Sunday, March 31, 2013

Oh, Stupidity Alert!

Whispering Wind
 The hotel lounge was covered in bookshelves. At first, he thought they were just shelves.
“Oh, no. Bookshelves,” corrected the receptionist.
“But… where are the books?”
“Oh, no idea….”
The blatant disinterest of the young lady bothered him.
“How do you know these are bookshelves?”
“Oh, I know,” she muttered.
“Did someone tell you?”
“Oh, no...”
He always expected her to say more, how frustrating.
“Right, I’ll buy a book tomorrow and place it on that shelf.”
“Oh, we don’t need books gathering dust here…”
“Bookshelves gather dust too!”
“Oh, not as much…”
He sighed hopelessly and thought “Oh, dear…” 
100 Word Stories

To Fix or to Cheat!

LEA 13 - Cica Ghost March 2013
A veterinarian was investigated after the scandal. Hordes of puppy litters were born, despite the best efforts of dog owners. So, the vet was forced to follow the rules, but he would still bend them occasionally, just to make an extra buck. He could always question if the male pets neutered by him really fathered those puppies. The ineffective spaying would be a bit more difficult to explain though. One day, a dog about to be neutered overheard a conversation between the vet and his assistant. To fix or to cheat! All the anxious dog could think of was “Cheat! Cheat!”

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Border

Misali

More than an original story, this is a tribute to someone who saved thousands of lives from the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Pierantonio Costa, a man many call righteous, was the Italian Consul in Kigali at the time. In his last trip to Rwanda, he saved 375 orphans, all very small children. 


“They’re children, children!” An armed man looked at the bus driver with doped eyes. “No.” The frustration amongst the adults of the convoy was palpable. 375 tired and restless kids kept their eyes wide open. They were so young, piled up inside the buses, uncomfortable and very thirsty. In the control post, armed men held rusted katanas.  Suddenly, a local authority talked to them. The convoy rushed away. The children finally arrived at the safety of a border and a foreign home. When interviewed, the man responsible for the convoy simply replied “I only answered the voice of my conscience.”

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Book Away

Grimm Shores

The trail of papers flies away,
A shy bird and another,
A page, two pages and many more. 
He sleeps, and we wait.
A book is a sailboat, away, away.
Run!
Grab those pages!
And he sleeps a book, the water ripples in the sun, a fire onboard.
He’ll wake up and write down his dream, a book away.
We will smile, guardians of his future,
Armed with our youth, a notebook and a bike,
Away, away. 
FFW 365 Day Challenge


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Unlucky 400-leaf clover

Neverland X

A drink or four, then he trotted back home, his paces tick-tacking at the command of his watch. He didn’t remember when he started doing that or even when he started walking the less populated streets. At pace 400, he looked around and found a grin, one who would never grin again. He knew the police was perplexed, struggling to catch him, but this was his day, his routine, wearing some green, doing some drinking, some singing and, to help with his headaches, some hunting. Fortunately for him, it worked. The last look on their faces wasn’t as fortunate though…

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Envy

Florest Floor
Swift waters,
Merciless winds,
A safe haven ahead.
The light that guides us is shining up on the hill
With a grin, with a grin.
And we approach eagerly, trustingly.
The light was a lie.
They took our treasures,
They sneered,
They robbed our clothes, our chests, our lives.
For the wealth? No.
Siblings… 
Writer's Dash

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Dead Man Walking

Edo Japan Kitamachi

“Come on, come on, we’ll catch you, you animal. How’s he? Alive or dead?”

And he hid in the corner, afraid of the men knocking his door down.

He didn’t do anything wrong, he thought. He just didn’t want to be alone anymore.

 The man fought him; he didn’t want to be with him, so he grabbed him by force, just like when he was a kid and his father hit him and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him inside the house like a ragdoll, helpless, and locking him in the dark pantry.

He was nice. He allowed the man to sit in the living-room with him. He fed him, he gave him water. The man tried to escape, so he had to chain him to the sofa. And the wheel of time turned slowly.

The man wouldn’t shut up, like his father cussing him all the way from the front yard for hours and hours, and endless hours of darkness. So, he hit the man to silence him, at least for a few minutes, just a few minutes of quietness, just a little bit of peace.

“Come on. Open the door.”

But they never gave him any peace. They kept hitting the door, slamming away a storm in his head.

When the door finally opened, all had died inside. Some had died a bit with the horror of what they saw. Others died for good, like him, a dead man walking from the time when he was still a child and his mother slammed the door and walked away, leaving him behind, alone and helpless.

For him, the door had finally closed. It was the end.