Jan 7, 2016 Friday Fictioneers, Uncategorized
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Genre: Realistic fiction
Parentheses
©January 7th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The Cessna stood on the tarmac, polished and shining in the sun.
Seven-year old Julia read its tail fin: N173VP it read. She looked up at her father, round eyes worried: “Dad, will it take us all the way to Peachtree?”
Her father smiled tightly. “Yes, but we’ll have to flap our arms up and down, like this,” demonstrating it.
She laughed, her eyes still round. “It looks so tiny, Dad,” she said. She didn’t add, “I’m scared.”
“It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” he said. He didn’t add, “I’m scared, too.”
He was acutely claustrophobic.
The plane held. They survived.
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Thanks, as always, to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting our wonderful mid-week writing salon, counter-intuitively titled Friday Fictioneers, and to Melanie Greenwood for the photograph prompt!
Tags: Claustrophobia, Original 100-word short story based on a photo-prompt, Parent and child, parenthetical remarks
Nov 19, 2015 Friday Fictioneers, Original Short Story
Cigarette Butts and Dead Leaves
©November 19th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
I sit on the sidewalk near the gutter by our flat, and wait.
Smoking cigarette after cigarette, my fingers stained yellow, my eyes blank, my hands trembling, I wait.
The seasons come and go. Long ago (a year or two, or more?) there had been a bombing near our place.
He’d gone to meet an old friend at our favorite restaurant. “Don’t wait up,” he’d said.
“You know I will,” I’d replied, kissing him.
And I do, every evening.
He was a pillar of flame when he courted me. Now, I am a pillar of ash.
A leaf flutters down.
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With thanks, as always, to our beloved Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for her gracious and lovely leadership as host of Friday Fictioneers, and to the pithy and imaginative CEAyr, for his evocative photograph.
Tags: France, Love and loss, Original 100-word short story based on a photo-prompt