by Mayumi-H | Aug 8, 2012 | Short Stories
For week 53 of the 100-Word Challenge for Grown-ups, Julia has given us a specific text prompt:
… would seven prove to be too much? …..
As usual, you have 100 words to add to these 7 making 107 in total to produce your piece.
I tamed things down a bit from my initial idea for this prompt, though I still stayed close to some characters with whom I’ve spent some time in the past….
“One More Night”
One, two, three were honest. Even four was believable. Five was unlikely, though, making six worthy of suspicion. Would seven prove to be too much?
“You’re not coming home?”
“I’m sorry,” he said into the phone, again. He nearly meant it, too; he could almost hear the obliging, unwitting smile in her voice.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I know your work is important.” More mundane pleasantries then, followed by vanilla farewells.
He closed his phone with a click, echoed by the snap of buttons.
“You think she suspects?”
He turned, took her in his arms, and smiled. “Don’t know. Does yours?”
She smiled, too. “Don’t care.”
![Arabian_nights_004 By Virginia Frances Sterret [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://mayumi.amorphous.press/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2012/08/arabian_nights_004.jpg?w=228 "Arabian_nights_004")
By Virginia Frances Sterret [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
There’s always a complication with these two…! Like most of my characters, though, the more I write them, the more engrossed I become in their deeper stories.
Did seven prove to be too much for someone in your story, this week? I’d love to know!
by Mayumi-H | Aug 1, 2012 | Short Stories
For week 51 of the 100-Word Challenge for Grown-Ups, the prompt is, simply:
…together the flames…
We have 100 words to produce a creative piece from the prompt. It doesn’t say we have to use those words exactly, but I did, as you’ll see.
“Fire Dancers”
They’d danced what felt a slow forever: circling, stepping, narrowly avoiding, their movements never too close…nor too far. Just enough distance to stay safe, to stay mellow, to stay simply teasing and contained.
But even embers, left alone, will glow, and crackle, and burn.
That’s what they did, at last, one night. Flared fiercely in the dim dark as they met for the first time, feeding and devouring each other both, with each kiss and lick growing stronger, brighter, until they burst, together, the flames forming a consuming conflagration.
His wife fled.
Her husband wept.
And the fire raged on.
“The Lovers’ Boat” by Albert Pinkham Ryder [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
What kind of flames did you stoke for this week’s prompt?
by Mayumi-H | Jul 11, 2012 | Short Stories
Week 49’s 100-Word Challenge for Grown-Ups is another text prompt:
….Murray was just about to serve for the Championship when…
As Julia says, you have 100 words plus those in the prompt making 110 altogether. The prompt must be in the piece and not split.
Okay, then! I revisited an earlier vignette for this one, inspired as I was by that trailing “when…”
“Sad to Belong”
(With apologies to England Dan and John Ford Coley.)
They left the hotel television on, simply for the noise: noisy rooms were less likely to be disturbed. And they couldn’t be disturbed. Not now. Not after all the cooped-up days they’d already wasted, yearning for each other’s touch.
Robb’s arms were around her, but, still, Emma had to ask: “You’re certain about this?”
He nodded, nearly desperate. “I can’t go another minute without you,” he said, before crushing his mouth to hers.
They tumbled to the bed then, the television’s chatter covering their moans, and the snap of buttons and belts. Apparently, Murray was just about to serve for the Championship, when Robb’s mobile rang.
It was his wife.
I’m likely alone on this, but I don’t see Emma or Robb as bad people. Perhaps because I see their situation as a case of Right Love, Wrong Life.
What glimpse into another life did you take, with this week’s prompt?
by Mayumi-H | Jun 27, 2012 | Short Stories
Week 47’s 100-Word Challenge for Grown-Ups is a picture challenge, of the Teapot Dome Service Station in Zillah, Washington:
Julia says: All you have to do is produce a creative piece of 100 words in length from the emotions / thoughts that this image stir in you.
My head is likely not in the same place as most people’s on this one, but I’ve just begun the process of producing a documentary, so my mind is on editing and video a lot, lately. The following is what I came up with (names have been changed to protect the “innocent”):
“Flirting with Temptation”
Raw footage review is a thankless task. But an editor’s job, as they say, is never done. So he sits in this cramped room the same as he’s done for the last week straight, poring over seemingly endless reels of kitschy novelty attractions, while the world goes on outside the door.
Sitting beside him, equally tired and equally antsy, Emma asks when was the last time he saw his wife.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?” he replies with a snicker.
She doesn’t laugh, though.
“Let’s not talk about that,” she says, just before she kisses him.
Temptation
Don’t ask me why I went there….
![Arabian_nights_004 By Virginia Frances Sterret [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://mayumi.amorphous.press/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2012/08/arabian_nights_004.jpg "Arabian_nights_004")
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