“What are you making today, Geraldo?”
“My friend, I have many creations! Witness my self-baking bread, and these gingerbread men dance and sing! Marvelous, no?”
“Truly, but all I wish for are some buns to eat with my soup.”
“How sad,” said Geraldo, “that we live in such a world.”
This story is based on a title suggested by @Zutzy.
When we finally summited Mount Kilimanjaro, the last thing we expected to see was a withered old man in an all-terrain wheelchair, surrounded by ten burly sherpas.
He looked at us with pale, watery eyes and said, “Remember, friends: money can buy you neither happiness nor salvation.”
Then he smiled.
This story is based on a title suggested by Jeremy Quinn.
“So…”
“I messed up.”
“I know you did.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“What do you mean, ‘probably’?”
“I just haven’t decided yet, I guess.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure how to respond to that.”
“Here’s an idea: fix things first, then ask again afterwards.”
Tough
Love
Christmas
Can you see the word picture?
This story was based on the prompt “messed up” on TypeTrigger.
“Time for bed, princess!” trilled Mom.
Little Mia said, “Why?”
“So you can sleep, and have lots of energy tomorrow.”
“I don’t need sleep.”
“Of course you do, dear.”
Mia laid awake in her big-girl bed all night, wondering what sleep was and why everyone else did it so much.
This story was based on the prompt “what for” at TypeTrigger.
Mia will appear in Special People, my superhero-with-a-twist serial web fiction, in a future story.
Living amongst death and decay was simply part of being a necromancer, but Khin-Topekh hadn’t expected so much loneliness.
Employing his best problem-solving skills, the necromancer went to the pet store and picked out a puppy.
Little Fidus made him very happy, until she started stealing bones from his corpses.
This story is based on a title suggested by @Invariel.
Fifteen thousand and twelve things could happen between our car and his classroom.
I tell myself they won’t; I tell myself he’ll be fine. He doesn’t need me to walk him anymore. And I don’t.
But he’s my little boy, and it’s so very, very hard to let him go.
M. Elaine Moore is a North Carolina fiction writer and poet. Her work can be found in print in The Island Breeze, and Outer Banks publication, and online at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty, The Camel Saloon, Apollo’s Lyre, Pond Ripples, Three Line Poetry, and the Journal of Microliterature.
Venus came home to chaos.
“What is going on!?”
“Hi, honey!” said her husband, Chris, standing behind a hutch with their daughter on his shoulders. “Tina and I bought a few bunnies!”
“A ‘few‘?”
“Well, we took two, but by the time we got home there were a bunch more…”
This story is based on a title suggested by @TsukiakariUsagi.
“Are we there yet?”
“No,” Mary snapped. Two of the kids started crying.
Ben ignored them.
Mary groaned. “Why do we even go for these drives? We don’t like it. The kids don’t like it. Nobody likes it.”
“Fine.” Ben turned the car around.
Beneath them, the road sighed sadly.
This story is based on a title suggested by @THatherty2.
She lay on the bed and thought about the end of their friendship. Her heart ached.
It wasn’t a clean shot through head or heart, either; it was a slow knife through the stomach, quietly releasing bile and stomach acid. A drunken car ride home. A shamed car ride back.
Blanche Case camouflages herself with a “real job” while plotting to take over the world with artistic endeavors.
Mommy bought me a new pair of shoes. I am not allowed to get them dirty at all. New shoes are extra special, Mommy says.
A mean man stepped in a puddle and splashed my shoes today. I punched his face.
Mommy says faces are even specialer than new shoes.
This story was based on the prompt “new shoes” at TypeTrigger.