The Wish

‘Grandpa, I wish I could fly like them,’ the child raised his little finger upwards.

‘Me too,’ grandpa said wistfully.

‘If the apostles could grant me one wish, I would….with their blessings…fly….. I mean.’

‘Let’s enter into a secret pact, you and me, a pact not to be ever broken. I will teach you to fly, like a bird. But you have to pay a price. You will have to stay with me; for some weeks.  It takes time; I can’t push you hard, you are just a little kid.’

‘But grandpa we are leaving in two days.’

The old man looked up and said nothing.

‘But when I am big enough to take care of us, maybe I will come and stay with you.’

The old man couldn’t gloss over the reality. He could feel a buzz deep within; it hurt.

The old man laughed, a bit loudly, ‘Give me a hug and let’s go out and enjoy some cherry pies.’

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A post for Sunday’sWhirigig

Word prompts-apostle, blessing, broken, gloss, buzz, hug, pact, push, price, hard, care, pies.

Flash Fiction forAspiring Writers on a picture prompt.

Word count 162

Fiasco

‘I am not staying here, honey,’ she blurted as she came out of the bathroom. She was looking perturbed.

‘Why?’ he asked in despair. They had been planning for this trip for three years and he did not want it to end the way their last holiday ended. Last time she had slipped in the bathroom within one hour of their arrival. She had badly damaged her ankle; they had to take the first flight back.

‘Please, it is nothing serious. Don’t get angry. I can sense your despair but I think I have blundered.’

‘Don’t talk in riddles, and tell me what is wrong.’

The first flight back would leave within three hours; they had to decide quickly.

‘There was a breakdown in the water supply in the morning and……I think I forgot to check the taps before leaving. I am afraid……… the taps aren’t closed.’ She could hardly utter the last few words.

‘The house would already be flooded if………’

He gave her a searing look and picked up the phone.

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A post for Flash Fictionfor the Purposeful Practitioner, and

Sunday Scribblings 2

Word count 173

Suicide

                                                                                  Photo prompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

He looked at the waves. Were the waves as angry as he was? The thought surprised him.

He felt that the waves were in fact joyous, and were trying to reach him. The waves were surely ignorant of his resolve.

He had let down everyone; but more so his happy-go-lucky daughter. If only he had been more caring and less indulgent of her.

He knew he couldn’t change himself. Even if he could, it would not bring her back. He had caused her death. He must now pay for his sins.

He looked at the rocks and closed his eyes. 

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a picture prompt and

Three Word Wednesday

Word prompt- happy-go-lucky, ignorant, joyous.

Word count 100

The Foolhardy

‘Can you make this wine dance?’

We all looked at him. He was laughing, almost audaciously. Beneath the gloss of courage there was perhaps an undercurrent of desperation.

The mission had failed. But he was not was willing to accept the failure. We had lost track of the time. We knew that soon the nights will become interminable. We could not delay our return any further.

He looked back at us without any sense of despondency. 

‘I know what you are thinking, but I can’t help myself. This itch to win does not, unfortunately, desert me. But I can’t make you pay for my foolhardiness.  You can all leave before the warning bell goes off. Please begin the preparations, quickly’

He walked out of the lab; there was an unnatural spring in his footsteps. We knew that we could longer stand there and wait for him to rethink. It would be easier to make the wine dance than to convince him to reconsider.

We all began preparing for our journey back to Earth. But we were not sure whether we would eventually leave without the man who had, by his umpteen daring deeds, won our respect and loyalty.

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A post for Sunday Photo Fiction on a photo prompt and

Sunday Whirl

Word prompts-mission, willing, lost, track, sense, gloss, itch, nights, bell, pay, spring, stand.  

Word count 199

Waiting Room

                                                                                   Photo prompt © J Hardy Carroll

There were only two of us in the waiting room.

‘Are you an army officer?’ the old man asked; his eyes were as lifeless as his voice.

‘I was.’

‘My son fought for the country; he is a POW………..for thirty years.’

I was stunned; his son was in my unit. He had fought under my command; he had been reported missing.

‘He is being released; he may return today.’ He left abruptly.

Something impelled me to talk to the Station Master.

‘You met the old man?  He passed away last June, in the waiting hall...….had been waiting for his son……for years.’

