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19 Mar

100_2764

There wasn’t nobody in the park Monday, Billy and I checked. He stood lookout while I tagged the bin. I wanted to do a throw-up, but Billy says to lay low for a while since I just got busted last month. Won’t be no community service, them cops catch me again…judge says I’m goin’ t’ jail next time. But I ain’t no pansy. I ain’t gonna let worry infect me, keep me from writin’. I gotta practice, show some mad skills if I wanna get in with Billy’s crew.

But man, now I’m freakin’. Somebody been blowin’ up my phone since 2 a.m. with the same effin’ picture, over and over. Caller ID says UNKNOWN. CCed to UNKNOWN RECIPIENTS. WTF? Who’s doggin’ me like this? What’re they tryin’ to do to me? Who they sendin’ this picture to? If that judge sees this, he gonna lock me up for sure. If my mama sees it, I’m gonna wish I was in jail.

This post is a mash-up of challenges…First it’s a response to The Daily Post’s Weekly Writing Challenge regarding a mysterious photo coming through on a cell phone at 2 a.m. It also incorporates Trifecta’s Week 69 challenge to use the third definition of the word infect (3a: contaminate, corrupt  b: to work upon or seize upon so as to induce sympathy, belief, or support ). Finally, it’s a shameless attempt to use one of my Iceland photos as a writing prompt. 🙂 

NOTE: I am NOT up on the current lingo used by young graffiti artists. If anyone has any suggestions to make the vernacular more realistic, I’d be very appreciative!

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2013 in Fiction, Tuesday Tales

 

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Tomfoolery

12 Mar

100_9237Gotta liven things up on this hot summer day.
Really tired of hopping around aimlessly, chomping on blades of grass.
Antennae are aquiver at the thought of a wee bit of mischief.
See that lady in the Lycra shorts jogging this way?
She’s terrified of my kind…jumps a foot whenever one of us leaps beside the path.
Her thoughts turn from fitness to survival as she runs this grassy gauntlet each day.
Obviously, I’ll have to launch myself squarely onto her bare leg.
Possibly, she’ll scream and stomp her foot madly to dislodge me.
Perhaps she’ll flail around and beg passing runners for salvation.
Either way, the entertainment value should be high.
Right, then, here she comes. Three…two…one…

Straight from yesterday’s Write4Ten prompt, this is my paranoid version of what really goes on in a grasshopper’s brain.

 
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Posted by on March 12, 2013 in Tuesday Tales

 

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Twenty-five

05 Mar

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I turned twenty-five today.

I didn’t mind the number too much until Garrett pointed out at lunchtime that I’d been on the planet for a quarter of a century. Why did that particular wording make me feel ancient? Even more troubling, why did it make me feel impotent?

I hid in my cubicle for the remainder of the afternoon, pondering the life I had lived until now.

Did I believe I had lived each day thoroughly? No, after overhearing Heidi holding forth in the break room after many an adventure-packed weekend, I definitely couldn’t claim that I had.

Had I grabbed every opportunity that been offered? No, I’d been convinced by an inner dialogue not to reach too far beyond the familiar.

Could I be proud that I’d been in command of where I’d been and what I’d done? No, I tended to try to make other people happy, and that need to gratify had herded me more than once down a path I’d rather not have taken.

I did not like what I found in the examination of my initial quarter century. Without fail, I had done what had been expected of me. I had not rocked the boat. I had not created conflict. I had not incited worry. I had not provoked excitement. I had merely been.

No more.

In that moment, I vowed to approach life, MY life, with a different attitude. If only I had an indelible reminder of that pledge to break free from the predictable routine I’d formerly permitted…

Garrett appeared over the top of my cubicle, joyfully offering a chocolate cupcake while brazenly murdering the time-worn birthday melody.

“Thank you, Garrett. Hey, I’m going to get a tattoo tonight, wanna come?”

You could have knocked him over with a feather and I’m willing to wager he won’t be the only one left with mouth agape in the next quarter century.

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Hee hee! I took some liberties with this one, in my classic overachiever style. The original prompt from The Daily Post was a challenge to choose one letter of the alphabet to omit from my post, using only twenty-five letters instead of all twenty-six. I decided while I was at it, I’d also make the theme of the story twenty-five, and use twenty-five sentences in its telling. This post-script excluded, can you tell which letter I omitted? (Hint: I did not take the easy road by choosing q, x, or z.)

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2013 in Fiction, The Daily Post Prompt, Tuesday Tales

 
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