100 Word Story - The Music Collection (Repost from Facebook, 3 October 2009)

His Collection, though impressively sized, was effortlessly collected. Causing a plane crash in adverse weather brought his single-biggest haul. His next specimen was a case of patience over effort. The reckless gun-play could have figured more prominently, but waiting for fried banana sandwiches to do their damage took all the legwork out of it. He gathered most cases by simply waiting for those fatal partners “Depression” and “Drugs” or “Alcohol” to take their toll. He thought his latest specimen was going to be toughest of all. Alas, a lifetime of eccentricity and a skoche of greed played together nicely.

This was on the prompt of "A Full Set", from Weekly Challenge #175, for the week of 8/29/2009.

For any who aren't sure what I was going for, it is an abstract description of some other-worldly, superhuman being who "collects" famous, legendary musicians from Earth, who we just see as dying unexpectedly. The story climaxes at the end with a description of Michael Jackson joining his collection. It was my first attempt, and was probably overly heavy-handed and awkward.

100 Word Stories - Family Legacy (Repost from Facebook, 6 November 2009)

You mightn’t not believe me now, but we once had the biggest pile o’ money you even done seen. We was the richest family fer six hollers. But now I’ve spent almost all of it tryin’ to figger out my Grand-Pappy’s secret. Y’see, Grand-Pappy brewed him up some special moonshine during the Dry Spell. Folks cottoned to it real powerful-like. Purty soon, he was sellin’ it as quick as he made it. Pa started helpin’ him after he got blinded off’n a bad batch from over the next county. Then he up n’ died without tellin’ us his mystery ingredient.

This was in response to the prompt of "Mystery Ingredient" from the 100 Word Podcast Weekly Challenge #185 (Week Ending 11/7/2009).

Repost (from Facebook, 27 June 2011) Goodbye, Old Friend

I saw "Marley & Me" for the first time last night. "Saw" might be stretching it - it was on while I was grilling the corn and hot dogs for dinner. We sat down to eat just in time for the final trip to the vet's office. I HATE THAT MOVIE! I will never watch it again. All I could think about was Benson, and how I wasn't able to be there for him when we passed. For all I knew, he thought I had just disappeared. He hung on as long as he could for me to come back and see him again, but he couldn't hang on long enough. (I couldn't help but think of Coco and Charlie, Sandy and Tiger, too. That didn't help.) I miss you, Benson. I loved you as much as any other little boy could love his dog. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.