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By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Prompt One-Liner Wednesday – Life Renews
June 8, 2022 by Linda G. Hill

Color refreshes my soul sending my spirit flying.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris (Flash fiction in 100 words exactly.)

Gardening is my relaxation. Flowers are my heaven. I love the little critters that arrive in spring. The anoles, the crickets, snails and slugs. The birds and fireflies. Turtles sometimes and frogs always.

Hop hop hop. Right over my flip-flopped foot.

“Oh, hello!” I exclaimed.

Hop hop hop, he stopped. I followed. More hopping. I kept following. He took me to my lovely porcelain, vibrant blue bird-bath water fountain and waited. Thinking he wanted water, I lowered my hand and he hopped right in. Once on the edge, he turned to face me.

“Kiss a frog?” he asked.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

They felon had been banished to the back-country. The chilling trip was an unknown, yet he had heard stories. UuikPinpricks of information came down the in-house communication network dubbed, ‘the slithery string,’ about the place unmanageable inmates like him were sent and never heard from again.

He had tried to miss the deportation wagon by hiding out in the laundry room, but the lid of the basket she had stuffed himself inside wouldn’t close the right way and in the end, he had been discovered.

Now he was handcuffed to ithe seat in front of him on what looked to be a dilapidated but school bus with two beefy prison guards on either side of him to insure he stayed put.

They bounced around uncomfortable in the semi-darknessz, dusk had just fallen. The old bus made a sharp right turn, hit several potholes and finally stopped. Before the bus stopped bouncing from the rough ride, the guards were manhandling him down the stairs and out of the door. He looked around confused, until he uh wedHuhis brain processed what his eyes were telling himo. A rickety yyuiold sign hung above the abandoned graveyard, but the words were still legible. ‘The WeBack-Country’ was painted across all yyyuuoooooooooookookokkvery Different dry and broken piece of rotting timbery. His distraught scream went unheeded.

Upturn

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Buckets perched upon the sand
Force memories out of safekeeping
From the far recesses of my mind

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

As I floated along on my old log
I saw your boat pass me by today
Your sails full as you rode the wind
I traveled opposite slow and steady

You seemed so light so happy
so free and at your ease
Guiding your boat with one hand
holding her lovingly with the other

You did not notice me at all
as your boat passed me by
How I wish I could have flown
but both wings are broken you see

So I’m left here alone on my own
floating free on my borrowed log
Watching your happy family
pass me by on the deep blue sea

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Sue W. and GC’s weekly color challenge word prompt – Nautical Blue

He was positive he’d ordered his new boat in nautical blue. After waiting nearly a year for its completion, how disappointed he felt when they rolled it out of the marina on its trailer.

What was this? A bright, neon bluish green monstrosity of a sailing vessel! Normally a genteel man, considered quiet by most, he could not stop his repeated utterance of “oh noes!”

The ship builder’s bewilderment and surprise were evident. He had never disappointed a customer is his thirty plus years of ship building.

He asked his paying customer what was the problem? The new owner explained he had specifically ordered his boat in nautical blue. The ship builder answered emphatically that this was nautical blue.

They argued about it for a short period of time and then the new owner said to the ship builder, “Let’s take her out for her test run and I’ll show you nautical blue.”

Once past the docks and slipping through the canal following the buoy markers, the new Captain took the ship builder and his son into deep water.

After some test maneuvering and checking that all of the gauges were working, the Captain pointed straight ahead. In the distant, the ocean was so blue as to be almost black.

“That,” the Captain said with satisfaction, “is nautical blue.”

“Ah yes my good friend, you are correct. Now if you would, please examine the exterior of your new craft.”

He leaned over to examine the hull to find it gleaming a very rich shade of bluish black, matching perfectly the nautical blue of the deep rolling ocean they sailed upon.

Of Maria Antonia Photo Challenge – Sleepy

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Fandango’s FOWC with Fandango — word prompt Compromise.

Anti-gun lobbyists and pro-gun lobbyists stood face to face, nose to nose outside the White House where President Biden watched with half-hearted, feigned community interest.

Taunts were yelled back and forth. Threats made. Slurs slung. Anti-lobbyists held up peace sign symbols. The pro-lobbyists, being more organized and well-funded, held up petition signs worthy of any protest petitioner.

The crowds appeared evenly matched, no give in any quarter. A small man hobbled out of the angry, milling crowd. Staff in one hand,
long flowing, weather-worn robes blowing in the perpetual breeze swirling around his thin, muscle-less legs.

Raising both hands, the Dalai Lama squatted and stated softly, “Now we shall compromise.”

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 4, 2022 by Linda G. Hill Prompt word IRONY

She had always wondered what it must feel like to be “the other woman.” She had been cheated on by both of her two ex-husbands. Their cheating had in fact, torn the marriages apart when she had discovered the truth of their infidelities.

So, without malice, forethought and certainly without intent; she had met, gone out with and eventually fallen in love with a very sexy, very married man, long after it was too late to just walk away.

There were extenuating circumstances, she thought; but then there always were. There was always a reason the man (or woman) strayed and always a reason the other woman (or man) stayed. The irony of the whole complicated, hurtful, tear jerking mess was how very similar both or all of the reasons always seemed to be.

A knock on the hotel door started her out of her philosophical contemplations. Room service she presumed. She was wrong. Upon opening the door, she found a short, stout woman standing on the other side, her face a fiery mask of fury.

There was a loud noise, she thought she heard someone scream. Was it her or him? She couldn’t be sure.

She’d always wondered what it would feel like to get shot. No pain at all, she pondered, just a warm feeling of fading away. Ironically, she puzzled over why she’d never contemplated buying a gun herself.