Broken By Gaslight – Friday Fictioneers

/ Rachel Bjerke / 20 Comments

broken glass jpeg

“Well who put tape over it?” he shouted.

“Dad, you did, you just can’t remember!” she said through bites of her fingernails.

“So you’re saying I fell, hit my head on the glass so hard that it broke, and I don’t remember?”

She nodded her head.

“Then why don’t I have a wound?”

“You do! It’s just hard to see it in the mirror! It’s a miracle from God it’s not bigger!” she said, nudging the hover board farther under her bed with the slightest movements of her foot.

“Bullshit!” he yelled, slamming her door shut and storming down the hall. She had to be lying.

He stopped at the hallway mirror and leaned in closely, inspecting his forehead in the reflection.

 

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff Fields posts every week.  This week’s photo courtesy of Dale Rogerson.

The Pitfall’s Lure

/ Rachel Bjerke / 35 Comments

FF dinner table

“Oh look, tea!” she said, peering in from the darkness of an overgrown boggy forest. Her husband looked around, the outside walls were beautifully green and smooth—and the room inside was inviting. But something was off. “I don’t know, this doesn’t seem right,” he said. His wife headed straight for the refreshments, “we’ve been hiking for twenty minutes! I need a break!” He followed her in. She reached for a cup, “Weird, it’s stuck, and it’s all…sticky!” Outside, one oversized leaf lobe began to close the room shut. “Did you hear something,” her husband said. “No, dear, but could you help me get this cup off my hand?” she asked, just before the pitcher’s digestive enzymes began to fill the room.

 

 

In the plant world, there are “at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey…”

The Pitcher plant is one of them. It is known as a pitfall trap.

“Pitfall traps attract prey with nectar bribes…within the pitcher.”

And what better way to attract a human than with refreshments (or maybe money)

 

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff Fields posts every week.  This week’s photo courtesy of Priorhouse .

 

 

“Carnivorous plant.” wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018.

Grandma Made It

/ Rachel Bjerke / 30 Comments

FF disc-golf-basket

“Grandma made it, says it’ll take her home.”

“Home, where?”

“Dunno, Dad, she doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“Yeah,” he said, jingling the chains.

“Last week she told me a nude Harry Truman kept waking her up at night”

He shuddered.

“Truman gave me the schematics.” Grandma said, shuffling up behind her son and granddaughter who turned to give her a hand. “Said it’ll take us home, said it’s my time. Don’t know why he’s nude though.”

“Who welded…” her son began, turning toward the contraption, but it was gone. There was a black mark in the grass where it had sat just seconds before. A faint metallic smell hung in the air. He jumped back, startled.

“Mom! What…” He began, turning back to question the old woman.

But she was gone too.

 

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every week.  This week’s photo courtesy of Douglas M. MacIlroy .

 

Ambition

/ Rachel Bjerke / 44 Comments

sarahs-spider-web-potter

“Mary, what are you trying to catch?”

“Those things!” Mary said, “they have 2 legs and make tons of noise.”

“A human?!” Mary’s husband said. “Are you nuts? They’ll kill us both!”
“No, This’ll work. And then we’ll eat like kings!”

“Mary! When you moved us inside, I thought it was to get out of the cold! Not this! We’re going to be killed, you stupid woman!”

“Here comes one now!” Mary said.

“And he has a shoe! Mary, run!”

Mary’s husband ran up the light and across the ceiling, looking back to see his wife gently placed on the shoe and walked to the outside door.

Once outside, they regrouped. “That was too close, Mary! No more bright ideas, alright?”

“Ok. But hear me out. What about a web across the interstate bridge?”

“MARY!!”

far side spiders

A Far Side tribute this week.

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every week.  This week’s photo courtesy of Victor and Sarah Potter.

Jesus: The Early Years – Friday Fictioneers

/ Rachel Bjerke / 26 Comments

mystery-chair-ted-strutz

A Quick Disclaimer: This story is a tiny bit blasphemous (maybe, depending on how sensitive you are). Carry on if you’re ok with that.

Jesus: The Early Years

The sound of waves on the shore woke Jesus. He opened His eyes slowly; His head ached and He could tell already His pants were missing. He sat up, “Hey!” He croaked, coughing and struggling to get to His feet. “Hey! Peter! Get up!”

Peter rose gingerly and stumbled towards the water, “I gotta take a piss,” he said. “Man! How much water did you turn to wine last night anyway? I mean look at that chair! Did you get tired of walking out there or something?”

Jesus looked around, He couldn’t remember any of it.

Peter unzipped his pants by the lake, “Jesus Christ! Your Dad’s gonna be pissed!”

 

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every week.  This week’s photo courtesy of Ted Strutz.

