No Tears

cartoon PigThe challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your own creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “MELANCHOLY”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories

Without a doubt, that was the last straw.

His casual comments about strangers with unflattering hairstyles, alien colored locks, clothes worn too tight or too loose, the ugliness of sparse whiskers on extra chins, jiggling rolls of belly fat, too much makeup or not enough, had escalated over the past month, and his gimlet eye had turned to me though he hadn’t yet uttered his scathing commentary…yet. Continue reading

Relentless

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (06/30/23). No more than 250 words in length.

Humans mill about the street, hot feet shuffling over sharpened sand. Dirt blows into every crevice of eye and between the toes. Sweat-stippled breasts of nursing mothers unable to comfort babies who don’t know why they cry. Geographically-darkened dress shirts of men, loosening their ties attempting to feel like they have it all under control. Continue reading

Solo Farewell

Oblong close scattering of stones, described in text

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt. The Unicorn Challenge (06/23/23). No more than 250 words in length.

(And no, this is not murder, but death by  cancer)

The last rock is placed. She stands back to evaluate her work. One hundred stones, enough to trace an outline. It’ll do. Her father’s body had become wasted, crumpled like a…a croissant! A little repose, in straightening out this depiction of his form. A little humor to remind her to breathe.  Continue reading

Time to Replant


Glass block terrarium, as described in poem

A friend’s gifted garden moss becomes dry and flat in its simple cup,

Wire butterfly perched on curved handle.

Too much time wasted, waiting.

Envision an enclosed glass world, layered:

Lake Superior red sand;

Rocks harvested from long-ago summers

(pale girlie feet wavering white under icy waters);

A sneeze of dirt, for the moss that yields tiny, white blooms;

Additional plants to be identified;

A snail or two, sweet company?

Budget store clarifies: Re-use from home. 

            Window well pebbles;

            Superior rocks only;

            Drainage moss;

            Dirt from the cup;

            Hollow glass block: the world.

Vision realized: on time, in budget.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2023)

Carrot Ranch  Prompt (06/20/23): In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about grains of sand. Where are these grains and what importance do they hold? How many ways can you think of to use sand? Who interacts with the sand and why? Go where the prompt leads!

Nightshift Vision

Red sunrise over ocean horizon

Source: Matt Fraser

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your own creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “PETRICHOR”, and here’s where you join the party:  Six Sentence Stories 

The soft pad of toughened feet on damp forest floor is the rhythm that drives the night onward.

Animals hush at her sensed presence then resume their own individual calls and clicks, but only after the shrubbery ceases to dance at her swift passage; scents of the otherworld momentarily mask the steady, calming perfume of petrichor. Continue reading

Baker’s Dozen

green eyeball

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your own creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “BOX”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories

“I’ll take two of those, three of the ones with the blood red edges, a couple of Tiger’s Paws, four of the Unembellished Monkey Heads, and the big, pillowy one with the kitty toe beans sprinkled over the top –- what do you call it, again?” Continue reading