Thomas sat at the table with his head in his hands, years of hard work and dedication hung in the balance.
He was still the highest-grossing salesperson in the organization, his stature legendary after 35 years of service.
They called him Easter Sunday because no one could resurrect a lost deal like he could, bringing opportunity back from the dead as if it were Jesus on the third day.
Sure, he’d been handsomely compensated for his efforts, but he’d made more money for this Corporation than anyone could count; single-handedly lifting it from its Mom and Pop beginnings to a giant of the industry.
Defunct of any reason the Director of Human Resources stared at him with shame and disgust, they no longer saw him as a giant but an out-of-touch dinosaur.
He tried to explain that it was a simple misunderstanding, the word gay had once meant happy, but it was too late, the damage was done; guilty in the court of public opinion he watched as his life swirled about the room before being flushed down the elevator and out the back door – left holding nothing but a single box of his belonging.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
This week’s Image is of the Statue of Liberty washing away on the crest of a large wave rolling across a swollen Hudson River/Atlantic Ocean while a flooded New York City looms in the background.
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Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Driving into work on this Sunday, Mother’s Day I find myself listening to Levar Burton, yes that LeVar Burton of Star Trek and Roots fame. I have dipped into the show’s archive and found “The Paper Menagerie”, one of my favourite short stories from the LeVar Burton Reads podcast.
The Paper Menagerie is a gut-wrenching story of a boy born to an American father and his mail-order bride from Hong Kong. Although I can not relate to the struggles of being a “half-breed” in white America and all the negative connotations that come with that in late 20th-century America, I can understand the struggle between generations. The animosity between a child and a parent. Ken Liu crafts an emotionally charged world of sorrow and struggle offset by the magic of his Mother’s origami animals. This Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy Awards winner seemed a perfect fit for Mother’s Day.
Speaking of Mother’s Day, in one of the more politically correct, woke, NO – just plain moronic twists one of the local school boards has ordered the removal of a Mother’s Day sign that Grade Six students had come up with.
Some including Gad Saad a Canadian professor and author who suggested “Mother’s Day is too exclusionary. Please be sensitive for community cohesion.”
To appease the few at the expense of the many, the sign was replaced with a less offensive message.
Make this month count. Accomplish your goals. You can do this.
The school’s first attempt at posting the new message contained a blatantly misspelled Acomplish / Accommplish / Acommplish. Perhaps more time on reading and writing and less time on social engineering should be the order of the day!
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.
School boards across this country have cancelled Mother’s and Father’s Day over concerns of inclusivity. Corporations have opted to forgo advertising campaigns or allow subscribers to opt out of receiving such materials and governmental agencies, universities, and mainstream publications now frequently refer to “pregnant people” or even “birthing people” instead of mothers.
“As we continue to learn and recognize the importance of celebrating all people in our community, we have moved away from isolated observances of specific traditions like Mother’s and Father’s Day,” the vice principal of Kildonan East Collegiate, a public high school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, wrote in a memo.
Of course, this is all ridiculous. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I am sorry that the generations since yours have messed this world up so bad that we can’t even show our appreciation for the person who brought us into this world.
I won’t trouble you with any Maple Leafs talk this week although I heard that Auston and Mitch (Marner) scored a combined three-under at Glen Abbey. That’s three more birdies than goals scored by Matthews against the Florida Panthers.
The Sam Roberts Band out of Montreal released some new music recently that I heard for the first time this week. The new single Picture of Love is a great listen.
Five Word Weekly, Four Line Fiction and at least one original piece. Consider that last one a challenge to myself since it’s been pretty barren at the blog lately.
In other news, I am considering launching a new monthly challenge in June or July. Something to allow the writer freedom to explore and develop longer stories. Stay tuned.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Here are your prompt words for the week of May 15th, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Welcome to another edition of T-Shirt Wisdom Wednesday for May 10th, 2023. This hump day feature is exactly what it sounds like. Every other Wednesday (bi-weekly) I will post a graphic that is funny, poignant, witty, honest, crude, toothsome, with bite, or just plain old ridiculous. Some I’ll have plagiarized directly from a chest near you. Others may not have been spotted in the wild but they probably should be out there.
Y’all know you can all relate to this one!
