Mid-Week Blues-Buster Week 2.51 – The B.B. King Memorial Edition
Welcome to the Mid-Week Blues-Buster Flash Fiction Challenge, Year 2, Week 51.
This is a flash fiction challenge. The prompt is a song. You are not required to write about or even mention the song. It’s there only to get the ideas moving around in your brain pan. If you want to write about the song (or the video- it’s all good here) go for it but don’t feel like you have to.
The rules;
500 words, but it’s a slushy 500, meaning you can go up to 700 or as low as 300.
Post your entry right in the comments section of this post.
MAKE SURE TO PUT YOUR TWITTER HANDLE NEXT TO YOUR WORD COUNT AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POST. IF YOU’RE NOT ON TWITTER GIVE ME AN EMAIL ADDRESS OR SOME OTHER WAY TO GET A HOLD OF YOU!.
The challenge starts whenever I post this on Tuesday and ends at MIDNIGHT PACIFIC TIME on Friday. You read that right. Pacific Time.
We lost a music legend last week with the passing of blues master B.B. King.
B.B. is just too big a figure in the music world to pick just one song for a prompt so we’re doing something special in his memory.
This week there will be three song prompts. You can choose one, choose two, or find a way to tie in all three if you like.
The tunes and links are;
“Three O’Clock Blues”… https://youtu.be/nPeTtg3fTB8
“The Thrill is Gone”… https://youtu.be/buP4ZjXjOgA
“There Must Be a Better World Somewhere”… https://youtu.be/V__g_D8TLTI
This week’s Judge is author, theatre addict, and music aficionado… Mona Bliss!
The challenge opens the moment you read this post and runs through MIDNIGHT PACIFIC TIME on Friday May 22nd.
Now… Go write!!!!
Posted on May 19, 2015, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
The Tsuruoka Files 
Good news
Despair, death, and destruction.
I turned off the TV, because I was sick to the back teeth of listening to what we called news. I needed some good news, but that seemed to be in very short supply at the moment. There had to be something better, somewhere, because otherwise people were going to drown in all of this. The trick was knowing where to look, I suppose, and all I needed was to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Maybe it was going to be in those cat videos that often circulated around the Internet. Either that, or any kind of animal. They all seem to have those better lives because they had none of this to worry about. They did not see the effects of recession, they did not see pictures of war, they did not know about the effects of a natural disaster at the other side of the world. No. Their main worry would be that the food was going to be provided for them, or maybe if they were going to be let out in time for them to do their business.
I often wished that I was a pet of some description.
I turned my head on the sofa to watch my own cat stretch out a paw lazily. He was definitely one of the lucky ones, and I turned my body so that I was able to scratch behind his ear. This granted me an appreciative purr.
Lucky.
As I walked towards the kitchen, I flicked on the stereo and began to listen to some music. In order to escape the blues that the news always brought on, I found that music often gave me the escape to a better world that I was looking for. Although many musicians’ lives were tinged by tragedy, none of this ever seem to show through in their words.
A song from the late and great B. B. King came on my player, and I paused for a moment in reflection. However, it is worth remembering that a musician like him can never die, because their music will long be a part of everyone’s lives.
Somewhere he is watching everybody enjoying his lifetime’s work, and I am sure that he is smiling. I would hope that he has found that better world that he often sang about.
The news was forgotten as sitting and swirled around within my brain. I had found escape, and felt free to get on with everything that I needed to do.
Word count: 422
@harmony77uk
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A Better World
Space travel, by necessity, is a very exact, careful, precise proposition. A miscalculation will cause you to warp into unknown and uncharted space, guaranteed a slow death as your supplies run out, without a warp gate to get you out of there.
Yet Moses Brown just threw random numbers into the flight computer and headed for the closest warp gate. He had decided that anywhere was better than here. Even the empty vastness of space with no one to talk to or to disappoint.
When the jump started he laid down in the middle of the floor on the bridge of his private craft. Tears flowed, not for his impending lostness, but the lostness he was leaving behind. He remembered the luxury. He remembered growing up thinking slaves were just so much trash to be used, thrown away, and burned up at will. Then he found out, he was born one of them.
He didn’t get up to see what was out there, what could there be except the blackness of space? So he laid marinading in his memories, rehearsing the rejection by those slaves he wanted to save. Even when he struck down one of his childhood friends for their sake, they distrusted him.
So he committed suicide, by the slowest method of death he could think of, punishing himself for what he was. Hating himself for what he had done to his people, before he knew the truth. Hating himself for what he had done to his friends, after he knew the truth.
Moses rolled over to hide his face in the floor. Soon his head was laying in soppy puddle of tears and snot. He didn’t want to see yet another mess he had made, so he reached up to the console and flipped off the lights. It took a moment before he realized the brightness of the room hadn’t diminished.
