Author: Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Six sentence story in response to Keiths Rambling’s and girlieontheedge’s prompt word RESERVE.

Mixed Signals

I waited at the desk of the concierge for such an interminable length of time, I was not sure I wanted to dine here any longer, even if it was billed as the most deliciously posh restaurants on the coast, in decor and ambience as well as mouth-watering entrees. 

The concierge returned to his over-polished, finger-print free lectern, perusing his book of reservations for what felt like the hundredth time, all the while shaking his head apologetically stating he did not have a reservation for this night in my name. 

I provided the credit-card confirmation number again and waited, again, while he sat yet another expensively dressed, twenty-something couple to one of the much advertised private cubicles tucked into alcoves smelling of cedar, salt and whisky, this having been an old mill long ago. 

The non-plussed concierge returned with a piece of paper retrieved from what I assumed, was their administrative office, asking me if any other persons had access to my credit card to which I started to reply of course not, until I remembered my boyfriend, soon to be fiancé, had borrowed my card a time or two, just as I had his. 

 I asked why the concierge wanted to know about another user on my card, to which he replied he had located the confirmation, in fact he had discovered two confirmations for two separate nights in his lovely restaurant and perhaps we, my boyfriend and I had mixed our signals up concerning the night we had chosen to reserve our table. 

I did not believe so and wondered why my boyfriend had made a reservation using my card without telling me, unless, yes of course, he was planning the exact same surprise for me as I had planned for him this evening, then as absently begun to stroke the little blue jewelers box in my pocket, I saw him sitting in a private alcove partially hidden by sweeping palm fronds and he was with someone else, holding her hand, stroking it and that’s when he looked up, our eyes met, I turned, dropped the box into the little waste basket at the foot of the lectern and in answer to the concierge’s query about my reservation, I shook my head and whispered, “Cancel it, apparently there has been a major case of mixed signals.”

A hundred words …

In response to Keith’s Ramblings 100 Word Friday Fictioneers – Word prompt SORRY

I’m sorry I’m not the mother you wished for, not the mother you thought I should be, not the mother you thought I ought to be.

I am sorry that you look at me with disdain, disregarding my pain as if a made-up notion of a lonely, depressed woman seeking attention, any kind of attention be it negative or not, your words not mine.

I’m not sorry I bore you. I’m not sorry you were gifted to me to love and cherish. I’m not sorry that you are my children. I’m sorry I’m not sorry for being your mom.

Response to Keith’s Ramblings for Wordless Wednesday – ALL WHITE

https://keithsramblings.net/author/keithsrambles/

Photograph by Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris

50 Word Flash-Fiction Challenge

She sat precariously on the coaming, to his right. He opened the throttle and she laughed open-mouthed into the wind. A slight nudge, her head hit the hull, the propellers dragged and then they came, sharks. He had fulfilled her last wish – to be part of the sea forever.

Authors Note: This work is pure fiction.

Coaming – Raised edges or sides of a boat, designed to help keep waves and water from entering.

In Response to Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Mudlark and the limit, just 52 words.

Of course he would appear just now on his gilded steed, she immersed in river mud up to her waist, her long hair caked with muck.

“Do you need a hand?” he asked.

“Yes please,” she said with a smile, reaching for his hand. She had found what she was looking for.

Response to Keith Ramblings – A Quick Half-Dozen … for Six Sentence Stories where the given word is LOST.

I just had them only a second ago when I was searching for my smart-phone, which I had of course, misplaced not lost, a few minutes before that so, it stood to reason that they would be near to or at least, in the same vicinity of my smart-phone.

Not only have I misplaced, not lost, my smart-phone that is not very smart at all since it can not tell me where it is and I refuse to get one of those locator clapper things advertised for old people on television because I’m not old, even though I can not find my new spectacles which I need to find said smart-phone, so I surmise they have apparently run off together to some unknown and as yet undiscovered recess within my home.

