“This menu is amazing…” Shelley feigned enthusiasm.
“Get whatever you want,” Eddie shrugged. “Looks like you could use a good meal.”
“Oh, I can’t decide…”
Eddie wished she’d leave her hair alone. It looked like she was trying to strangle her fingertips with it. “Why are you doing that?”
“Huh?” Shelley let go of her hair. “Oh, bad habit.” Her throat tightened.
The waitress brought a steaming loaf of bread to their table and began rattling off the pasta specials. That’s what did it.
Shelley stifled a scream and scrambled for the door—
It’s First Line Friday over at the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie blog. The first line this week is Spider silk clung to the doors, over the windows, and over everything she had left behind.
Spider silk clung to the doors, over the windows, and over everything she had left behind. The musty stench nearly took her breath away. Alice was speechless. She had expected some dust and cobwebs hanging here and there, but nothing like this.
“Mom?” Alice called. “You here?”
“In the kitchen, dear! I’m making your favorite ghost cookies!”
Alice started for the kitchen, picking strands Spider silk from her long hair.
“Ghost cookies!” Alice exclaimed. “Yum!”
“How was your trip, dear?”
“Not bad,” Alice replied, and stuck a cooking in her mouth. “Those high-octane broom bristles really made a difference.”
“So, what do you think?”
“About the cookies? De-lish!” Alice smiled.
“Thank you, but I was referring to the house. Whaddaya think?”
“Mom, I absolutely love what you’ve done with it!” Alice gushed. “And so fast! How did you ever manage…all of this in only a week?”
“It’s amazing what a little Faerie Dust and magic elbow grease can do, isn’t it?”
If you are unfamiliar with Fill-in-the-Blanks, they are short stories with words missing that you, the reader, fill in based on the noted requirement (i.e. noun, name, verb, color, etc.). Step 1 is to read the list of blanks for the story and write down the words you select for that item (i.e. Name 1 = Bill, nouns = stars, etc.).
Jessica loved thinking of herself as an independent woman, capable of doing anything and everything that needed doing around the house. When a unicorn found its way into the house, she didn’t need any help in getting rid of it. When the gardenhose sprung a leak, she found the shut off valve and called the Water Department all on her own. Every time her father called she assured him that she was very capable of taking care of things on her own. What no one knew, was the mini cherry picker she kept hidden in the back of the tallest cabinet in her billiard room. There was one thing she had not been able to do since leaving home six months earlier. Every week, she would stand on the minicherry picker and pull down the jar. Every week she would try to open it. Too ashamed to ask for help and too poor to throw out good food. So far, its pickle jar: 23, Jessica: 0.
Today’s writing prompt at The Haunted Wordsmith is the image below by George Caleb Bingham.
The Jolly family was well-known infamous in the state of Missouri. A single mother trying to raise eight rambunctious boys, Molly Jolly was spread pretty thin. Her nerves were shot; she could do no more. She wondered what the boys’ father, George Jolly would have done.
“Damn you, George!” Molly shook her fist at the sky. “How could you?”
George Jolly and a few of his stupid friends had gone on a snipe-hunting expedition. George was the only one who never returned. All the search party was able to find was George’s old wide-brimmed hat and his pocket watch.
Molly Jolly was having none of it. She questioned each of his snipe-hunting buddies, and each told a different story of the nights’ events. That’s when she knew for certain her husband had ditched her. The responsibility of raising eight boys ranging from six-months to 10-years-old was too much for him. The bum.
Molly did the best she could with the boys, but it was nearly impossible considering she had to work in order to take care of them and herself. The boys refused to go to school, and also refused to work. All they were interested in was laying around the house, tipping over outhouses, and generally causing trouble for their neighbors. When they were older, they focused on chasing girls who didn’t want to be caught by a Jolly.
At least she could count on the older ones to look after their younger siblings. Yes, the older boys taught the younger everything they didn’t need to know. In the end, Molly had raised eight wild-eyed losers.
One day, she’d had enough. Molly Jolly sat down with a cup of ‘shine and commenced to devise a plan to get rid of her Jolly Jackasses. After dinner one evening, she put her plan into action.
“Boys? Stay gathered ’round the table,” Molly said in the most serious tone she could muster. “We got plans to make.”
The eight boys sat back down in their chairs and waited for her to continue. Their mouths were half open and eyes glazed over, as was their normal expression.
One of them spoke. It was the oldest Jolly boy, Jimmy. “Plans about what, Mama?”
“Plans about gettin’ rich, that’s what!”
“How we gonna do that?”
“First, you boys are gonna build a boat, kinda like Noah did way back when.”
“I hope we takin’ animals with us like Noah done did,” Joe-Joe, the second eldest Jolly interjected.
“I reckon you can if you make the boat big enough. Its up to you boys,” Mama explained.
“But where we goin’ and how we getting’ rich?”
“If y’all’d quit askin’ questions, I’ll tell ya!”
“Sorry, Mama,” they all mumbled.
“Now listen. Y’all build the boat and take it down the Missouri River ’til you pick up the Mississippi River. Then you take it south and keep goin’ until you reach land. That’s where you’ll stop.”
Joe-Joe raised his hand slightly.
“What is it Joe-Joe?”
“How are we gonna know when we get to the Mississippi?”
“Uh, well,” Mama hadn’t thought of that. “Signs! There’ll be signs that tell ya.”
“But we can’t read.”
“Look for letters with squiggly lines.” She drew esses in the air with her finger. “Like that.”
Next, Jimmy raised his hand. “What’s this place called where we’re goin’?”
“Louisiana,” Mama answered. “In New Orleans, Louisiana, I hear tell the streets are made of gold, just layin’ there for the takin.’ Diamonds and other jewels too.”
And so, the boys built their boat and sailed away to what they assumed would be fortune and fame.
“Y’all write when you get settled, and then I’ll come on down, too!” Mama called from the riverbank.
“We don’t know how to write, Mama!” Joe-Joe hollered as they sailed rapidly down the river.
“Shoulda stayed in school!” Mama laughed and continued to wave until the Jolly boat was nothing more than a Jolly dot.
George Caleb Bingham (American, 1811 – 1879), The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846, oil on canvas, Patrons’ Permanent Fund 2015.18.1
Today’s writing prompt over at dVerse is to write and Alphabet Sestet. For example: Choose a 6 letter sequence in the alphabet, for example A-B-C-D-E-F or perhaps J-K-L-M-N-O. Those letters, in that sequence, are the first letters of the first words in each corresponding line — as in line 1 starts with a word that begins with J; line 2 starts with a word that begins with K; line 3 with L; line 4 with M; line 5 with N; line 6 with O.
Ergo, the Ogre 