Author Archives: Danny James

About Danny James

Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More

Why Can’t We Talk About This

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This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers.

The rules are simple. Write a COMPLETE STORY in 100 words or less with a beginning, middle and end.

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PHOTO PROMPT @ A. Noni Mouse

“I beginning to hate these people,” said Helen. “I just about lost my temper at dinner. Are we so afraid of Erick that we can’t talk about current events without the fear of offending him? How long can we talk about ocean cruises?  Neighborhood gossip? I would like to talk about the necessity of wearing masks. Vote by mail? Racial equality? Black Lives Matter? The feeling that this nation is being divided by the very one who should be uniting us? Let’s not have another Civil War!”

“So that’s why you spent the final thirty minutes doing dishes?” said Tom.

 

Quarantined

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This post is written for Friday Fictioneers.

delayed-green-naama-yehuda

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

They had been quarantined for so long they had ceased to remember it. It started out slow with the leader of their nation promising that it would magically go away once the warm season began. It didn’t. A night out on the town with a fine meal at a fancy restaurant was a distant memory. The mere fact of wearing a mask was now a polarizing political statement. Are you red or are you blue? The deaths began to rise at an alarming rate. The elderly clogged the emergency rooms. The young thought they were immune. They weren’t.

Never Make It To Market

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This post is written for Friday Fictioneers.

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PHOTO PROMPT © Todd Foltz

Panic was starting to form a cloud of fear over the farm. The migrants that worked these fields were nowhere to be seen. The farms precious fruits were going to rot in the fields.

At first the owners were in denial. The crops would be harvested! The use of facial masks were soon required to repel the invisible invader. Once established the virus began to spread. Workers who had previously never been sick suddenly disappeared.  Co-workers soon followed.

The owners anger began to ferment. The invader did not distinguish who it infected. The owners slowly began to disappear.

Children laugh, children play, it’s supposed to be this way

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Photo Credit — Danny James

Children laugh, children play, it’s supposed to be this way. Children love, children hug, children have the sweetest face. Children are supposed to laugh, and race, no evilness should touch this face. Children face the hardest times, when love, and life become unkind. Children are supposed to smile, and race, and not see tragedy all over this place. A child’s life should be a playground, where hurt, and pain are rarely found. This is not alway’s the path, but hope that they will learn to laugh.

John Hambrock

Quarantined

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This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers.

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PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 

It wasn’t the way things were supposed to work out. The promise of having friends and family visit was one of the main selling points in moving into assisted living. The ability to maintain contacts would keep him from going insane.

Now it’s just the staff. The same old staff now wearing masks. What the hell has happened. They say the most terrible legal sentence to impose on someone was solitary confinement.

Far beyond the window, at the edge of some tall willows and behind the gate, he can see his granddaughter. Even from here he can see her crying.

 

UP Early

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This post is written for Friday Fictioneers, 

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PHOTO PROMPT © Ronda Del Boccio

The alarm on my iPhone sounded the Sherwood Forest theme at exactly 4:30 a.m. I could not afford to hit the snooze button today.

Breakfast from the hotel buffet was going to suffice this morning.

The tour company jeep arrived precisely at 5:00 a.m. We rode silently through the desert floor to our destination. The though that we would be alone on this adventure quickly vanished as a large number of vehicles were already in the staging area.  Balloons were already being filled with liquid propane and the flames were casting their yellow flames skyward. Our fateful journey was about to begin.

 

A Night Out

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This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers. 

Total word count 100.

I purchased the storage unit as a temporary place to put my belongings while I moved into my future wife’s house. What I liked most was that it had a lightbulb inside.

It took a week to move everything I had. For the following few weeks I visited for an hour or two just to be myself. My own little furnished room.

It was a little over two months after the wedding I began to spend more time there.

This evening I am reading todays New York Times. I turn the light out at 10 wondering how things could have been.