Tag Archives: Photo Prompt

Twittering Tales #26 – 18 April 2017

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About the challenge:  Each Tuesday I will provide a prompt, and your mission, if you choose to play along, is to tell a story based on that prompt in 140 characters or less.

If you accept the challenge, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your tale. A final note: if you need help tracking the number of characters in your story, there is a nifty online tool that will count for you at charactercountonline.com.

I will do a roundup each Tuesday, along with providing us a new prompt.

Have Fun!

Twittering Tales #25 – The Roundup

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Door Sign from Pixabay.com

From Michael at Morpethroad:

My Songs
I was disappointed with no entry.
They had played my songs.
Their interpretations fascinated me.
I was flattered by their vocal renditions.
(137 characters)

From Lost in Translation79:

And so it begins…
I stood there with baited breath, the crowd restless. I closed my eyes absorbing this moment, because you only have this once…
(126 characters)

From Lady Lee at Lady Lee Manila

Let us get through
We’ve got passes
To see the Band live
After their show
Special privilege
Couldn’t believe our luck
We’re now groupies, yay!
(136 Characters)

From Reena at ReInventions:

The Final Scene

It was time to don the disguise robes. The mission had to be accomplished today by the suicide bomber. Both success and failure meant death.
(140 characters)

From Kitty at Kitty’s Verses:

Come One, Come All
Why is it restricted entry? Why don’t they put up, “Come one, come all, Laugh till you fall!” After all joy is always to be multiplied.
(137 characters)

From Jane at Jane Dougherty Writes:

We’ll Be In Touch
Booed off stage talentless bands are pushed to this door. Saves paying their fee—it opens onto a disused lift shaft.
(116 Characters)

From Lorraine at In 25 Words More or Less

Pyrotechnics
Cynthia wondered if anyone bothered to leave their ego at the door. Last night’s fireworks weren’t a planned part of the performance.
(133 Characters)

From Di at Pensitivity101:

I could not believe I was denied access.
It was just a local talent contest!
The oldest was 9, the youngest 6, and I was their mother!
(134 characters)

From Kathryn at Another Foodie Blogger:

Ray Sr. stood before the closed door, confused. His rheumy eyes glanced over at his son. “Come on dad, you’ll have fun. For old-time’s sake.”
(141 Characters)

From Sangbad at Thoughts of Words:

Legend
I’ve saw him s’where…where, I can’t recollect now….
the old legend looks at the sign and then at the woman…he sigh…his last breath…
(140 characters)

From Bobby at Bobby Fairfield:

On the other side lies fame and fortune or a very rapid descent into oblivion. Let’s do it boys.
(96 Characters)

From Kirst at Kirst Writes:

I used to go to every gig, years ago.
His eyes would always find me in the crowd, then later we’d…
Would he even remember? I knocked.
(132 characters)

From Peter at Peter’s Ponderings:

You’re banned, not band! Despite dressing as pirates and carrying guitars, Gilbert and Sullivan failed to get past the doorman at the Savoy.
(140 characters)

not one tale but two with a clue…

I’ve been outside the door for 3 days now, waiting for the superstar Kat to come out. I’ll just have to make do with leaving this note behind. Hope she finds it!

From Milton John at Broadsidesdotme:

On the set of the “Titanic” we received due respect.
(52 Characters)

From Irena at Books and Hot Tea:

Finally Famous
With a new lead singer, our popularity peaked. Critics praised us, concerts were sold out.
But was fame worth leaving a part of us behind?
(137 characters)

And starting it off…my take:

People called us an overnight sensation. If they only knew how many dives, we played to get here. Wouldn’t a had it any other way.
(130 Characters)

Loved the variety this week you all! We had has-beens and wanna-be’s groupies and stage moms, a few curtain calls, a nautical twist of view, song pirates and pyrotechnics. Thanks everyone for playing along this week. You’ll find this week’s photo prompt below. What tales are hidden in this rear view mirror?  Hope to see you at next week’s round up!