Upon this arduous quest to find my spectacles and my smart-phone, I was thrilled to find the book I was reading, and misplaced last week, tucked beneath the legs of my nightstand where either I had accidentally knocked it off or my huge lapdog may have pulled it from my sleeping hands, after I fell into slumber reading the riveting words of Memory, Never Lose Anything Again.

Skipping to the last page of Memory, Never Lose Anything Again, not because the book is terminally bromidic but, in the interest of time and space I was looking for suggestions as to how I can locate these things I have misplaced, not lost, perhaps the tome is not working for me not because it’s bromidic but, it just may be the last line on the last page of the book that I take issue with, Remember where you had the lost item the last time you used it and you will find it.

I placed the noxious book back beneath my nightstand where I hoped to lose it again for good, reminding myself to forget this was the last place I had ever seen it and continued on my now frantic endeavor to locate my spectacles in order to see, which would finally enable the big reveal of the last place I had used them, because if I knew where I had used them last, they wouldn’t be lost at all.

So it was that only one room was left to submit to this awful scourge I have put my home through this night and one for which I’d pay dearly for straightening up later, but as this was the last place to look, look I did in each corner and crevice and even within the confines of my over-large bathtub until exasperated with myself, I put my hands on my hips and turned to find my reflection looking back at me perplexed, my spectacles sitting quite securely atop my head and wonder of wonders, my smart-phone in my hand – which I had been using as a flashlight the entire time.

Response to Friday Fictioneers 100 Word Story Challenge to photo prompt Genre: Realistic Faction

Lampposts stood dead in the night unlit yet there was light. Someone had cleaned up all the trash from the street and and alleyways and, yes – where was old Flynn’s rusted out ‘57 Cadillac? The one old Flynn still got into first thing in the morning and crawled out of every night after a day working on his alcohol intake. 

It was eerie, the streets being so empty, the city so quiet. He’d never seen or heard of such a thing happening in all of his short, but hard-lived twelve years. 

His t-shirt stuck to his chest. Blood?

2nd Response to Barthlomew Barker’s Monday Poetry Prompt: GRATITUDE

It is with gratitude this day 

that I write this to say

to express to all those 

mentioned here in this prose

Without them you see

I would have ceased to be

My life they have saved 

in their own sacred way

The first to my daughter 

whose love did not falter

when doctors in white

predicted the end of my life

A lady swathed in riches all purple 

was next to produce a loving miracle

Dance she did a pure happy spirit 

called me back wanting to be near it

Of all the legged beasts in this land

there’s no other like my Tala so grand

Where I go she will always follow 

where she goes I strive not to dawdle 

Within the dark fog of sudden illness

a battle fought within comas stillness

A figure emerged my soul he claimed

renewed my heart set my body aflame

To these loved ones and many more 

no way to keep count no way to score

My love, my thanks to you I do give

Gratitude you allowed me to live

A response to Bartholomew Barker’s Monday Poetry Prompt – GRATITUDE

It’s not only this time of the year that I’m wishing you near Wanting things to be as they used to be between you and me. Mother, Father, sisters all

It’s not only this day filled with turkey delight, cornbread stuffing sweet pies baked in the night when I find how thankful I am you were in my life

Memories slip in tinged with the vintage of time masking the trials of teenagers coming of age in a world filled with war, heartache and rage A world your children never knew

How hard it had been as each of your kin passed into the night relinquished the fight to diseases unknown while raising a house full of girls with their silver combs

Unaware thanks to you that our world was a zoo Filled with dangers and frights we as kids had no clue as we were ever protected by you

Cuba’s missiles we found could’ve leveled our ground Yet we continued to play in our yard in the sun no cares but our own thanks to you

A blissful time a child without worry a child without crime I am thankful for each day since you’ve both gone away to rest in the peaceful arms of time you still live in my heart

Happy Thanksgiving it is and with great thanks that I give to two parents now gone that allowed a kid to be a kid – Thank you with love ‘til we meet again

Confucius say only the confused aren’t!

Weekend Writing Prompt #236 – Blue

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