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

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

Strategy: Punt and Run

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 “CAROUSEL”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories

She’d retreated to the kitchen to escape the cacophony of what had become weekly shouts and belches that took over the living room, to get herself together and decide the next big thing she needed to do.

She would start with something easy: bake a sourdough loaf, with its usual white-whole wheat mix, and add dried fruit and nuts, with a scattering of spices of indeterminate mixture; nothing calmed her like creating something with her hands that no one had ever tasted before (not that these over-enthused sports nuts her husband had gathered would be able to appreciate the craft that brought her calm). Continue reading

Drinking Game o’ a Saturday Night

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 “FLUSH”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories

(Yes, playing fast and loose with punctuation, conjunctions, and sentence-length with this one, but the scene begs for a full snapshot. So let’s all…just…chill. Bwahahahaha!)

Three friends sat around the tree trunk that served as a table for a Saturday night card game, a squat three-spouted pitcher of Hazelnut Dark Brew centered between them that was low enough that they might peer with varying success of no-tell, over the cards held fanned out in front of their pendulous noses. Continue reading

For Satan’s Angel

Galleon Pirate Ship in harbor

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

Bonus Challenge: From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt: The Unicorn Challenge (04/28/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

The journey through the dark wood had been long, icy and lightless, even where the steep granite hills broke through like knotty spine and muscular back.

Steady as she goes, they crested the mountain top to find the mine’s entrance, a spiraling drop down a pathway only just wide enough for one wheelbarrow, one man at a time. Continue reading