Twittering Tale #26 – 18 April 2017

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Photo from Pixabay

“Do you see them?”
“No…I think we’ve finally lost them. Just a few more miles.”
“Then what?”
“We may never know. Look ahead. They’re coming.”
(140 Characters)


Hopeless Grace

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Suspense by Charles Burton Barber

Beads of sweat dotted her forehead as she crouched, trembling under a makeshift shelter of cardboard panels. Her swollen belly tightened as surging bolts of excruciating pain crushed her frail frame. 

After hours of agony she birthed not one, but two baby girls. “Two too many mouths to feed,” she thought. She swaddled them in rags and placed them in a tattered basket, scratching a note to the good sisters. “Please care for them”, she wrote, “I cannot.” 

Before dawn she stumbled into town leaving them at the abbey door. As she watched from a distant doorway, the sisters of St Gertrude’s Orphanage took the twins in just as she had hoped they would.  

________________________________________________

The sisters named the babies Hope and Grace. Hope was the quieter of the two. She rarely made a sound and seemed to prefer observing life as it passed before her. Grace, true to her name, was a delightful, good natured bundle of joy. She quickly caught the attention of a barren couple who visited the orphanage hoping to find a child to call their own.

The adoption fee was quite high, but it ensured the means of prospective parents and their ability to provide for the children placed in their care. The sisters never mentioned that Grace was a twin for fear that the couple might change their mind. Finally the papers were signed and fees paid. Grace became a daughter that day, while Hope remained behind.

Seven years passed. Grace thrived in every way. Her wealthy parents showered her with love and comfort, seeing to her every need and want.

While at the park one spring day Grace noticed a girl, strikingly familiar, amongst the orphans that came to play every week. She approached the girl.

“Hello,” she smiled, “my name is Grace, what’s your name.”

Hope looked up, her eyes widening. It was like looking into a mirror. “I’m Hope,” she replied, “you look just like me. How can that be?”

The girls became fast friends. Grace begged her nanny to take her to the park on the days when the orphans would be there. She told Hope about her lovely home and family, her dog, Button and her kitten, Scratch. Hope, in turn, told Grace about her life at the orphanage. The sisters were kind and loving in their own way, but they were not a mommy and a daddy; something Hope longed for.

Overcome with compassion for the orphan, Grace had an idea. “you know Hope, you could be me and I could be you. I’m sure no one would be the wiser. Then you could see what it’s like to have a mommy and daddy.”

Hope thought for a moment. “That’s a fine idea Grace! I could do as you say. No one would be able to tell. If you are willing I would love to do it.”

The girls agreed to trade lives for one week. They swapped clothes behind a huge oak tree. Grace joined the other children as they lined up to return to the orphanage. And Hope skipped over to the nanny who was sitting on a park bench nearby.

Their plan worked like a charm. No one ever suspected. After a week’s time, while enjoying breakfast in bed, Hope decided she rather liked being a daughter with parents and a dog and kitten. There is an old wives tale about twins that says there is always a good twin and a bad twin. Hope definitely fit the latter description. What she was about to do to Grace was very bad indeed!

From that day forward she resisted the nanny most vehemently when she offered to take her to the park. There Grace returned week after week, waiting and watching for her doppelgänger to no avail. Eventually she realized she had been deceived, feeling helpless to fix the mess she’d gotten herself into. Surely no one would believe the truth were she to tell it. So she didn’t.

Poor hopeless Grace spent the rest of her youth with the good sisters of St. Gertrude while an imposter lived the life she forfeited for having too kind a heart.

-kat – 13 April 2017

For Jane Dougherty’s Sunday Strange Microfiction Challenge based on this painting called

.


Cold Pizza

PHOTO PROMPT © DALE ROGERSON

The boom of a trash truck outside startled her. Her head was spinning.

“Where am I?” she gasped, fumbling for her clothes. As she dressed the sound of someone showering hummed from the next room. 

“Why don’t I remember. Was I drugged?” she mumbled.

She grabbed her things and tiptoed past the bathroom; the front door in sight at the end of the hall, when she heard the water stop.

