FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - THE LILY POND - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

The Lily Pond

            We bought the house of our dreams.  We loved its peaceful garden with its lily pond and little stone bridge. 

            “It’s so beautiful.  Imagine leaving this to move back to the city.” I remarked to Janet at our housewarming party. 

            “Hmmm,” she replied, turning away and leading me back inside.

            They were arguing in the kitchen. “ An ‘Attractive Nuisance’!  Fill it in and feed the fish to the cats,” Janet’s husband was saying.

            “What was that all about?” I asked Tom later.

            “Turns out a neighbour’s kid drowned in that pond.  Probably why we got the house so cheap.”

           

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - IN BITS - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

In Bits

            Max didn’t get a chance to warn me, but they were gone by the time I got home.

            Door left ajar, house ransacked, everything taken apart, including the Dogbot, who lay in bits on the hall rug. 

            K-9s are an expensive piece of kit, so I loaded him in the wheelbarrow with my tools and weapons and packed everything into the hummer.  I took nothing else, though it hurt to leave the eviscerated keyboard behind. 

            I set the hummer controls to glide under the radar and sped away.  They had Max, they didn’t know yet that I held the data. 

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - THE SHOPPING CENTRE AT THE END OF THE WORLD - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

The Shopping Centre at the End of the World

            “Oh Daddy! You promised there’d be food if I didn’t cry!” I was crying now, though.

            “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t know.  I thought there’d be food here.”

            Standing in the water, left by the receding flood, were three empty shopping carts.

           “I’m so hungry.” We’d been chewing the skin of bark-less trees for weeks.  The flood had stripped the land bare.

            “Look, honey! At the end of the valley! Debris from the shopping centre!  There could be food there!

             “I’m so tired,” I whined.

            “That’s okay, girl.  I’ll lift you up. At least you can ride in this.”

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - THE GIFT - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

The Gift

        

         “Daughter! A present from Corinth!”

         My heart thrummed like the strings of a lute, thinking this another gift from my beloved.  I gasped when I saw it was from his former wife!

         Inside was a beautiful robe, spun from the finest gold.  A robe so splendid, I could not resist slipping it onto my trembling body.

         Oh, unmerciful agony! My limbs burned, on fire from within.  My virgin’s body instantly devoured in the flames of her vengeance.  My courageous father burning to save me.

         “I curse you, wicked sorceress! May you die alone, swimming in the blood of your children!”

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But first, some culture from the Classic World:

Here is the last Chorus from Euripides’ ‘Medea’:

Manifold are thy shapings, Providence! 

Many a hopeless matter gods arrange.

What we expected never came to pass,

What we did not expect the gods brought to bear;

So have things gone, this whole experience through!

In other words, that's life...

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - THE FLIGHT CLUB - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

FLIGHT CLUB

            “Watch this! He’s coming in for the kill!” Fred called, “That’s it, Ringo, you’re my bird!”

            “Stop him! Don’t let him kill Nester! We won’t have enough birds for next week!”

            Fred jumped the fence, batting Ringo away with a tennis racket.

            “Okay, folks, that’s the Kill Point.”  Scott declared, “Pay up.”

            The men grumbled, but they paid out the seashells they had collected all week. 

            Scott took his cut and handed the rest to Ed.

            “That was a close one,” Scot sighed, “You gotta watch it.  Those are the last two seabirds.  Once they’re gone, no more fight club.”

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - CHOOSE ME! - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

CHOOSE ME!

            “Choose me,” moaned the Blue Door.  “The world owes you a living.  You will be alone and depressed, but chemicals will keep you high.  You will exit life quickly, without leaving a trace.”

            “Choose me!”  Declared the White Door. “You will be safe in the hollow of conformity, replete with peace and tranquillity. You will prosper, with grandchildren and garden parties.  The earth will never move beneath you.”

            “Choose me!” Cried the Red Door.  “You will have a life of passion, adventure and adversity; breathtaking highs and awesome lows. You may wind up broke, but you will have truly lived.”

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - LATE AGAIN - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

LATE AGAIN

            Hank watched the Gramps shout from the shop’s door.

            “Marge, tell Amanda to hurry up!”

            Hank couldn’t hear anything, but his sensors registered unusual activity in the Gramps’ brain, “Haste only makes waste, Harvey. There’s no rushing our Amanda.”

            The Gramps leaned on his stick, mumbling. “I always said she’d be late for her own wedding.”

            Then he started weeping. “If only I hadn’t made her rush home from school that day, Amanda would still be alive.”

            “ Cut!” Hank yelled from the control booth. “Kill the module. Send the Gramps Android back to Tech.  Too much human memory left!”

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - WRETCHED REFUSE - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

WRETCHED REFUSE

            “Are you sure we have enough cement in there?”

            “For cryin’ out loud, I’ve been doin’ this for years.”

            “Uncle Frank will be furious if his package winds up back at Red Hook.”

            “Would you quit being a baby and hand me that rope?”

            “Rope, too?”

            “Yeah, the duck tape gets water logged. Nylon rope lasts forever.  Help me hoist her overboard now.”

            “Sheesh, she’s heavy.”

            “That’s the point, knucklehead.”

            “Shouldn’t we say a prayer or something?”

            “I hope you’re kidding. Oh no, don’t start crying. You hated your Aunt Rosa!”

            “Yeah, but she made the best damn meatballs.”

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - ROCHELLE'S MUSEUM - MY 100 WORDS BY LINDA PALUND

ROCHELLE’S MUSEUM

            “We have a museum.” Declared Rochelle, as we clumped home in our playsuits.  We were allowed outside for one hour each day.

            She opened a heavy door in their storeroom. 

            “It’s beautiful!”

            I couldn’t tell her how sad it made me.

            Wolf Creek was 100 miles away, but when the tornado hit the Power Plant, it spun these radioactive toys all the way to Kansas City.

            Rochelle’s and my dad were ‘pessimists’.  They built lead-lined storm shelters beneath our homes on Stateline Road.

            Later, in Hazmat suits, they collected the memories of the dead children, sealing them behind leaded glass.

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FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - UNION STATION TODAY - MY 100 WORDS - BY LINDA PALUND

UNION STATION TODAY

            “Jeez, will you look at that!”

            It’s hard to move quickly inside a Hazmat Suit, but when I managed to fumble my way through the opening Jack had blown for us, I had to catch my breath.  Which is also very difficult in these suits.

            With Global warming, the tornadoes became more frequent in Maryland until they finally decimated the Lusby Nuclear Power Plant, sending deadly radiation on favourable winds straight to DC. 

            The evacuation was a farce, only the President’s plane made it out safely.  The remaining terrified residents barricaded themselves inside Union Station.

            That was 50 years ago.

• Historical Footnote:
• In 1961, as a testament to the strength of the Station's design and construction, a civilian firm surveying the Washington, DC area buildings determined that Union Station could serve as a fallout shelter for hundreds on an extended basis and thousands in an emergency. One key location was a deep, heavily pillared storage area originally designated as a swimming pool and steam room for affluent railroad patrons.

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