Category: Word Prompt

Posted in Word Prompt

Mint Julep

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“I love strawberries.”

Helen watched her son pick the pieces apart and stuff them into his waiting mouth.

“What’s your favorite fruit momma?”

Helen never cared much for fruit. A flash of regret seared through her. She ruffled the small boys blonde hair, so different from her own.

He was the reason she was alive so how did he manage to remind her of every failure she possessed?

“I like mint.”

“Is mint a fruit?”

“It is when I add it to my special drink.” No amount of sugar could keep the bourbon from burning all the way down.

Word Count: 99
For the Carrot Ranch flash fiction challenge. Click the link for info and more stories to read.

Posted in Word Prompt

Capsizing Breath (Repost)

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

Your absence sucks the warmth from these sheets,

Curling between my thigh’s, roping around my fingers

Still trembling and gasping

From gentle tugs and rasping bites

Along edges of bone and light

I am frozen on capsizing breath

Of the last words we said

While these sheets of your sighs,

Of our eyes

Forever taking one another in,

Hold me hostage, wrapping around my legs, binding my wrists,

Against the warmth you float away with.

The word of the day when I posted originally was vague.

Posted in Word Prompt

A Prompt? Join me!

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

It’s Monday, the beginning of what may or may not be a long week.

My daughter was playing a would you rather game on her phone and tossing me questions. Amid the “would you rather marry a celebrity or the most attractive person in the world?” types she threw in one that dug a little deeper.

The wheels started turning and before long I was wondering which one I would choose and why and what would I find when I got there …

It’s too good to pass up but I also would love to see what other people can come up with.

If you’re so inclined, write something of your choosing answering the question by Friday. It can be you or a character, any POV and any genre and style but you must make a choice and detail the consequences. When you finish your piece link back here so that anyone else trying this out can read too.

Prompt:

You’re traveling when you come to a fork in the road. The choice is simple. You can either go left where nothing is right or you can go right where nothing is left. 

Which way do you go?


Posted in flash fiction, Word Prompt

Becoming 100

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

The chair creaks under me, weighted by century old bones.

“Congrats! You just amaze me; to think of the things you’ve seen and done!”

I shift through the archives in attempt to place the young girl. She has the family blue eyes and my sweet Harry’s smile. A fanged man dominates her dark shirt.

“Old stories say witches and vampires drink blood to stay young.” Her face contorts uncomfortably as she slinks away, no doubt on her way to tell.

I can’t hide my sneer.

Maybe tonight I’ll run away. Surely it’s not too late to become a vampire.

Word Count: 99
Word/Idea: Growing Older
For the flash fiction challenge at Carrot Ranch and inspired by my really saucy grandmother who was born in 1928 and reminds me everytime I see her that shes “too young to be this old”. 
And Happy Mother’s Day to the areas celebrating it today

 

Posted in flash fiction, Word Prompt

Grape Juuuice

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“Uggghh.” Janey’s fingers left long claw marks in the hot sand around her.
As the sun beat down on her bare legs the scent of burning flesh tickled her nose.
“Ugghh … grape … juice …” In all of her five years she had never been so thirsty.

“Janey!” A mirage of her older sister appeared; just like the movies. “Mom said to sit up. You’re taking up too much room in the sandbox.”
Hana dropped a bottle of water into the sand beside her younger sister. Janey flopped onto her back, “Grape juuuice.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Janey.”

Word Count: 99
Word/Phrase: “Beggar’s can’t be choosers”
For Carrot Ranch and a reappearance of the sisters that appeared in this story

Posted in stream of consciousness, Word Prompt

Broken Bottle of Whine (Repost)

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

By some twist in irony this is exactly a year old and somehow it’s relevant again. Cycles, full circle, something. Thanks for partaking in my whine.