Suggestions are always welcome. If you come across something you think is worthy of being pasted across someone’s chest and paraded around publicly jot it down and send me a message. If it makes the cut I will whip up a graphic design template and use it in a future post. Any suggestions used will include a shout-out and link to your blog on the week it posts.
I attempted to respond to Fandango’s provocative question last week but as has become the norm of late, life and all its twists left the piece uncompleted. Even Sunday Digest got left behind and so I will combine the two into this week’s “Tuesday Digest”.
How do you feel about this topic? Do you believe that gender has a biological basis defined exclusively by chromosomes, genitalia, and internal plumbing? Or do you believe that “male” and “female” are merely socially conditioned behaviors and that gender is purely a subjective experience of identity? What are your thoughts?
Many will not like my view on the gender dilemma sweeping the planet…
We can quibble over sex and gender and their meanings, origins and entwined evolution in the English language ad nauseam. It changes nothing.
Everyone is born as we are into this world just as our God, Mother Nature or the alien race that seeded the galaxy intended. Evolution is a messy convoluted process with unlimited variation. It is a science experiment and we are the subjects. Our double helix, right-hand twisting DNA strands are forever being manipulated and re-sequenced in the petri dish of life.
Nature’s overarching mission is to genetically engineer changes to benefit the species over millennia and with a singular goal – SURVIVAL. As with any experiment, some adaptations will make the species stronger, some will yield no evolutionary advantage, while others may prove detrimental. It is the scientific method at its purist yet most brutal extremes. None of it is relevant on an individual level. I carry one of those detrimental mutations in my DNA. It fuels a relatively benign auto-immune disorder with a possible small role in determining when I depart from this world. Who are we to determine which adaptations nature renders desirable or abhorrent. Especially based on the definition of a few words in the English language. Humans love to catalogue, categorize and assign value but in reality, we are not very well suited to judge the Universe’s grand design.
I believe people should be allowed to live as they are. Accepted the way they were created. For there is beauty in all our forms. Take the idea of transitioning, the entire process is predicated on preconceived notions of biological sex and gender norms. Just because we can alter biological sex (at least on the surface) doesn’t mean we should rewrite the book. The more viable path to physical and psychological well-being would be to accept who you are, as you are. More importantly, society needs to embrace everyone as they are and accept the gifts each and every one of us contributes to the human experience.
I am not a fool, I understand the need for limits, laws, and established societal norms to maintain order. We can’t allow murders, pedophiles, and the various monsters that haunt our nightmares to roam free but that is not what we are discussing. As long as people are loving, accepting, and mutual in heart and mind why do we care what the definition of gender, biological sex, sexual orientation or any other term is. The fact remains those identifying as transgender comprise a relatively small number of individuals. Why we have allowed this topic to dominate the news is mind-boggling. It seems blatantly obvious that if we just love and accept everyone as they are there is no issue.
A couple of updates. Last week’s Digest covered my binge-watch of “The Last Kingdom.” After some of your comments, I broke down and watched the movie “Seven Kings Must Die” and was pleasantly surprised. It was entertaining and also held to the history better than I’d expected. It did a great job of wrapping up the series and I’d recommend watching it.
After exorcising their first-round demons my (no I don’t own them) Toronto Maple Leafs have managed to fall flat on their faces. With Boston’s early departure the Leafs, who haven’t won a cup since 1967 (the year before I was born) have dropped three straight to the Florida Panthers and have look gawd awful doing it. This team has the talent but clearly lacks something – heart, intestinal fortitude, desire – because they have not only lost all three games, they have failed to even show up. Nothing short of a miracle will prevent their exit from Lord Stanley’s tournament, I predict it will be golf season as soon as tomorrow night.
This week was a Death Cab for Cutie kinda week musically. In particular, the Dan Gibbard fronted Seattle outfit’s Plans album which included the classics Crooked Teeth and Soul Meets Body.
The week in review…
Echos of the Past A poem of reflection on the past by Piper at Piper’s Adventures
Zip, Zilch, Zero although it was a good week statistically. Lots of views and likes for older posts. Was it new fans or bots? I haven’t investigated so I am not sure.