Curiosity stood him on his feet. He was not in empty space. Somehow, against all odds, he had dropped out of warp in a star system. Looking out the front window he realized he was drifting into the sun. He would die quickly, and that was not acceptable. He ran to the navigation console and thrusted away from the sun. It took half of his available fuel, but he broke away from the gravitational pull and parked between the orbits of the seventh and eighth planets.
The mathematical side of his mind was trying to adjust to how unlikely his circumstances were. Where was he? The onboard computers didn’t recognize the system. He burned a little more of the precious fuel scanning the planets. Number eight was habitable.
He decided that he should land. Maybe the God of his mother had brought him here for a reason. Or maybe he could find a way to die slow like he deserved. Or maybe his mother’s God brought him here to be sure he died slow. It would take three days to intersect the orbit of the eighth planet, along the way he did more scans. He found several life zones that were to his liking. And then when the planet turned just the right way, he found out he wasn’t the only one. There were colonies down there.
He landed on the outskirts of a little village and walked in. The first group he met was a group of sisters. The oldest was named Zipporah, and she was cute. He found out the planet was named Sinai and the village was named Midian. As they talked Moses learned the girls’ father was the local preacher.
Moses decided he could wait and see what else the God of his mother, had in mind. This God of Zipporah’s. This God of his. There was a better world out there.
629 words
@CharlesWShort
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“Red.” Graham’s sleepy voice croaked. His back was to me and the flickering light of the television. “What bloody time is it?”
I glanced at the clock on the nightstand between our beds.
“Three o’clock.”
“In the morning?”
“I doubt you’d be irritated if it was afternoon.”
He flopped over in the bed. The plain black t-shirt he’d worn to bed bunched up around his chest, exposing a view far nicer than the TV boasted. His dark hair pointed in every which direction. He looked at once adorable and mouth-watering.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I would love to,” I said. I picked up the remote and changed channels. “But my brain and body can’t seem to agree on the process.”
“Well my brain and body were doing just fine until—whatever is going on over there.” He waved a hand toward the TV.
“Sorry.” I pushed the covers away and climbed out of my nest of pillows and extra blankets. Shoving my legs into my blue jeans, I searched the pockets for the card key to the room.
“Wait.” He sat up and scrambled to the foot of the bed, catching my wrist. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll go down to the lobby.” I yawned. “Read tourist magazines. Breakfast starts in four hours.”
I made to leave, but Graham rather pointedly did not let go of me.
“I won’t leave the hotel.” I crossed my heart with my finger. “Promise.”
“Stay,” he said. “And tell me why you can’t sleep.”
“No.” Stark fear nearly snuffed the lone word in my throat. “No. Bad idea.”
“I’m a very good listener.”
“You’re a detective. Of course you’re a good listener.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence for my profession, but one does not necessarily guarantee the other.” He tugged me a step closer. “Don’t go.”
“Graham.”
“I’ll worry. Then I won’t be sleeping. I’ll be wondering where you are. I’ll be thinking I should probably find you. And then I’ll be freaking out because I can’t find you. And then—”
I clapped my free hand over his mouth. His blue eyes sparked with humor and an unholy satisfaction. Oh, he knew he’d won.
“Enough,” I said. “I get it. You’ll die of loneliness.”
He chuckled.
“Can I have my mouth back?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
He wrapped his free hand around my wrist and slid my hand along his cheek. He turned his face and the unmistakable feel of his lips puckering up and kissing my palm nearly turned my knees to butter.
“Graham,” I whispered.
“Just showing you I can play nice,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to regret your decision to hang out with me and watch terrible movies or infomercials or whatever other atrocities the telly conjures at this godforsaken hour.”
“Television?”
“Mmhmm.”
Was it my imagination, or did his lips skim to the delicate inside of my wrist?
“Are you hungry?”
Yes. But not for food. Gods above, not for food.
“It’s too late for room service.” There, that sounded reasonable. Sensible, even.
He snorted.
“At this price point, room service is always available.”
“I don’t—ahem—I don’t frequent this price point.” He made it impossible to think. “I’m more of a Budget Inn sort of gal.”
“Well, tonight you’re a Four Seasons sort of woman,” he said. “If you can’t indulge after the day and a half you’ve had, when can you?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Are you spoiling me?”
“For other hotels?” He nodded sadly. “Most definitely.” His thumbs stroked the thumping pulse in my wrists. “As to spoiling you for—other things—I’m a patient man.”
“Graham.” I had to learn to fight back with more than his name. Maybe a good left hook. “If you’re waiting for something with me, or from me, or—” Could I sound any more indecisive?
He laughed and tumbled me to the bed.
“I said I was patient, Kelly. Not stupid.”
@caramichaels
654 WIP words
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Jerry sat on his sofa every night waiting for her to go to sleep. She went upstairs about nine. She usually went upstairs between eight and nine most nights. He usually stays up till eleven, or midnight. Just to make sure she’s asleep when he gets to bed.
Sometimes Jerry wondered when it all started. When he stopped going to bed when she did. When she stopped asking him to come to bed. When he started wearing pajamas every night, even though she sent to bed naked.