Sometimes I wish I could be the mom
That my father claims I am.
Shitty and repulsive
With no other care.
I couldn’t be the person
In the narrative he keeps,
The story he likes to tell about me.
The daughter that left her child.
The daughter that only comes around for money.
The daughter that only cares about the next party.
Tonight I’ll try to convince myself
All these things I do aren’t just for show.
I’ll wish I were beautiful.
I’ll wish I were smart.
I’ll wish I hadn’t broken your heart.
I’ll tell myself everyone’s proud of me.
Tonight I’ll sit on my bathroom floor
With my broken bottle of whine
And cry myself to sleep.
So when I wake tomorrow
It will all just be a bad dream
And my bottle of my whine
Will be poised on the counter neatly,
Waiting to be filled with
Broken expectations and unfulfilled dreams,
Bad words and ugly names,
Until it overflows and needs to be broken again.
Then I’ll sit on my bathroom floor
With the weight of this world,
Frothing and rushing,
Threatening to drown me
But never winning out.

Posted in flash fiction, Word Prompt

Love Spell

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“Dear Ana,
My love for you burns brighter than a thousand suns. I would walk through fire for you. You would never wonder where my heart lies. Please Ana, be mine.
Yours eternal,
Marco”

Ana rolled her eyes. This was the third one this week.

All she wanted was a trip to the mall. Her ever pious mother refused and took her to antiques roadshow instead. She bought her an old rusty teapot.

It was better than expected, but when she told the genie she wanted love spell to wear she meant the perfume.

“Marco,
No.
Don’t write again.”

Word Count: 99, per the rules
Word/Idea: Fire
For the prompt at Carrot Ranch

Posted in flash fiction, Word Prompt

12 to 32

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

“When’s the last time you took a bath?”
“A what now?”
“A bath? You know, you take a bath, use a bath bomb, read, stuff like that.”
“Read? In the bath?”
“Yeah. When’d you last do that?”
“You been cruising Pinterest and self care memes?”
“So what if I have.”
“I’m sorry to break this to you but it’s showers only around here unless I accidentally spill a bucket of water on myself.”
“But why?”
“Because last time I took a bath it lasted 12 minutes and I was interrupted 32 times.”
“What? When? Who did that?!”
“Yeah! It was you!”

Word Count: 99
Word/Phrase: Bucket of Water (kind of liberal here)
My kid loves to relax in baths, she doesn’t quite get why I don’t do it too. A literal slice of life for carrot ranch.

Posted in flash fiction, Word Prompt

Like Michelangelo

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

Why couldn’t my parents be dream crushers? My proclamation of wanting to become a marble sculptor should have scared them.

Perhaps the pieces which are grand are worth it but starving artist isn’t just an expression, and who buys marble sculpture anymore?

Men who spend on everything and still afford sculptures of themselves. Naked.

“Make sure it’s a testament to my … manhood. Like Michelangelo.” The man, overweight and sweating, purs.

“Michelangelo was the …” Not worth it. “If you insist on staying you’ll have to be quiet. I’d hate for my chisel to slip and … reduce your manhood in anyway.”

Word Count: Exactly 99

Word: Chisel
For the flash fiction challenge at Carrot Ranch
A new one for me!

Posted in Word Prompt

Fall Away From Time (Repost)

Posted on by Kelley Farrell

Silence sounds like …
Your spirit spinning
Out of control to the DJ.
Your breath slowing
In puffs of hazy cigarette smoke.
Your heart pounding
Under the soft weight of my hand.
Your smile against
My hair under the cold moon.
The fading drops
Of my rocks failing to skip.
Your fingers drawing
Shivering lines down my back.
Silence sounds like …
All those things I feel in my soul
When your eyes lock with mine
And we fall away from time.
143

Originally published here in Dec. 2017. The prompt at the time was silence. Today’s RDP prompt is intimate

I couldn’t let love day go by without something!

I’m in the final weeks of my grad program. Unfortunately that’s meant I haven’t been on here. But if anyone’s interested in my research on investment in clean energy let me know and I may post the presentation here for all to see!