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a picture prompt.

Word count 101

Cost-ineffective

‘Where is he?’

‘In one of those cable cars.’

‘Which one?’

‘How would I know? I got delayed; I was collecting the receipt for cigarettes that I had bought.  By the time I reached here he had already gone.’

‘How could be you so careless?’

‘If you want a receipt for every penny spent then put at least two men to track a devious person like him; one will keep collecting the receipts and other can track him.’

‘But we can’t afford to deploy more people; the expenditure is about to overshoot the contract amount.’

‘Boss wants to steal the formula of neupron bomb but he behaves like an accountant and not as a mafiosi.’

‘There’s so much of competition; some people were willing to take up this contract at half the amount. Now, in such a situation he has to think of strict check on the expenses.’

‘Now what do we do? We can’t track him sitting here.’

‘Let us cut the power supply; I know how it can be done; then he will come after us, he has to, he has a big ego, this Mr Bond.’

‘I truly envy Mr Bond, the way he spends government monies and doesn’t have to collect any receipts; lucky fellow.’

Mr Bond had been quietly overhearing this conversation; he was not in the cable car but standing close by, keeping a close watch on the two pathetic hoodlums.

Mr Bond smiled and lit another Splendo, a cigar costing just seventy five bucks.

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A post for Sunday PhotoFiction on a photo prompt.

Word count 251

The Missing Dinosaur

‘This is the dragon that was in our room last night,’ Pipi said to his elder brother. Both of them had been intently looking at the picture of a dinosaur on the truck parked near their home.

‘Stupid, it’s not a dragon; it’s a dinosaur. And how could it have come into our room? It’s only a picture and not a real dinosaur.’ Pipi’s brother was always intolerant of his kid brother’s ignorance. He was only three years senior to his brother but he was sure that he knew many things of which his kid brother was totally ignorant.

‘Believe me, you were asleep but I was not. I saw this dra…..dinsaur. It was in the room. It even licked my cheek.

‘You must have been dreaming or imagining things.’

‘I was not dreaming and I was not imagining.’ Pipi said petulantly, ‘If you don’t believe me then we can come and check at night.’

Despite his self-assurance Pipi had made his brother curious; he agreed that they would come out in the night and check for themselves.

No sooner had their parents gone to their bedroom, Pipi and his brother quietly left their house.  The truck was still parked at the same place.

They sneaked as close to the truck as was possible.

Pipi almost shouted in excitement, ‘Was I dreaming or imagining? See, the dinosaur is missing. It has gone; it must be somewhere around.’

His elder brother could not believe his eyes; there was no dinosaur in the picture pasted on the truck.

‘Let’s go back now.’ Pipi felt that his brother was scared; and that pleased him.

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 A post for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers on a picture prompt.

Conjurer

He was about to enter the room when everyone laughed, derisively.

He had wrapped himself in a white cloth; a garland of flowers hung around his neck. But strangely he smelled of fish.

He froze at the door step. He looked at everyone; it was a look that could burn anyone to ashes.

‘You dare to laugh because you don’t know what I have been doing all these days. I was learning magic and sorcery from Circe.’

He had learnt magic from a mythical goddess; he must be mad. That’s what most of them thought. But, for some reason, no one laughed.

‘I must punish you all for your impertinence. This would be your last laugh. Now you got less than a minute. Soon you will all vanish from this world.’

He stepped behind a wooden screen kept inside the room and began chanting strange words.

Everyone kept sitting, apprehensive of what was going to happen. Some of them were now cursing themselves for mocking him. They had only made a fool of themselves.

The chanting had stopped and a deathly silence descended on all of them.

It took them time to realize as to what had happened. The magic had worked; he had vanished from the world.

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A post for Sunday Whirl

Word prompts- hung, less, made, fish, screen, cloth, enter, last, flowers, burn, took, white.

Word count 206

The Game

                                                                                     Photo prompt © CEAYR

‘That’s our world renowned arena,’ the boy was taking his grandpa for a sightseeing tour of his city. The grandpa had come from his village to celebrate kid’s eighth birthday.

‘But I thought it was an alien spaceship.’

‘You could be right, grandpa. The arena is perhaps on the other side.’

