F U Kevin

© Ayr/Gray

New Traditions

Older man riding a bicycle along a rural, paved bike path

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge(08/26/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

“Hey Emil, where ya headed?” Olaf cycled like Old Nick himself, trying to catch up with his childhood friend.

Emil slowed his bicycle and halted, gingerly slipping off the extra-wide seat that Dorothea had gifted him to encourage his getting in shape, on account of his tricky ticker. He sorely missed her dark black coffee, her cardamom buns, even her often sharp tongue. But she’d made him promise before she died, and two years later, he was fit enough to give Olaf a run for his money. Continue reading

Tough vs Tender (6-Sentence Story)

Yellow autumn leaves

Here’s a 6-sentence story (click here to get to the prompt, open ’til late Saturday night) to take your mind off the pain of waiting for election results. And perhaps a reminder to myself that we don’t have to be one thing or the other. We just have to work with the gifts that drop by unexpectedly, like a unseasonably warm day after a cold, snowy week, and the kindness of strangers who have more than enough and have no hesitation in sharing a little kindness. And yes, the story is fiction, but it doesn’t have to be…   

She hissed as she probed the scrape for rocks and glass and anything that might have embedded itself in her shoulder when she flew over her bicycle’s handlebars.  Continue reading

Autumnal Trip

red oak leafThey’d packed coffee and sandwiches, heading out, bike trails edging around lakes green with duckweed, geese and duck leaving their own paths as they nibbled, non-stop snacking to prepare them for the winter. The two biked on, through leaf-changing suburbs, under sharp-echoing freeways, until they finally arrived at Jack’s place. Continue reading