Quonset Under the Kumquat – Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge.  This week’s photo prompt is provided by yarnspinner…thanks for it.

Please follow lil froggy for more stories:)

Here is the photograph and my story:

Quonset Under the Kumquat

As anybody knows by now,  I love Buck more than anyone on this earth.  It’s easy to love him.   In our own ways,  we are both imperfect.

That first summer he moved in with his Aunt – onto our Bayou after his parents died – we fell into something that later turned out to be love.

Right against the pond, on his Aunt’s land, was an old Quonset hut.  It was left over from the war days.  The Navy had plunked them along the river and onto our park lands.

Some sailor had planted a kumquat tree next to the hut.  And that’s where Buck first kissed me.  Just outside that old tin hut when the kumquat  was blooming.

Ellespeth

These Days – Flash Fiction

OMG!  The flu attacked us for almost a month 😦  Here I am though…

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge  This week’s photo prompt is provided by Goroyboy. Thank you Raymond!

Please follow lil froggy for more stories:)

Here is the photograph and my story:  Another Sissy and Buck thing ♥

These Days

While Buck was recovering from his breakdown, Sissy ran their bookstore alone. People in town still liked the smell of books and enjoyed the adventure of browsing and touching and reading a chapter or two here and there.

The bookstore was right across the street from TJ’s chair caning shop. He sold canaries, too. TJ and Buck had been friends since they were kids.

Next to the caning shop was Charlene’s Ocean View Cafe. There wasn’t an ocean for 400 miles. She just liked the name.

During slow times, Sissy and TJ would walk over to the cafe and Charlene would bring a pot of coffee and a plate of pastries and the three of them would sit and stare out at the street.

And that’s how the days had been for Sissy since Buck went away to get healthy again. It’s amazing how fragile the mind is and how, when it breaks down, it can take so much else down with it. So Sissy didn’t mind slow Saturdays so much these days.

Ellespeth

173 words

My Mother…

My mother has passed. She was 89 years old. I believe that the most important thing she ever did for me was to introduce me, before my teen years, to the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I spent a few years imitating Millay – writing poems of death and betrayal and self-judgement. My mother is also the character Sissy in my Sissy and Buck/Buck and Sissy flash fiction.

Since I’m unable to travel, I’ve asked my youngest sister to read this for me at my mother’s funeral.

The Courage That My Mother Had (by Edna St Vincent Millay)

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!-
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ellespeth

When We Ate Marshmallows – Fiction

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  Thanks to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge.  please follow little froggy for more stories.

Here is the photo and my story…time again for Buck and Sissy 🙂

When We Ate Marshmallows

When Buck finally found me, I was playing Roulette and eating marshmallows from a bag. Sometimes,  I’d been dropping a marshmallow into my drink and then sucking it into my mouth like a stuffed olive. The palm trees, outside the casino – and so out of place here – swayed in the cold winter’s wind.

“Sissy,” Buck whispered. “Everyone’s been looking all over for you all day!” He put his arms around my waist. He wasn’t scolding me.

I plopped another marshmallow into my Pina Colada.

Buck kissed my neck. “Miss Scared of Everything standing in a gambling hall playing Roulette?”

I twirled the marshmallow around in my drink and plucked it out with a cocktail umbrella. Just as I was going to put the liquor coated marshmallow into my mouth, Buck said “You’re pretty gross if you eat that.”

The marshmallow was just between my lips. I laughed. It flew from my mouth and onto the spinning roulette wheel.

“I guess I’ll have one of those too,” Buck said as we ran from the casino.

Ellespeth

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Nonnaci. Thank you Nonnaci for our prompt photo!

Cafe Conversations – Fiction

Here is my submission for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  Thanks to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge. She found the photo on Pixabay.

Join the fun!  Click the lil froggy for more stories or to add your own.

Cafe Conversations

“You can’t be serious,” my brother said.

We were at the Cafe Du Monde, having a coffee and sharing an order of beignets. I’d just told him I was going to marry Buck. “Oh but I am serious,” I replied. “It will be a small ceremony at City Hall.”

“Not even a Catholic ceremony, Sissy?” My brother looked at me aghast. He reached into his shirt pocket for one of his healthier light cigarettes and eyed me sternly. “You did say he was an atheist, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and a Republican.”

“Oh my good God, Sissy!”

“Can’t we just pretend those parts don’t matter?” I asked. I was licking powdered sugar from my finger tips. I was just about to say something,  of great importance,  when Buck came by in an old blue pick-up and honked his horn.

I stood up and walked over to my brother and gave him a little peck on his cheek. “I probably should go now,”  I said before I sashayed away.

Ellespeth

Buck’s Pool Hall – Fiction

Here is my submission for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  Thanks to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge.  Click the lil froggy for more stories.

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Etol Bagam.  And here is my story:

Buck’s Pool Hall

Everybody in town liked Buck. He was six shades beyond the color gray and a few short steps ahead of reality. On Friday nights, his pool hall was the place to be in town.

“What the heck is the meaning of this?” Sissy hollered. She was pointing at some piece of art Buck had hung on the back wall of his pool hall.

“Nudes,” Buck replied.

“I can see they’re nude,” Sissy said. She’d been dating Buck, off and on, for about 10 years and still didn’t understand the man. “What is this? Some fancy museum or your pool hall?”

