Welcome to Five Word Weekly. This week is a tribute to those who gave their lives for the freedoms we all enjoy. November 11th known as Veteran’s Day in the United States and Remembrance Day throughout the British Commonwealth including my home in Canada. The Armistice Treaty was signed in the early morning of November 11th by Germany and the Entente. All hostilities ceased at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month in 1918. Although the fighting ceased The Great War would not officially end until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 29 June 1919. Today we mark the end of hostilities with 2 minutes of silence at 11am. More than ever, we need reminding that our way of life is precarious at best and despite our differing opinions our democracies are worth preserving at all costs.
Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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 re-launch. It has been difficult to keep up with this feature that disappeared mid-summer. I am bringing it back but will now run every other week in the same 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) time slot. The concept will be the same as previous. 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.
Image: Abandon Houses / Abandon, Decaying and Forgotten Group – Facebook
This week’s image depicts a abandon home slowly decaying into its surroundings. The monochromatic scene is offset by red 1960s/70s style Volkswagen Beetle windows busted out and rusting in the foreground.
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. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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.
It had been weeks (or so it seemed) since his holiness led our congregation on a hike into the wilderness. An expedition to seek our salvation. Mostly it was a mix of exhaustion, meditation, hallucinogenic tea, and the promise of something better. The promise seemed emptier with every step along this journey.
“Stop with this doubt, you’ve come such a along way.” I screamed to myself in a whisper, the palm of my hand smacking against my forehead.
It was difficult to hold a train of thought with my gut screaming at me like a muthafu… We’d been subsisting on the tea and some lukewarm liquid prepared by the congregation’s women weeks ago. It couldn’t have been real food because it didn’t seem to spoil. I was told it was designed to ensure we were pure in mind and body for the coming cleanse.
I joined a hunting party a couple of nights ago after Carl had retired. We’d fashioned makeshift bows and arrows and set out to catch anything we could find. A couple of rabbits made the untimate sacrifice, but the skinny rodents could only coughed up scraps. We built a small fire to cook our kill, but some were so hungry they picked the meat raw from the bone.
As the sun rose across the mountains and crept into our camp, His holiness Carl emerged from his tent. He was a slight man, unassuming in almost every way. His gifts were not physical but he could hold conversation, draw you into whatever narrative he was preaching. If just one of us had opened our eyes for even a moment it would have become evident that while we starved Carl thrived. I sure his concubines were in the know but the rest of us were too blind to see.
Morning always started with pray and a sermon from Carl but today was different. The usual routines were replaced with a sense of forboding. Today was the day we would ascend into the heavens. Everything we had brought with us, everything we’d made was gathered into the center of camp. A colossal column of smoke rising into the morning air casting a dark shadow over the clearing, blotting out the morning sun. Some now realizing this was a one way trip.
The hike seems lighter and somehow heavier today as we moved through the trees. “Are you coming or not?” Carl demanded as he took a few steps further onto the small ledge. He raised his arms and began to chant something in tongues. The line behind him had stopped moving, gripped with a new fear. Many believing flying was only a metaphor.
“It is our time to soar on the wings of God. Who will offer themselves up first.” he said as the the ringing of gunfire at the back ripped through the thin mountain air.
The echo jolting me back to reality as I tried to run from the trail. At the front, the crush pushing the congregation over the edge. Some, true believer spreading their wings as they fell over the precipice, other pushing agaisnt the tide to get back from the cusp. Fifteen, maybe 20 paces from the trail searing pain rip through my abdomen. Falling next to my wife and onto my two young children. Imploring them to remain calm and quiet. The life draining from my eyes praying, like it was the first time, that the plume of smoke had drawn someones attention.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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.
What they see is happy-go-lucky, not a care in the world. Like cool watermelon dripping down a child chin in the hot, noon day sun or ice cream filled evenings walking the state fair midway. A kaleidoscope of happy colours swirling around a perfect life.
If only they could see the tears behind the façade. Years of unhealed scars festering beneath the surface. Small pieces if flesh taken with every new cut. Revealed in the only place it can’t be hidden, in the black of dead eyes nobody bothers to peer into.
Demons trapped and screaming to be released but like a wounded animal concealed from the predators circling. The world begging us to celebrate our weaknesses like a badge of honour. Sycophants waiting to pounce for their own benefit, but I will never reveal what’s eating away my insides, clawing to escape my control.
Lately I’ve been spending way too much time flipping through Meta’s primary offerings to kill time. A friend and I send each other links to reels and posts on a wide variety of topics from political to plain funny. This morning he sent me a clip from the 70s sitcom “All In the Family”. You know the show whose claim to fame was the first toilet flush broadcast nationally (or anywhere) on the old tube (quite literally).
For the younger ones, TVs was not a series of OLED points of light but instead a cathode ray tube. Electrons were fired from ray guns – red, green, and blue for colour TVs that were distributed across a phosphor coated screen. The cathode ray tube was the primary reason old TVs were so deep and weighed a ton. For more info visit How Television Works | HowStuffWorks.
Anyway, back to Archie, Edith, and the family. Here is the clip my friend this morning with Archie and Meathead debating why cave women had short legs and fat butts…
As I watched, it donned on me that this show, a cultural juggernaut in its time would never have aired in 2023. Ironic because the entire point was to expose the social issues of the day. The same issues that still plague society today. You could argue that many of the movement exist or thrived because of “All In the Family”, its spin-off show “The Jeffersons” and other shows that followed a similar path.
All In the Family was one of the watershed moments in Western pop culture. It brought many of the issue of race, sex and inequality into the public consciousness. The show was a bold statement in its time that represented two steps forward in our social evolution. It is as relevant today as it was in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the pendulum it helped push in the right direction, has swung so far beyond its maxima, never mind equilibrium that it would have been cancelled long before it made it to Netflix.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words.
Just over a year ago, I had an idea for a writing challenge and Five Words Weekly was born. The inaugural edition dropped on October 17th, 2022. Hard to believe that it has been a year since that first post. Happy Anniversary Five Words and a big thank you to everyone who has participated, stop in to read and comment or just lurked in the background. I hope you have enjoyed the tales your fellow bloggers have created and hope you keep coming back for another year of flash fiction fun.
For seasoned veterans and new visitors alike – keep on writing. The weekly words may or may not have a theme however your story is not bound to that theme. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several posts. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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 Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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 Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
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.
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