 

 

The Door – Friday Fictioneers

/ Rachel Bjerke / 16 Comments

image

It’s a museum now, with a purple door. I remember the purple being darker. And I remember my grandmother’s fresh pfeffernüsse cookies that once lingered behind that door on so many Saturday mornings.

I didn’t know then that not every grandma hid families in the attic, families you could never speak of. Until the day they came to take the families away, and they took my grandmother too, the neighbor’s yelling “Juden” and ” Schieß” at all of us, even though we weren’t Jewish. I never saw my grandmother again.

Tears fall hot down my face as I touch the gold chain. At least now their memories will be honored. Finally.

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Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories inspired by a photo that Rochelle Wisoff Fields  posts every week.  This weeks photo courtesy of ceayr.

 

 

The Box – Friday Fictioneers

/ Rachel Bjerke / 25 Comments

ff

The Box

There was only one valuable thing on the shelf, and it was making him sweat. He prayed no one else would pick it up, he prayed she would notice it.

“Well let’s go down to the beach then,” she said to him.

“Wait, look at this…rock. With the face,” he said.

She smiled at him in placation. “Yeah, It’s…a face.”

Possibly out of boredom, since they had stood at the old case for an awkwardly long time, her hand moved to the silver box. His heart skipped a beat when she picked it up and he felt faint when she opened it. But when she gasped and asked if it was for her, he relaxed. And as she took the ring out of the box, he dropped down on one knee.

Friday Fictioneers: A story in 100 words prompted by a photo posted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This weeks picture provided by Claire Fuller.

Friday Fictioneers – Lost

/ Rachel Bjerke / 20 Comments

moon-and-sky1

Searching was harder at night. Everything looked different under the moon and the shadows seemed so dark and almost alive like they wanted to swallow her up.
She called his name again, “Buddy! Here boy! Please!” But the only response was the crunching of dried leaves under her feet. He’d been gone for twenty hours, and everything about her hurt.
And then she heard a whistle, faint, far off behind the trees. She turned and ran towards the sound, as fast as she could, though it was barely a jog. The blisters on her heels were bleeding and she hadn’t had a drop of water for twenty hours.
She crossed a set of railroad tracks and heard him bark through the trees, and she could see a crowd of figures with flashlights. “There she is!” she heard her father say.
Falling into the grass, she watched the crowd run toward her, and she closed her eyes until she felt Buddy’s wet tongue on her cheek and his desperate whimpers. She smiled for the first time all day, she was safe now. Finally. And so was Buddy.

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Way over on word count. Gotta get back in the groove of writing.

I’ve been missing from Fictioneers for so long, but not by choice. My life has been turned upside down in so many different ways and I’m still trying to pick up the pieces. Hoping to find a new normal very soon.

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories prompted by a picture that Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every Wednesday. Around 100 people participate, their stories and poems are brilliant; check them out here.

Photo credit: Madison Woods

Friday Fictioneers – Weirdos Like Them

/ Rachel Bjerke / 25 Comments

There are people who aren’t supposed to be in relationships. I’m one of them. I didn’t know that, of course, since everyone thinks single people are weirdo’s. So I got married, so I wouldn’t be a weirdo.  A month into it, I knew it was a mistake. I had to escape. I tried to hop a freighter out of town, but they caught me a mile into the desert. They put me in a straight jacket again and threw me in the van. Back at the state hospital, they tell me I’m right, not everyone’s meant to be in a relationship. They say I never was… in a relationship, that is. They say I was never married. But it’s hard to believe them. They’re not married. And it’s hard to believe wierdos.

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A bit experimental this week. I’m taking a writing course and am being challenged to think outside the box. Please let me know what you think; what worked, what didn’t work. Thank you!

Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories prompted by a picture that Rochelle Wisoff-Fields posts every Wednesday. Around 100 people participate, their stories and poems are brilliant; check them out here.

The Last Breath – feedback appreciated!

/ Rachel Bjerke / 5 Comments

This story is for my intermediate fiction class, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it before I turn it in. The assignment calls for a lot of description and adverbs… Not my usual style, but I tried. Let me know what you think.

The Last Breath

Heat waves danced off the flat roof of the prison in the distance and the paved roads seemed to shimmer and move under the hot sun. The fields surrounding the sprawling one story building were brown and dry and there wasn’t a tree or hill in sight. She drove through the expanse in silence, the miles making the prison bigger, and the closer they got, the more she wanted to throw up.

She stopped her car before the entrance. There were crowds of people, divided by the sun bleached road; on one side they held signs that said, “Capital Punishment Equals Murder,” and on the other side the signs read, “Fry The Bastard.”

“Are you ready for this, Ally?” her older brother Justin asked. He flipped the visor down to check the mirror, smoothing his brown hair with his fingers.

“No,” she answered, though just yesterday she had answered that question with a “definitely.” It was the only part left, her dad and younger brother Brian had been buried for five years, and this would be the end of it all. The last thing. Continue reading →