Author: Danny James

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

The Green Pill

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a short story in 100 words or less with a beginning, middle and end using the picture prompt below.

Looking outside it looks festive, but I can’t really tell from where I stand.

There are twelve of us waiting in line all wearing our white pajamas, hands cuffed in front, to receive our meds from the doctor who is behind a glass partition. He puts two pills inside a small dixie cup. The green one is the magic one. He makes sure you swallow. I have learned to hide the green one under my tongue. I take it before going to bed. It helps me keep what is left of my sanity.

I will get out. Be prepared.

Busted

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end using 100 words of less using the picture prompt below.

Photo Credit ===J. Hardy.

He knew he was taking a chance. He needed the money to support his habit.

It was an elite private high school. His parents paid an ungodly amount to send him there. They provided the best of everything. They purchased him a $45,000-dollar Mustang for his sixteenth birthday. He knew how to play the game with them.

The backpack provided the perfect vehicle to transport his drugs. Everyone had a backpack. He made sure his did not draw attention. Plain black but lots of zippered pockets for his inventory.

He heard a whisper behind his back. It wasn’t a customer.  

To read other stories click here.

Little White Van

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers.

The challenge is to write a complete story in 100 words or less with a beginning, middle and end using the picture prompt below.

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

He lived in his white van. A van he purchased when times were good. His shuttered little sea food restaurant last year was a tourist hot spot. Usually this time of year is when he made almost all of his money. The empty strip-mall behind him was a constant reminder of the virus lurking all around him. The virus that killed his hopes for living.

Yesterday his van stopped running. Even if he could get it repaired, which he could not afford, where would he go. The coming winter would be hard on his seventy-four-year-old body.   

The Darkness of Cambodia

RDP Darkness

Photo Credit === Danny James

“The Cambodian village of Kdep Tmar, deep in the northwest forests near the Thai border, lies within a minefield. Planted by numerous belligerent factions during Cambodia’s three decades of war, the mines are in the fields behind the houses, along the rutted track that is the only access to the village and in the forest where the villagers gather wood.

“Life is bad here,” says Pou Venh, father of three, a sad-faced man whose body is emaciated by malaria. “There is no land for growing rice, no food, mines everywhere. The school has no furniture.” He and his wife try to keep their children from wandering too far, but they don’t even know if the patch of ground around their small wooden shack is safe. Two months ago a pregnant woman was killed by a mine as she walked to the outdoor latrine 20 yds. behind her hut.”

By TERRY MCCARTHY

Leon’s Farm Market

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers.

The challenge is to write a story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less using the picture prompt below.

He spent his teenage summers working at his father’s farm market: “Leon’s Farm Market.” He worked seven days a week while his buddies enjoyed their summers just hanging around the neighborhood. He was responsible for rolling up the chain link fence that surrounded the market at 9 a.m. He was giving exactly $40 (one ten-dollar bill, three five-dollar bills and fifteen one-dollar bills) to open the old crank style National cash register.

He knew his first customer today. Mrs. Rosenburg was always looking for anything on sale. Looking over his shoulder she said, “How much are those garlics today Danny Boy?”