Acceptance – Friday Fictioneers 30th May, 2024.

A mass shooting at the fair, the media was swarming survivors like blood-thirsty vultures, thrusting their cameras in Lisa’s face.

“How do you feel?”

What could she say?

Determined to overcome her crippling phobias of spiders and heights, Lisa had decided to brave the Spider Ride.  She’d been doing mindfulness and chanting, and hoped they’d help…but useless.   

“Why? Why? Why?” She gasped.

Then, she heard gun shots.

The ride stopped.

Trapped sky-high and terrified, Lisa prayed for the first time in eternity.

Almost oblivious to the carnage, she was just relieved to escape.

Forget determination.

Her new mantra is acceptance.

…

100 Words

PHOTO PROMPT © Mr. Binks.

This has been another contribution to Friday Fictioneers kindly hosted by Rochelle Wisoff Fields at Addicted to Purple.

Regulars to Friday Fictioneers won’t be surprised that I’ve added to the FF graveyard, and I must say I felt an eeriness about this prompt which took me down this much-traveled path.

This story was well and truly cut back and ended up with Lisa so caught up inside her own panic attack, that she’s all but oblivious to the tragic loss of life. I am not sure how true to life it is, but I am repeatedly confronted by people lacking in empathy and not getting what seems fairly obvious to me. I have also become aware of a term called “Main Character Syndrome” where people see themselves as the main character and ignore the needs of others and how they might impact on them, and also that they might be a sub-character in someone else’s life.

Interesting and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Best wishes,

Rowena

The Virgin Campers…Friday Fictioneers.

Blood-curdling screams echoed through the night and the dog was going psycho.

Half-awake, Jack saw that young bloke grabbing his missus by the throat.

“I’ll get the bastard. Ring 000!” Jack yelled, putting on his pants.

“Jack? Stay out of it. You’re too old to play the hero. Leave it to the cops.”

“That couple camping at the creek… He’s killed ‘er.”

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

Margaret was so afraid, her teeth almost leaped out of her mouth and into the bush.

“P…p..p.lease h…h..h..help. The…the…there’s a h..h…h..huge ssssspiiiider in our t..t.t.ttent.”

“Struth! Thought you’d been murdered.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

This has been a contribution to Friday Fictioneers. This week the photo prompt comes from © Jan Wayne Fields

Drop Bear

To give a bit of background, I’m Australian and to be perfectly honest, I’ve never seen anyone go camping with a power generator thingy here. I was rather stuck on this prompt and showed my husband. He grew up in NE Tasmania and did a lot of real camping growing up, which included hiking up Cradle Mountain. His immediate response was: “You call that camping!!” They definitely struck both of us as virgin campers and they were just begging for some Australian wildlife to enter their tent. There is so much to choose from…the dingo, possums which are known to tear open tents to steal your food, snakes, spiders…even drop bears! My husband suggested writing about all forms of wildlife converging on the tent at once.

Huntsman Spider. Photo Jon.

However, then I remembered a hilarious situation I heard on the radio where screams were heard from a flat in Sydney. When the Police turned up convinced there’d been a murder. They found a guy standing on a chair with a spider on the wall…a huntsman. Not poisonous but it can give a nasty bite. There story makes for an excellent read! http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-27/police-respond-to-domestic-after-man-screams-over-spider/6979724

Our daughter was terrified by a huntsman only the other night so even though it’s not poisonous, it’s still up there with Nightmare on Elm Street.

xx Rowena