“Used to be different,” he remembered. “Yeah. Used to be different.”
He remembered the first night, before they got married, when he woke up at stupid o’clock and she was on top of him. “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” She hadn’t said anything, just kept moving.
Before they got married, they spent nights together at her house, in her bed. Hell, they spent whole weeks of nights together. Always at her house, always in her bed. Never in his apartment. But he didn’t care.
After they got married she got experimental. She started trying more positions, and more types of activity. Over the years, they’d tried everything, including oral and anal. They tried sex on the stairs, and in the shower. On the sofa, in the kitchen. Even in the middle of the night, with no lights on, and the curtains open. It was OK to experiment, since they were married. They could have all the sex they wanted. And they did.
After the kids were born, they didn’t experiment as much. As the kids grew older, the fun nights grew less frequent. When the oldest went to college, things pretty much stopped.
Jerry sat on his sofa and remembered what it was like. When she put her head between his legs. Or when he stood by the bed with her on her hands and knees. He used to watch every stroke. That was part of the fun for him. Watching.
But, those days were gone. And Jerry wasn’t like the guys he worked with. All of them divorced their wives and had married younger women. Women still interested in sex. If that’s what they wanted, Jerry was OK with that. But he wondered why they slept with women the same age as their daughters. “That just ain’t right, is it.”
Besides, it took energy to wake up in the middle of the night for that sort of thing, and he’d rather sleep. He knew, after enough times, it all became the same. Everything felt the same. All the new, all the excitement, had worn off.
The thrill was gone.
Around eleven-thirty that night, Jerry felt tired enough to go to sleep. He wandered upstairs, changed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed. The covers felt good. After a few minutes, she stirred, pulled his arm out, and snuggled in, her head on his shoulder.
Jerry smiled. The thrill might be gone, but the comfort and the trust of having her as his friend and companion more than made up for that.
511 Words
@LurchMunster
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To Have and To Hold
It was a day. You know the kind. Whatever could go wrong did, and with a vengeance. White pants? Coffee stained five minutes before the company presentation. Parent teacher conference? Totally forgotten in the panic of prepping for the presentation. Paycheck? Lost somewhere in the paper tornado of presentation prep.
And then I’m late to pick up the kids at daycare and empty-handed because I never did find my paycheck. The sitter is nice about it but it’s not like she has a choice. What is she going to do? Hold the kids hostage on a Friday night? Matt and I don’t have a dime to spare and until I find my check, I’m screwed.
I get home, settle the kids on the sofa, and turn on the television. Maybe if I get dinner out of the way, I can relax and play with the kids for a bit before bedtime. And maybe crack open that bottle of wine and talk Matt into watching a movie. I just need to catch a break, that’s all. Ten minutes where I don’t have to make any decisions or clean up after someone.
But that all goes to hell when Matt gets home. He comes into the bedroom and wraps his arms around my waist. I let myself sink into him, thinking how much I love him, and then he says those fateful words. He didn’t pick up dinner. I lose it, tell him to get out. Take his bullshit and his beer and go across the street to his buddy’s, go anywhere but here. He tries to reason with me, tries explain, but I just keep telling him to go until he does.
I throw some chili in the pan and heat it up, run the kids through the tub after they make a mess of it. I get them in their pajamas and into bed. Lay beside them and try to get through a couple bedtime stories without screaming or puking on the schmaltzy words. Fairy tales are a joke. Lies told to suckers. Only losers believe in Happily Ever After.
I wake sometime later, sandwiched between them. The toddler is wet. Peed through her clothes and the bedding because I was too angry, or maybe too lazy, to put her training underpants on before tucking her in. I shift the baby into his crib, scoop up the toddler, and take her into the shower with me. We get cleaned up and play with the shampoo, making bubbles and laughing, before we dry off and get into clean pjs. I let her snuggle with the baby while I put her bedding in the wash.
When I get back, she’s already snoring. I put fresh linens on her bed and lay down and watch them sleep. My heart gets tight and my eyes damp. They are my world. I wake sometime later to see Matt, a towel wrapped around his waist, leaning over the crib and tucking them in. He turns to leave and sees I’m awake. He sits on the edge of the bed, tries to tell me why he didn’t get dinner but I stop him, tell him that everything was my fault, that I was – that I am – an unconscionable bitch.
He lays beside me, pulls the comforter over us, and slides out of his towel. I tell him no, that I don’t deserve his kindness, don’t deserve comfort or affection, sure as hell don’t deserve pleasure. Not tonight. But he chuckles, tells me he doesn’t always deserve it either but that I just keep stubbornly loving and fucking and living with him, and so I give in. Lying there watching my children sleep, sweating and sighing with my husband in a tangle of Hello Kitty sheets, I vow, on every slick stroke, that instead of looking for a better world, that I will make the world a better place – for them.
– – – – –
@bullishink / 692 words
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