‘Why not imagine that it is an alien spaceship……..’

‘If we are lucky we would even meet some aliens.’

Someone tapped on grandpa’s shoulder. They turned and saw a couple of aliens. The boy shrieked in terror.

At that moment the fireworks began; local team had won a hard fought match.

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a picture prompt

Word count 102

Treasure Hunt

He was confident that they were on island indicated on the map. It was a completely barren island with no sign of life anywhere.

‘This is our third trip to the island; we have already wasted lot of money and time. This is sheer madness and it has to end someday.’

‘Trust me, we will find the treasure. Everything written in that diary has thus far turned out to be true.’

‘I will be damned if take even one step forward till you promise that this would be our last trip.’

‘Stop this babble,’ but he had to give his promise.  The hunt for treasure began. He had marked the places where they had carried out a search during their previous trips. They headed for uncharted areas.  

 ‘There is something over there,’ his excitement was unbridled.

‘Looks like remains of an ancient box. This is the treasure we were looking for?’ brother’s voice was laced with sarcasm.

‘Why are you so testy? It proves that someone must have definitely come here.’ But even this find did not lead them to the hidden treasure.

Their provisions were almost exhausted. There was no option but to turn back.

‘How I cherish this dream….this dream of finding the treasure hidden on this island by our father’s grandfather.’ His lament did not impress his brother.

An old tree fell on the island. It displaced the ancient wooden box and uncovered a treasure hidden underneath. But the brothers were already far out in the sea.

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A post for Sunday PhotoFiction and Three Word Wednesday

Word count 248

The Show

We were already late for the show. Siam looked at the road map, ‘Bit of a bad news, we should have turned left at the last crossing.’

‘And I see a road block up ahead; I was wondering why there was no traffic on this road. Let us turn back,’ she said mournfully.

As if this was not enough the kids started their rant, ‘We would be refused entry once the show begins. Why did we have to start after three? We could have left at two.’   

Without any thought I turned back; it was enough to provoke the kids, ‘We are late; we are late; we are late.’

‘Stop this chant,’ she shouted.

But I was not listening; from nowhere a mass of people had appeared; they were all running on the road, straight towards us.

‘What a flow of the spectators? Must be a great show,’ Siam commented; but I could sense a fear in his tone.

Soon they were all around us but they were no longer running; their flow had suddenly stopped. They surrounded us.

There was something odd about them. They were all in a trance. But perhaps I was mistaken.

One of them extended his hand towards me and said in a strange, ice-cold voice, ‘Welcome to the ghost town. Let the show begin.’  

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A post for Sunday Whirl

Word prompts- mass, trance, flow, road, map, rant, bit, news, show, chant, after, block.

Word count 220

Liebster Award

 

Jamie Dorner has nominated me for Liebster award. Thanks Jamie. It feels nice that someone found the blog deserving for the award. But I am too lazy to answer eleven questions framed by Jamie and talk about myself etc…. I may be forgiven for leaving the chain incomplete.

http://uniquelymaladjustedbutfun.blogspot.in/2016/05/liebster-award.html

A Winding Road

He was driving down the winding road. It was almost after fifteen years that he was going back to the place from here he had come to seek his destiny.

‘It’s no use being unselfish; it never pays in this amoral world. I wish I had been brought up differently. It was stupid of me; I should have known that they could backstab. I ought to have been cautious and………selfish.’

He was lost in such thoughts when a car tried to overtake him from the wrong side. He realized only in the nick of time that his car could be knocked away from the road. Instinctively he swerved a bit and applied the brakes to avoid a possible collision.

‘Is it foolish to be moral?’ he asked himself, almost loudly. He heard no reply and reluctantly he restarted the car.

‘Will this winding road ever end?’

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A post for Three WordWednesday

Word prompts- winding, unselfish, amoral

The Nest

                                                                                Photo prompt © Roger Bultot

‘Don’t touch those eggs?’

‘I can’t let them turn my room into a maternity ward. I allowed the last pair to hatch their eggs, but no more. The room stinks.’

‘They might get angry.’

‘As in that Hitchcock movie? But it’s no movie and I hate these birds; they have messed up this place.’

He removed the eggs and cleared the window sill of the nest. Soon one of the birds returned; it found the nest and the eggs missing.

