path

Fandango’s Story Starter #242

Fandango6 Comments

It’s once again time for my Story Starter prompt.

Here’s how it works. Every so often I’m going to give you a “teaser” sentence or sentence fragment and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that sentence/fragment. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

He was at a crossroads and whichever path he chose would ruin someone’s life.

If you care to write and post a story built from this story starter teaser, be sure to link back to this post and tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with their stories.

And most of all, have fun.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — August 1st

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Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term subscribers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about it? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on August 1, 2019

#writephoto — The Fog

72AE3B0D-C449-49EE-BCC7-AEC7CD234053

Ted was taking his early morning jog along the paved path that cuts through the center of the park. He loved this part of his run, with the trees lining both sides of the path and a canopy of green leaves overhead. At this time of the year, the rising sun was casting long shadows across the path.

Like every other morning, there were just a few other regulars jogging in the opposite direction who Ted would acknowledge with a head nod or a hand wave as they passed one another.

Ted noticed an unusual mist up ahead. More than a mist, really. A fog bank, actually. He chalked it up to the morning dew condensing and didn’t give it much thought until he saw one of the joggers heading his way out of the fog. The man was stumbling a little and was clutching his chest. The man finally fell to his knees and Ted thought he might be having a heart attack.

Rushing over to the man, who was still on his knees, Ted could see a look of desperate panic in his eyes. “Is it your heart?” Ted asked.

The man, who was having difficulty breathing, shook his head, pointed back to the fog from which he had just emerged, and, in a raspy voice said, “Turn around. Run.” With that, the man fell flat, unconscious.

Ted pulled out his cellphone and dialed 9-1-1. “There’s a man on the path in the park who needs emergency assistance. Please send someone immediately.” Knowing that there was nothing further he could do to help the man, Ted stood up and moved slowly toward the mist.

As he got closer, he could see the bodies of a few other joggers along the path. They all seemed lifeless. His instincts told him to turn around, but his curiosity drove him forward.

Within minutes he was surrounded by the dense fog and his breathing was becoming labored. He saw some sort of dark, shadowy figure with red eyes coming toward him through the mist. He squinted his eyes to try and decipher what he was seeing, but what he saw didn’t make any sense to him.

Ted tried to turn around and run, but his body was frozen in place. Then he heard what he could only describe as some strange, piercing, banshee-like scream, just before losing consciousness.

******

Waking up in what appeared to be a hospital room, Ted found a call button and pressed it. Three dark figures with red eyes floated into the room.

“Ah, you’re finally awake. We thought we lost you,” one of them said.

“The lesson learned is that we will have to limit our agents to no more than one year of infiltration,” another said.

“Exactly,” a third one said. “You were there for two Earth years, THRG, and we almost lost you to the human life form you were inhabiting. Fortunately, our extraction team pulled you out just in time to save you.”

Written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.

OMIMM — A Walk in the Woods

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Matthew began to notice an eerie quiet on his trek along the path in the forest. The surrounding trees seemed to swallow up every sound. Even his footsteps on the leaf strewn path were hushed, as if the earth itself whispered for him to tread softly.

A thick mist swirled around him near ground level, clinging to his clothes. Still, Matthew pressed on through the woodland, where gnarled branches reached overhead like fingers entwining and obstructing his path ahead.

Every once in a while Matthew thought he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye, like a quick rustle behind a tree or a subtle shift in shadows that appeared too intentional for mere gusts of wind to create.

As he continued along the path, he noticed a slight temperature drop and sensed that the trees, subtly at first, began to lean in on him.

The path narrowed, though he hadn’t noticed any forks. Then, the silence broke. Something snapped behind him. A branch? A bone?

Mattew turned.

No one.

He turned again.

The path was gone.

Only trees. Only mist. Only the heavy sound of his breath, now too loud, too alone.

And behind it — a second breath that wasn’t his.

Written for Mike Jackson’s Only Murders In My Mind Weekly Writing Prompt. Photo credit: no attribution.

