Kingdom.
From all other vague inferences and information that have reached me over the years I’ve discovered my Father returned to Canada at the end of the war leaving my Mother with two children and possibly another child on the way. The family were obviously no longer entitled to stay in military accommodation and in the upheaval following the war, accommodation was scarce. Rooms were finally obtained with a widow with three daughters, and things were overcrowded, with two women and five children in a three bedroom house. Adding to the problems of this overcrowding, was the fact that my Mother was pregnant and would be adding another baby to the household shortly.
A solution to the overcrowding was arrived at through the intervention of the social services and it was arranged that my brother and I would be sent away to a residential home for children. I have always referred to this as a boarding school, as we were fed, educated and taken care of under the auspices of the charitable organization who ran the establishment.
. This was the beginning where the seeds of dislike for my Father were planted and this feeling simply grew from a vague feeling in later years.
What I dislike immensely about my Father is his total disregard of the children he abandoned and his complete inability to find the time or the inclination to trace them, I have since discovered he married again and had at least one more child from this union. I can understand his needing to start a new chapter in his life on his return to Canada, but this will never justify his closing down all previous chapters and shutting the book.
©️ Written by John Yeo
WEDNESDAY 4th NOVEMBER 2020
SECOND FLOOR FIASCO
by John Yeo
The apartment block was an Edwardian house set in the centre of a row of rundown properties that were once well-to-do dwellings for the upper middle classes. We rented a two-roomed furnished apartment on the second floor. The wallpaper featured male peacocks with their tails in full courting display. A mud-coloured threadbare worn carpet graced the floor. Our bed was a double sized mattress on the floor with four grubby pillows and a heap of assorted coats and blankets for warmth. There were a couple of battered wooden dining chairs with clothes piled on them to take the place of a non-existent wardrobe.
We had neighbours, Sarah and Josh on the same landing, who also rented a couple of rooms. When I say that we had neighbours; that was before the explosion that sadly took their lives.
Apparently it was a case of the huge number of electronic devices connected to an illegal supply of electricity. The fire was caused by a short circuited electrical device that blew up. Fortunately it was a minor local explosion.
©️ Written by John Yeo
Weekend Writing Prompt #181 – Histrionics
SUNDAY 1st NOVEMBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
HISTRIONICS
by John Yeo
Mary always dressed in strange clothes that were designed to attract attention.
With her scarlet hair, her purple hat, she was dressed to cause a sensation.
Mary talked Incredibly loud, laughing hysterically to deliberately flout convention.
Flirting outrageously, with tears of tension, histrionics were her pathway to stardom.
(48 WORDS)
FRIDAY 30th OCTOBER 2020 ~ POETRY PROMPT ~ ‘The birds didn’t go south for the winter’
TEMPORARY CATASTROPHE
by John Yeo
The birds didn’t go south for the winter this year
Since global warming started climate change
It was puzzling to see them remaining here.
~
Due to the heating up of the atmosphere
The unusual seasonal effects seem strange
The birds didn’t go south for the winter this year.
~
They changed their presence on the biosphere
Swifts and swallows were soaring their range
It was puzzling to see them remaining here.
~
The perpetual dawn chorus was tunefully clear
Insects remained to live in a strange disarrange
The birds didn’t go south for the winter this year.
~
Natural consequences would be surely severe
Science would need adaptation to rearrange
It was puzzling to see them remaining here.
~
It was mysterious to witness such abrupt change
Wings have ceased to fly the global sphere
The birds didn’t go south for the winter this year.
It was puzzling to see them remaining here.
~
© Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
~~~~~~
When I first saw this prompt l began thinking about the consequences of global warming on the whole of the avian family.
The heating of the atmosphere is such a slow insidious process that the consequences to birds wouldn’t be an instant event.
Obviously this would not be a simple matter for birds as migration is linked to food supply and food supply would have to increase to cater for the birds. If there could ever be a continuous food supply in one area for the birds that didn’t fly South and were able to survive, surely breeding patterns would change and there would certainly be an over-abundance of birds, thus putting more pressure on the food supply. A good subject for a poetic flight of fancy.
WEDNESDAY 28th OCTOBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/author/sammicoxwriter/
EBENEEZERS FREEZER
by John Yeo
Let me tell you the story of Ebeneezer
Renowned for being a tightfisted miser.
He mistrusted everyone without exception
Hid away his wealth for his own protection.
In his kitchen he had an extraordinary freezer
With toughened steel to withstand any assault
He kept precious gems and bullion within this vault.
With his bread and cheese.
(56 WORDS)
RANDOM WRITING PROMPT
TUESDAY 27th OCTOBER 2020 ~ FLASH FICTION
You bought a memory foam pillow at a garage sale. Little did you know that it wasn’t an ordinary pillow. The pillow gave whoever was lying on it the memory of its previous users.
~~~~~~
by John Yeo
I’m a single man, living in a sparsely-furnished bedsit in a densely populated area of the city. It was pushing the bounds of reason to describe this place as furnished when I first rented it and I had bought many items to make things a little more comfortable from local charity shops and garage sales.
It was Sunday night when I started to feel odd. I remember suddenly waking with an urgent desire to visit the bathroom. I was feeling quite muddle-headed and I had to blindly force myself to remember where the bathroom actually was. I simply put this down to the result of a heavy-headed sleep and I got back into bed and tried to sleep.
I lay awake for a while and my mind began to drift over some odd subjects. I began to worry about getting caught and arrested by the police for my crimes. The criminal offences I was ruminating over were connected with money-laundering and extortion. I remember thinking they were just a series of ultra-realistic dreams. I brought to the surface of my mind a whole sequence of events and places where I apparently had lived and images of the people who were also involved in these criminal activities. Eventually I drifted off into a deep sleep until the alarm clock shrilled out and it was time to get up.
I dressed for work and stopped in a small local cafe for breakfast. The weird dreamlike experiences from the night suddenly came to mind as I sat and ate and I thought I recognised the area where I was supposed to have lived and committed my crimes. The house was much like a large detached place where I had stopped to buy some items for my flat from a nice lady who was having a garage sale to clear some unwanted effects.
I didn’t think anything else about the dream when I got to work as I was far too busy working on some intricate accounts.
I was shattered at the end of the day as I hadn’t slept too well the night before and I went to bed early, where I immediately fell into a deep sleep. I woke a couple of hours later and visited the bathroom, again I was unsure where the bathroom actually was and I seemed to be unfamiliar with the way things were situated. I returned to the bed and tried to sleep again, without much success.
My pillow was uncomfortable and I turned it over and over trying to get the memory foam to fit my posture. Then I remembered I was married to a lady named Jean and we had been wed for three years. My brother and sister were also living in our house temporarily but they had both recently left the house. Jean had cleared everything out from their rooms, dumped some junk and had a garage sale with some other items, in aid of a local charity.
I was heavily involved in a betting business where I made high profits from money-laundering and much besides.
The next day everything faded into the background when I woke and I dragged myself to work and over my lunch break I confided in my friend Shirley.
We decided to visit the house I remembered from my dream, on some pretext and check out the lie of the land. When we got there we found the house empty and shuttered up, the neighbour next door informed us they had moved overnight.
When we arrived at the office there was a message for me from my neighbour at home to let me know there had been a fire in my house and the whole two flats, including mine, had been destroyed.
Shirley and her husband immediately offered me the benefit of their spare room for a while until I was able to find somewhere to live.
Strangely, I never, ever, experienced those strange dream-like feelings again.
© Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved.
Bereavement single parent dad
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