Around the Blogosphere…
Ummm…
Next week…
Due to the tardiness of Sunday Digest, the new Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction have already posted. T-Shirt Wisdom will drop tomorrow…
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
This week’s Image is a woman wearing a straw hat, arms outstretched as she walks down the middle of a road towards a pine forest. The ground on either side of the road is snow-covered and there are several mountain peaks in the distance.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Here are your prompt words for the week of May 8th, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
This week’s capture shows rows of purple heather filling the bottom half of the images and receding out to the horizon and a single tree that is set against a pale blue and slightly washed-out sky.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
As I continue to struggle with motivation and find myself mostly tired at the end of each day, a curse I normally feel in the waning days of autumn but so foreign at this time of year, I wonder when inspiration will return.
Outside of work, where contrary to everything else I have found a new groove. I find myself on the couch binging Netflix until the wee hours of the morning. Covering the entire five seasons of The Last Kingdom, a BBC/Netflix series based on Bernard Cornwell’s epic series of novels, The Saxon Stories/Chronicles over the last two weeks.
I have mixed feeling about historical fiction. I am impressed with writers who can research a place and time in history and build an entire world around it. Skillfully inserting fictional characters into the backdrop of real historical events. Seamlessly meshing fictional characters into the lives of those who came before us. For many, it is our only glimpse into our history, our past.
My mother is a voracious reader, even in her 80’s she reads just about anything she can get her hands on. As a child, I remember shelves filled with books she’d read. Those shelves themselves only a small portion of what she’d read, the precious few she wanted to keep and read again. Now most of what she reads resides on her Kindle.
She is a huge fan of historical fiction. In the 1970’s I remember her waiting for the next installment of John Jakes, Kent Family Chronicles (aka The American Bicentennial Series) series to publish. I never read the books myself but she was a devout fan of the historical genre. Many of the books she read such as Gabaldon’s Outlander series or Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, taking her back in time to her familial roots in England and Ireland.
But historical fiction is a double edge sword. While many of the tales open our hearts and minds to history they also bastardize it. In the moment, the reader knows the stories to be fiction. Authors like Cornwell, who was driven by a need to tell a history that he believes is absent in Britain even provides context in his series to allow the reader to parse the history from the fiction.
Years ago, when I was at university, I discovered Anglo-Saxon poetry and became hooked on that strange and often melancholy world. For some reason the history of the Anglo-Saxons isn’t much taught in Britain (where I grew up) and it struck me as weird that the English really had no idea where their country came from. Americans know, they even have a starting date, but the English just seemed to assume that England had always been there, so the idea of writing a series about the creation of England was in my head for a long time.
Bernard Cornwell, from interview with Emerson College, text taken from Wikipedia.
However, as these novels become part of the cultural landscape the tales become interwoven into that history, romanticizing them. I think of the conversations I’ve had with people over the years who can’t separate fiction from history. Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code is one of these novels where I have listened to people talk of fiction as reality. As time passes the fiction begins to creep into history even more and the truths of our past blend into the fantasy until only the historians hold the truth.
That said I enjoyed the series, although I am not certain I will watch the movie follow-up movie The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die that was created to end the series. It does not appear to have been written based on Cornwell’s novels but rather as a vehicle for Netflix to wrap the series up in a bow for the masses, disregarding so much of the history that provides the stories backdrop and that of England herself. In this instance, I will stick to the novels.
My Leafs managed to get out of the first round of the playoff for the first time since 2004. Hopefully exorcising the ghosts of the past. Even better the Boston Bruins, the so-call greatest team of all time based on the best regular season point total in league history were unceremoniously bounced by the Florida Panthers. My disdain for Marchand and the Bruins makes this almost as sweet as the Maple Leafs’ victory.
This week in music I re-discovered another classic from my youth, U2’s Rattle and Hum. The follow up to The Joshua Tree, one of the greatest albums ever recorded. When Love Comes to Town, the B.B. King collaboration results in one of the greatest Rock and Roll moments of all time.
Five Word Weekly Challenge
Qué sera sera | A coming-of-age tale written by Sadje at Keep It Alive.
Imposter | A conspiracy theorist nightmare with a twist by Paula at Light Motifs II.
Four Line Fiction Challenge
Okay | Writer Ravenclaw catches our imagination as the woman in the image prepares to soar, to live.
The blank spaces here are a product of that lack of motivation I describe above.
Next week…
Look for the usual features, Five Word Weekly, Four Line Fiction. I said it last week and like a broken record will say it again… Hopefully, I find inspiration this week.
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Greg's Blog 