“You’re up! Where are you going so early?” his unfamiliar voice rasped from behind.

“Work. I have to go to work,” she whimpered not turning. The door was padlocked.

-kat – 12 April 2017
(99 Words)

For Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers challenge based on this photo prompt by © Dale Rogerson


Tilt – A Three Line Tale…Haiku


it’s all perception
illusion in portraiture
view from the hillside

-kat – 11 April 2017
A Three Line Tale based on the photo by Serge Kutuzov via Upsplash


Twittering Tales #25 – 11 April 2017

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About the challenge:  Each Tuesday I will provide a prompt, and your mission, if you choose to play along, is to tell a story based on that prompt in 140 characters or less.

If you accept the challenge, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your tale. A final note: if you need help tracking the number of characters in your story, there is a nifty online tool that will count for you at charactercountonline.com.

I will do a roundup each Tuesday, along with providing us a new prompt.

Have Fun!

Twittering Tales #24 – The Roundup

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“Boats” from Pixabay.com

From Reena at ReInventions
Deeply disappointed is the romantic me
When my heart goes aflutter in the depth of the sea,
they kill imagination, these guys with long hair.
(140 characters)

From Kitty at Kitty’s Verses
One final dip. The pains of relocating.He was to cut it short,  what use was his mane of hair, when there was no sea to sink into?
134 characters

From Lorraine at In 25 Words More or Less
One final dip. The pains of relocating.He was to cut it short,  what use was his mane of hair, when there was no sea to sink into?
134 characters

From Jane at Jane Dougherty Writes
Shaggy-haired, the head emerged, faintly kelp green. I waited for it to turn, to see the swimmer’s face. The air chilled. That was the face.

From Di at Pensitivity101
Oh how she yearned to be aboard.
But this world was not for her.
Mermaids exist beneath the water, not above it.
110 characters

From Martin at Martin Cororan
The siren spotted the sailor on the deck of his boat.
‘Look at that rippling torso,’ she sang. ‘It’ll be weeks before I need to eat again!’
(137 characters).

From Susmitamukherjee at Uniquesus
It was hot and sultry. The cool water seemed tempting. The hippie jumped off board without a thought. “But oh! he hardly knew how to swim.”
(140 characters)

From Lady Lee at Lady Lee Manila
summon the muses
to the cool ocean for bliss
such delight to date
summer breeze is fun
swimming to my heart’s content
frolic in the sea

From Michael at Morpethroad
Mutiny was not tolerated.
She was made walk the plank.
Bobbing to the surface as they cheering sailed away
She noticed the shadow and fin.

From Sangbad at Thoughts of Words
Ichthyander swims up the water. He looks behind–the island, his home, at the distant; he looks forward– the ship of Pedro Surita waiting for him.
(140 Characters)

From Peter at Peter’s Ponderings
Sights lined up.
Ready.
Fire.
Torpedo away.
Enemy destroyed.
Return to base.
The wig over the viewing bubble of the mini sub was a great idea!
(140 characters)

From Irena at Books and Hot Tea
The pirate ship shrieked.
Governor’s men could taste their victory.
They were unaware that she, pirates’ secret ally, was waiting for her cue.
(140 characters)

From Kirst at Kirst Writes
Cocktails on the yacht. All afternoon his fat hands pawing at her. That damn dress clinging in the sticky heat. The water felt like freedom.
(140 characters)

and here was mine
Lara’s husband and that tramp of his were on board. She set the bomb to go off just as the fireworks started. “Happy Independence Day Baby!”
(140 Characters)

Awesome tales everyone! I always love the diversity of your entries. Taking a break from the nautical theme this week. See what you can do with this week’s photo prompt from Pixabay.com. Oh, I’m sure this door has tales to tell! 🙂

Twittering Tale #25 – 11 April 2017

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Door Sign from Pixabay.com

People called us an overnight sensation. If they only knew how many dives, we played to get here. Wouldn’t a had it any other way.

(130 Characters)