#WDYS — Indecisive

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Is this the right path?
The one I should follow?
Will it lead me where I want to go?
Or does it lead to oblivion?

Should I continue down this path?
Or turn around and retrace my steps?
What lies ahead is unknown
What lies behind is familiar

Is it time to move on?
Or time to stay put?
Is it time to risk it all
Or to play it safe?

Why is it so hard?
Why can’t I decide?
Between what lies ahead
And what I left behind

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Free Photo.

E.M.’s Sunday Ramble Prompt — To a T

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It’s time once again for E.M. Kingston’s The Sunday Ramble. Her prompt is based upon a certain topic about which she asks five questions. We are invited to ramble on about that topic however we wish. Today’s topic is “The “T” in the Road.”

E.M. is switching things up a bit this week, giving us a scenario and then asking us five questions about said scenario. The scenario is:

In your dream, you are standing at a T in the road. You have to choose which way to go (backward, forward, left, and right). Behind you is something you fear. In front of you is an obvious destiny. To the left is something you really want. To the right is something you really need.

Alrighty then. Before I answer her questions, let me point out that dreams aren’t always logical and don’t always abide by natural laws. So please bear that in mind when you read my answers. Now, with that out of the way, here are her questions and my answers.

1. What is the fear behind you?

A taxman from the IRS claiming to want to take all of my retirement savings away from me, which would leave me destitute.

2. What is the obvious destiny in front of you?

Directly ahead is a tax haven that is an idyllic world of clean air and clean water that is populated by free-thinking people who worship human rights and our planet’s environment with more fervor than they worship an imaginary god and their own unenlightened self-interests. (E.M. prefaced this by saying it’s a dream, right?) To the left (what I want) is a get out of jail free card. To the right (what I need) is a good tax lawyer.

3. Would you choose to go back where you came from if the path would bring more good than bad?

Considering my responses to the first two questions, my answer to this one should be obvious.

4. If going forward had a negative consequence on your path, would you consider going forward if it was the path with the most reward than the other directions?

I don’t know what the negative consequences of going forward to an idyllic tax haven could be, so I think I’d still go forward.

5. After final consideration of all of the paths, which way did you go, and why?

Forward. Duh.

Please note that I don’t cheat on my taxes and I’ve never been audited, so my responses to this somewhat nightmarish dream scenario are totally concocted.

WDYS — The Deep Woods

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It had been more than a year, due to the pandemic, since I’d last been in even a small group of people, so being surrounded by a large crowd made me feel as if I were inundated by a sea of humanity. But I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and I suddenly found myself caught up in a burgeoning crowd that was gathering in the square with the statue of Robert E. Lee across from the main library.

My situation was such that I needed to get away. It wasn’t that I had no sympathy for their cause, but I was feeling suffocated, like a single little lamb in the middle of a flock of sheep. So I managed to maneuver my way through the protesters and started to walk away from the crowd.

I just knew I need some peace and quite, some solitary time. I walked without direction or even awareness until I found myself surrounded by tall trees on a path in the middle of the deep woods. I stopped, looked around, and found a place to sit just off the path. I finally felt like I could breathe again. I reached into my backpack and pulled out an apple and took a bite. It was delicious and refreshing.

I must have fallen asleep because it was dusk when I opened my eyes. I got back up and followed the path back into town, made my way to the square, and saw that the statue in the square had been pulled down. A crew was moving it to another location, somewhere I didn’t know.

But what I did know was that the impact of the past year of isolation was having a lasting effect on me. I had been politically active and never hesitated to participate in demonstrations and protest marches. But that was in the before days.

Not anymore.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: Eric Muhr @ Unsplash. Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (inundate/solitary), Your Daily Word Prompt (burgeon), Word of the Day Challenge (statue), MMA Storytime (library), The Daily Spur (situation/apple), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (lamb),

Weekend Writing Prompt — Looking Back

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12670AFF-BA5E-424C-90A7-FFFB82A1F54BI didn’t plan it this way.

