Friday Fictioneers — Hoofs

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The shoeless boy with frayed trousers often rode the freight train to cattle market. He had a wall-eye and folks called him simple.

Perched atop, he played cowboy tunes on his harmonica to entertain the steers. As they rattled about and clomped their hoofs against containment, he imagined them dancing to his music.

One week, the train broke down and stayed broken. The boy sat for a while, tapping the spit out of his harmonica and thinking so hard the wrinkles in his forehead hurt. When nobody came, he released the steers but forgot to jump out of their way.

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Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories
Photo Prompt: image © Jennifer Pendergast

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Sentences with April’s Guest Storyteller, Leigh Ward-Smith

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This is a return visit for Leigh Ward-Smith as guest storyteller. In September of last year she shared the intriguing prologue to The Enhanced, her science fiction novel-in-progress.

Handing over to Leigh now, she’s going to tell you about what she has in store for you this month re the “best of the worst” microfiction (hence the title to this post) …

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As a writer, it’s not often that you strive for an ugly sentence. Good, yes. Bad, no. But the yearly Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/index.html seeks just that: your best worst opening line to a novel. Named for Victorian-era novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton—perhaps best-known as the bloke who came up with “It was a dark and stormy night,” and way before Snoopy the beagle, no less—the BLFC has evolved over the years to add more genres and permutations of awarded categories, including romance, Western, science fiction, children’s literature, and purple prose. The official deadline for your worst 50- to 60-word write-mare is April 15, although June 30 is the actual deadline. Consider constructing your gnarliest one-liner; Professor Scott Rice, the progenitor of the BLFC, proclaims that WWW stands for wretched writers (or, indeed, writing) welcome, so you’ve nothing to fear. Here’s mine:

In the Kingdom of the Kelpies, there was a particularly curious young seafoam-frothing foal who couldn’t figure out why the “bobbling legs things” were so taken aback when he surfaced; after all, he was a run-of-the-mill bioluminescent horse composed of saltwater and strings of green gloop that only wanted to plant wet equine kisses on their screaming, stretched surfaces then drag them down to the trenched graveyard of the sea with his oyster-shell teeth.

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Thank you, so much Leigh, for your contribution for this month, after receiving my invitation at extremely short notice.

Leigh Ward-Smith lives and writes vicariously–and humourously (she hopes, anyway)–through her two children, one husband, and six ducks. She also thinks it’s a very good thing those numbers aren’t reversed! Follow more of her work at Leigh’s Wordsmithery.

You can also find the links to previous guest storyteller posts at https://sarahpotterwrites.com/guest-storytellers-2/

Friday Fictioneers — Old Thingamybob

Lauren Moscato

You lived in terror of rats gnawing  through to your bones with their tombstone teeth as you slept.

One day, a man clattered down the street on stilts and cast some pennies into your hat. You said to him, “Seeing as you’re a giant, do us a favour, mate. Paint us a door and two windows high up on that wall over there.”

“I agree it’s unsightly.”  (he meant you, not the wall)

That night, your rheumy eyes deceived you. Above, you saw your doorway leading to salvation away from the meths bottle and rats, if only you had stilts.

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Friday Fictioneers: 100-word stories
Photo Prompt: image © Lauren Moscato