if not art school

Larabie and Miz Kitti ran into each other outside the local art school.

“Three prominent twentieth-century characters were failed art students,” he reminded his friend.

“Explain away, Larabie,” the Miz wanted to know.

“I’ve always been interested in the Catholic intellectual world,” he went on, “So I know that G.K. Chesterton dropped out of art school.”

“Because I’m a John Lennon fan,” he told her, “I know that he did too,”

Then he reminded her, “Hitler never even got accepted when he applied.”

“Behind every failed artist,” she mused, “there’s a revolution waiting to happen?”

Dale Rogerson supplied this week’s photo prompt. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads, as always, Friday Fictioneers.

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utopia dystopia

Dora and Periwinkle always read the Chick Tracts they find on their train.

“This moron was a true product of our ugly age,” she exclaimed.

He wanted an explanation.

“He was like the secular fanatics who cry racism, anti-Semitism, yada yada when they don’t get their way,” she groaned.

“His cartoons portray an ugly, vengeful God who sends everyone except Fundamentalist Christians to Hell.”

“Secularism is equally ugly and vengeful, sentencing all us intolerant Deplorables and Hypocrites to some neo-Nuremburg Trials.

“Fanaticism of any kind is always quite evil,” Periwinkle sighed.

Both then stared vacantly and sadly into the distance.

Thanks to C.E. Ayr for our photo prompt this week and to Rochelle Wisoff~Fields, as always, for guiding us in Friday Fictioneers.

just `17 and you know what I mean

“’17 is often a tough year,” the Village Egghead reminded Althea.

“Why?” she couldn’t help asking.

“Well,” he continued. “1517 was that nasty Protestant Revolution. In 1717 the Masons were founded. In 1917 Russia had its October Revolution and Wilson got us mixed up with World War I.”

“I tell you,” continued he. “God somehow does things funny. 1789 was Robespierre’s French Revolution. In 1989 Reagan got Mr Gorbachev to ‘tear down that wall’. That was the one good thing on the list.”

“We can’t live to see it.” he reminded her. “but 2117 and 2189 promise to be quite a couple of doozies, my young lady friend.

This week’s photo prompt is from Sandra Crook. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us in Friday Fictioneers.

g e r m a n y and m e g r y a n

Henry:  “Have I  told  you about my romance with Meg Ryan?”

Peter: “Ooh, do tell!!”

Henry: “Long ago I wanted to go to Germany. Filling out the application I accidentally spelled it ‘MEG RYAN'”.

Peter: “Naturally!”

Henry: “The next day she knocked on my door. It was instant true love!!”

“We were together, day and night, for months.”

Peter: “Hey, do you think the ticket lady will let us in for free if we tell her you’re such a V.I.P.?”

Henry: “I suppose t’s worth a shot.”

Peter: “All this because you can’t type. Oh I’m simply not worthy.”

This week’s photo prompt was supplied by Shaktiki Sharma. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us weekly in Friday Fictioneers.

the regulars

Mavis walked into their favorite diner, looking like someone from the days when women were dames,dolls, and broads.

Her gams went way down to the floor.

Casper was dashing as could be in his fedora and trench coat.

It was their monthly ritual.

“Mommy, who are those funny people? Why are they in black and white?” little Tommy asked.

“Ssh, dear,” Mrs. Fleener warned.

“They come here often. It’s a nice game-I think.”

Just as mysteriously as they arrived, they ate, paid their bill, and left.

“I know this is an old fashioned place but…,” another patron mused.

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is our weekly leader in Friday Fictioneers. This week’s photo prompt was contributed by Roger Bultot.

if wishing could make it so

As a joke, Henry and Peter, while shopping at Macy’s, wished they could be inside a snow globe.

Somehow it happened.

“What if somebody turns us upside down and shakes us?” Henry complained.

They tried, to no avail, to get the customers’ attention, waving and shouting hysterically.

At random times, patrons shook them.

This went on for hours.

Having eventually abandoned all hope of escape, the two attempted to play with the horses and snow.

“Do you think someone will buy us?” Henry wondered.

“I reckon if we’re on sale,” Peter replied.

The pair eventually got used to it.

This week, Rochelle Wisoff~Fields also supplied the photo Prompt for Friday Fictioneers, besides her being our fearless leader.

hi de hi de hi de ho

It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 1983, At twenty four years old, I’m on a plane home from Western New York, after having visited some relatives.

I can’t shake the feeling that I recognize that old black guy in front of me as a famous musician. “Duke Ellington?” I wonder. “Count Basie?”

At least one of them’s dead.

There’s a middle-aged couple next to him. The wife asks him, “Are you Cab Calloway?”

My anxiety attack is no more. I heave a sigh of relief.

I overhear Calloway say softly, “That handsome young gentleman back there won’t have to go crazy now.”

Each week Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us in Friday Fictioneers, as we write a story based upon a photo prompt.

This week’s photo was supplied by Lucy Fridkin.

a disappointment

“It’s a nice place,” Harvey bragged to Muriel as they patiently awaited George’s and Gloria’s arrival.

“It reminds me of when we were kids in Queens,” she pointed out, “when we visited Sherwood Island in Connecticut every summer.”

“While we’re waiting let’s get the food ready.”

In the distance they heard a metallic voice.

“I am Klaatu from Planet BR 549. You must obey me.”

The couple politely explained that they were not interested.

“I don’t get it,” Klaatu complained. “It works on shows like ‘The Twilight Zone’. Why doesn’t it work in real life?”

He then walked away quite heartbroken.

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us weekly in Friday Fictioneers. This week’s Photo prompt was supplied by Jan Wayne Fields.

ab ordine libertas

Larabie and Miz Kitti often run into each other at random times.

One day they met outside a local monastery.

“Hey Larabie,’ she wondered. “How do you explain that chain?”

“It reminds us of a rightly ordered relationship between volition and authority,” he reminded her.

“If everything that’s forbidden were impossible, then where’s the virtue in that? Compelled obedience is pointless.”

“I agree,” she went on. “Don’t be a-scared to do wrong because of bad results. Be a_scared because of all the right reasons.”

“Besides that,” she reminded him, “It’s such an exceptionally cute color scheme. now isn’t it?”

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, as each of us writes his hundred~word story based upon a photo prompt.

This week’s photo prompt was supplied by C.E. Ayr.

st. cecilia as a metaphor and warning

“Henry and Peter made their daily trip to Erika’s House of Music at the South Bay Shopping Center.

The owner and her husband, as always, greeted them in their Austrian and German accents.

“The twenty second’s coming up,” Henry intoned.

“It’s interesting that J.F.K.was killed on the feast day of the patroness of music.”

“Yeah,” Peter reminded him. “So much of the nauseating Sexual and Cultural Revolutions of that era was set to such perfect music. A little charisma can be poisonous.”

“There’s good and bad in every era,” Henry noted as they looked around for Jimmy Page’s sheet music.

This week’s photo prompt was supplied by Bjorn Rudberg. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields guides us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, as each of us writes a hundred~word story based upon a photo prompt.