“I just wanted to add some class to the place, Sissy.”

“Oh honestly, Buck.”

“Oh honestly Buck, what?”

Sissy shook her head. “Let’s just draw a bull’s-eye on it and call it a dart board, okay?”

Buck looked like all sorts of lights had gone on in his head. He leaned over and kissed Sissy. “Now THAT is a great idea!”

Ellespeth

Three Pussy Cats Cafe – Fiction

Here is my submission for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  75-150 words about where the photo, below, takes you.  I love this photograph from pixabay.

Thanks to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge, and for her constant encouragement.  I’m putting the froggy you can click to read other entries…or submit an entry!

Three Pussy Cats Cafe

Sissy parked her old Renault in front of Three Pussy Cats Cafe. By the time Buck pedaled up on his bicycle, she was sipping a coffee and munching on a warm chocolate croissant.

“So what are you gonna do while I go to the bank?” Buck asked. He broke off a piece of Sissy’s croissant and took a sip of her coffee.

“I’m having my fortune told, of course,” Sissy replied.

“Meet back here in an hour?

“Okay.” Sissy leaned over and kissed Buck. She licked a piece of chocolate from his moustache.

By the time Buck returned, Sissy was eating her second chocolate croissant and sipping another hot coffee.

“So how did it go?” Buck asked.

“She still insists I’m going to meet some tall, dark, and handsome stranger. How did it go for you?” Sissy fed Buck a piece of her croissant before he could steal it.

“We’re broker than we were yesterday.”

They laughed. They were young.

Ellespeth

King Him – Fiction

This is in response to this week’s Literary Lion word challenge.  This week’s word is ‘king’ and to write something 400 words or less…I’m chuckling but I really did try this time:

King Him

“What do you think about when you hear the word king?” I asked.

“I think of Martin Luther King,” Buck replied.

That seemed rather odd to me; odd that someone wouldn’t automatically associate the word king with Elvis Presley. “I think of Elvis Presley,” I said.

“Ah, Sissy.” Buck reached for me. We were on the veranda at his folks’ house, sitting in the old rattan rocking love seat. Summer was heavier than sex in a hay stack.

I’ve loved Buck at least as long as the bougainvillea vine has clung to his mother’s wooden trellises. He’s plain, but not ordinary. Always some heart hanging on his sleeve.

“Ah Sissy what?” I asked, shaking and grinding against the air and humming “I’m All Shook Up”.

Ellespeth

Organics – Fiction

Time for this week’s Flash Fiction For Aspiring Writers.     It begins anew each Wednesday.   100-150 words more or less to do with   the photo below  (photo changes each week).  I’ll put the link to this week’s stories at the end of this piece. Pass on by – click on the froggy at the end of this story.

Thanks  to PJ for hosting this for us each week, and for our photo prompt this week.

I wanted to have a little fun this week so I’ve brought out Sissy and Buck again.  My little love conquers all couple.  I’ll tag it Sissy and Buck and – if you’d like – you might read a few.  That’s not all of them because I wasn’t aware, at the beginning of this series, of the importance of tags.  But, they each stand alone right now.

Organics

“Sissy, now, you’re testing the family’s patience these days,” my brother said

We were lunching at one of the few organic restaurants in New Orleans. Everything was garnished with kale or sprouts or both.

“People are saying that you and Buck plan to rent out the house  to a bunch of artist types.” Hugh looked at me pleading some reasonable answer. “Is this true?” he asked.

I picked a piece of kale from between my teeth. I did it in public. Everyone saw me picking raw kale from between my teeth. “It’s true.”

“A bunch of hippie types living in Mom and Dad’s house?” The idea seemed incredulous to Hugh.

“It’s my house now, Hugh.” I winked at him.

“Oh good lord, Sissy.”

I felt bad for Hugh. I always had. No one ever asked him to take on the role of saving the family’s reputation. He’d taken that upon himself.

“Oh good lord, Huey. Get over it.” I reached to embrace him.

“You’re just nuts ,” Hugh said. He returned my embrace.

Ellespeth

Table for Two/Monday 5PM – Poetic Fiction

Time for another installment of   Friday Fictioneers  hosted by Rochelle.  100 words or so based on the image below. Click on the froggy link (after this piece) and come join us!

This photo reminded me of a poem I wrote a year or so ago.  Since my interest, now, is expanding my poetry into a story, I thought I’d try that out here again.  It’s sort of another Sissy and Buck romance thing:

Table for Two/Monday 5PM

It was the largest bunch of daisies Sissy had ever seen. It arrived,  at 5PM,  one horrible Monday afternoon.  The card read:

Let’s hop a train for dinner.
We can see where it leads.
If you have a few nights
we could get a cabin
where the sounds of whistles
and tracks rushing by
would take us
places we don’t have to be.

Your poet,
Buck

It’s just like Buck to think I can just disappear for a few days.  Sometimes he doesn’t seem to be in touch with reality,  Sissy thought.

Boarding the train,  she was smiling behind daisies.

(EW 4/10)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(The daisies looked so bright at their table.   This is the original last sentence…doesn’t seem to be working/saying what I mean.)

Ellespeth

photo prompt © Jennifer Pendergast