My life seemed to choose its own path at each crossroads.

Sometimes it worked out, at other times, not so much.

That said, as I look back in my twilight years,

My life has been rich and full.

(Exactly 44 words)

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where we are challenged to write a poem or piece of prose using the word “twilight” in exactly 44 words.

In Other Words — The Journey

Fandango6 Comments

Needle in a HaystackTrying to find out who you are is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

You never take off your mask or lift up your veil.

You hide the real you from me while revealing only the person you want me to see and to believe you to be.

And worse yet, you’re hiding who you really are from yourself, as well.

Won’t you let me walk by your side in your journey down the path of self-discovery?

In other words Written for the In Other Words prompt from Patricia’s Place. The challenge this week is to write a story or poem of five lines or fewer using the picture above and/or the word “discovery.” Photo credit: S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay.

#writephoto — The Fog

Fandango21 Comments

72AE3B0D-C449-49EE-BCC7-AEC7CD234053Ted was taking his early morning jog along the paved path that cuts through the center of the park. He loved this part of his run, with the trees on either side of the path and a canopy of green leaves overhead. At this time of the year, the rising sun was casting long shadows across the path.

Like every other morning, there were just a few other regulars jogging in the opposite direction who Ted would acknowledge with a head nod or a hand wave as they passed one another.

Ted noticed an unusual mist up ahead. More than a mist; a fog bank, actually. He chalked it up to the morning dew condensing and didn’t give it much thought until he saw one of the joggers heading his way out of the fog. The man was stumbling a little and was clutching his chest. The man finally fell to his knees and Ted thought he might be having a heart attack.

Rushing over to the man, who was still on his knees, Ted could see a look of desperate panic in his eyes. “Is it your heart?” Ted asked.

The man, who was having difficulty breathing, shook his head, pointed back to the fog from which he had just emerged, and, in a raspy voice said, “Turn around. Run.” With that, the man fell flat, unconscious.

Ted pulled out his cellphone and dialed 9-1-1. “There’s a man on the path in the park who needs emergency assistance. Please send someone immediately.” Knowing that there was nothing further he could do to help the man, Ted stood up and moved slowly toward the mist.

As he got closer, he could see the bodies of a few other joggers along the path. They all seemed lifeless. His instincts told him to turn around, but his curiosity drove him forward.

Within minutes he was surrounded by the dense fog and his breathing becoming labored. He saw some sort of dark, shadowing figure with red eyes coming toward him through the mist. He squinted his eyes to try and decipher what he was seeing, but what he saw didn’t make any sense to him.

Ted tried to turn around and run, but his body was frozen in place. Then he heard what he could only describe as some strange, piercing, banshee-like scream, just before losing consciousness.

Waking up in a what appeared to hospital room, Ted found a call button and pressed it. Three dark figures with red eyes floated into the room.

“Ah, you’re finally awake. We thought we lost you,” one of them said.

“The lesson learned is that we will have to limit our agents to no more than one year of infiltration,” another said.

“Exactly,” a third one said. “You were there for two Earth years, THRG, and we almost lost you to the human life form you were inhabiting. Fortunately, our extraction team pulled you out just in time to save you.”

Written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.

In Other Words — Win or Lose

Fandango3 Comments

15601D10-79C3-4EBC-AA8E-33B3D9E9C3C8The first of many times I had to choose which path to take.

Do I go to the left, to the right, or do I just turn around and go back from whence I came?

Does it really matter what decisions I make and which directions I go?

Or will I end up in the same place, regardless of what decision I make?

I might as well just flip a coin, since either way, it’s only my future at stake.

In other wordsWritten for the In Other Words prompt from Patricia’s Place. The challenge this week is to write a story or poem of five lines or fewer using the picture above and/or the word “decisions.” Photo credit: Arek Socha @ Pixabay.com.