At sunset she opened the window and screamed. There were hundreds of birds, frighteningly silent, perched everywhere around the window.

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a photo prompt

Word count 100

First Solo Flight

I had waited years for this day; but who could have imagined that the day would end as a farce.

As a little kid I had always wanted to be a pilot; of course on some days I had a desire to become an ice-cream seller. In between I had developed an attraction for uniforms and I had often wondered whether I should choose to be a cop or a bus conductor.

But I was given little option by our father who had already decided that one day I would run his departmental store. He had a very low opinion of my brothers; out of sheer frustration he allowed them to pursue their dreams.  I was the chosen one who inherited his business and his dream.

I did well for myself and the family. When everything that needed to be settled had been settled, I thought of pursuing my dream. It took some effort and lot of money before I learnt to fly. And finally the day came when I was told that I could fly solo.

It was my fiftieth birthday and everyone was there to watch my first solo flight. My brothers had also come, carrying a huge aeroplane; it was my birthday cake.

I was excited for I had waited years for this day. But perhaps I was overexcited and that was mistake. I would soon regret.

As I walked towards the aircraft everyone started clapping; the little kids, and there were many of them, were shouting gleefully. These were electrifying moments; I almost ran towards the aircraft.

Suddenly I tripped on something and fell; I had hurt my left foot. A doctor was summoned who advised that I should be promptly taken to an orthopaedic surgeon.

It was my first trip to a hospital and on a day for which I had waited for years.

*****

A post for Flash Fictionfor the Purposeful Practitioner on a photo prompt and opening sentence, ‘I had waited years for this day…….’

Point of View

‘Grandpa, what is this giant doing?’ asked the little boy, his left hand was on his raised chin.

‘I think he is supporting that pathway, up there.’

 The little boy looked intently at the statute and said, ‘To me it seems that he is holding up the sky.’

‘Are you sure?’ grandpa asked incredulously. He always enjoyed this game that they often played with each other.

‘Just bend a bit and look from here,’ the boy said, pointing towards his forehead. Grandpa had to bend a lot and it hurt his back; but still it was a fun that he didn’t want to miss.

‘You are right; he is holding up the sky.’

Grandpa was not prepared for what the boy was about to say.

‘Same thing can look differently to two people?’

‘Yes, that’s possible. From here it looks the giant is holding up the pathway but from your place he seems to be holding up the sky.’

‘So that must be the problem between you and grandma?  She must be looking at things from her place; that’s why you keep arguing?’

For once grandpa was left speechless.

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A post for Flash Fictionfor Aspiring Writers on a photo prompt

Car Race

He was not fond of car racing; in fact he thought it would be a waste of time. But Hiroshi had suggested that he should accompany him. 

Hiroshi was the CEO of the biggest auto company in Japan and he was hopeful of entering into successful joint venture with that company. If the deal went through, it would be another feather in his cap.

He was rather eager to rush through the deal and proceed with his European trip which had already got delayed.

But Hiroshi was a person who could not be hurried. In fact everything that Hiroshi did was done at a slow, leisurely pace. He was enjoying the race like a child; they had the best seats and the hospitality was mouthwatering. 

‘These racing cars remind me of what Lao Tzu has said somewhere,’ Hiroshi said in his usual unhurried manner. 

He looked at Hiroshi, unsure of what was coming. He had vaguely heard of Lao Tzu.

‘Never be first in the world….….by not presuming to be first in the world one can develop one’s talent and let it mature’.

At that moment two cars crashed on the track. It was an accident that would alter his life for ever.

The deal was concluded but he left the world of business; it was no use trying to be first in the world and loose oneself.

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A post for Sunday Photo Fiction on a photo prompt

Homecoming

                                                                               Photo prompt © Mary Shipman 

“Are you there? Please open the door.”

I woke up with a jolt, I was sure I had heard uncle’s voice. But how was thought possible? He was in his home, two thousand miles. 

A deep feeling of regret welled up in my heart; he had brought me up like a son and I had not gone back even once in twenty years. I didn’t even recall when I last called him.

Something in me forced me to leave at once. Three days later I reached his home; the shop was closed. But I was late.

He had passed away at midnight three days back.

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a photo prompt

Word count 105