Where's a band when you need it to play on?

If I recall, the first thing you do when you come to from being knocked out is throw up. I didn't let myself down. I spit the last of it into a box that was half filled with rotting lettuce leaves. I flopped over into a somewhat upright position and started opening my eyes. They hurt. I took inventory of my arms, my legs, my ribs, my mouth. I slowly started taking it all in. My suit was in shreds. I wasn't wearing any shoes. My belt was missing, no, it was looped around my forehead? Oh, yeah, now I remember, to hold my head still so their fists would make contact.
I still had my wallet, nothing was missing.
I pushed back against the dumpster and slowly eased myself up. I put my belt back on. Now, if I can just make myself go forward I might be able to make it to my office. I bounced off the alley walls like a pinball. I made it to the street. I looked. Not even a cab. Must be after midnight.
The street sign was blurred, but I made myself to be about two blocks from my office. I pointed myself in that direction and pushed off from the street post, every now and then finding the pavement.
I made it to the elevator and went up to my office which was also my apartment. I leaned against my door. It swung open and I stumbled across the floor.
My office had been ransacked. The smell of urine was everywhere. Shit-asses!
I found my phone, it was still connected. I made two calls. The first was to the mother-of-my-dog that ordered my beating. I knew his home number. His little girl answered. I asked to speak to her father in Spanish. He was on the phone:
'Yeah, who is this?'
'(in my best street Spanish) I'm not dead! Your turds left some life in me! Tell your wife she'll have to do all the work next time we're together!'
'Enjoy breathing while you still can!' He hung up. I knew he would be here to finish the job himself.
My next call was to the 4th Precinct. Told the desk sergeant to connect me with Sergeant Drang.
'This is Drang'
'This is Sturm. Look I--'
'Listen you left over fart from a beer binge, I told you what would happen next time you got in the way of one of my investigations!'
'I'm willing to risk it. Paco R is on his way over to my office!'
'Paco? Why?'
'Do you want him?'
'You know I do! Wait, why's he coming to you?'
'His vaqueros tried to pound me to death tonight. But I told him they left some life in me. Now he's coming over to finish the job. Send some of your goons with badges over here quick.'
'Yeah, we'll be there. But Sturm--'
'Yeah?'
'That pounding you got tonight wasn't from Paco. I'll be there real soon.'
I hung up the phone, and waited. And waited. The elevator door opened. Steps came down the hall. Into my office. I pushed myself into the shadows and waited....

Flash Fiction Story Idea #2

680 words

SHE decided to have her husband 'removed', permanently. She came to this final solution last Tuesday during her Women's Christian Book discussion and prayer group meeting at the church. At first she was a little ashamed of having had those thoughts at a church. But a few minutes later she reconciled it because she didn't like their new pastor anyway.
She wasn't going to worry about he how, when , or where. Those would be the problems of somebody else. She was going to contract her husband's removal.
She knew someone....someone who was always being questioned, or being a 'person of interest', sometimes even arrested. Someone who had spent a few weeks in jail. Surely this someone knew someone who for the right price would be willing to remove someone? SHE called someone.
She met this person at a hole-in -the-wall taqueria/cantina. She arrived. The place smelled of sweat, warm cerveza, and urine. She looked around for an empty booth. No luck. She sat a table in a corner and waited. There was a small glob of pale blue slime next to her elbow. She moved to the other side of the table.
One of the patrons walked away from the bar and came toward her. It was the someone she knew. She motioned to the empty chair. Their elbow went into the slime glob. Not a blink. “Well, it's your meeting”.
She nodded and pushed a photo of her husband across the table.
“Isn't this your ---”
She took out a pen and drew an X over his face. Then she smiled at the someone she knew. The person nodded and quickly wrote something on the back of the photo and handed it back to her.
“Call this number. Let it ring four times, then hang up and wait for a phone call”.
“ Wait? How long----”? She looked up from the photo and she was alone.
After leaving the cantina she walked for over an hour. Thinking a million different thoughts at once. Tears would come and go. Fear would creep in, then vanish. She took the subway home. Less chance of being identified, she thought. She thought! She got off at the galleria! She went into a drug store and purchased a cheap pay-as-you-call cell phone! It took her another hour but she finally had it activated.
SHE made the call! Four rings! Hang up! Now wait! For how long?

TWO days Later, on a Tuesday, the cheap phone rang. “Yes”?
A soft, female voice replied, “Bring a recent photo of the contract. Be at the North Parking Lot of the Omni-Dome at 10pm”.
“OK. Wait! How will I know you? How will you know me”?
“Don't worry about me knowing you. What do you think I've been doing for the last two days”? Call ended. Then a text message: 'destroy this phn'. She went to the basement. She took a hammer and pulverized the phone. Then just to be certain, she put the pieces in a bucket, squirted charcoal lighter fluid on them and dropped a match in the bucket. An hour later she would bury the remains in three different places in her cactus garden and cover them with dog turds.

SHE wore a dark blue sweat suit to the meeting. She arrived at 9:55pm. A vintage Mustang pulled beside her. Somehow the car looked vaguely familiar. The passenger door opened, she got in. They drove out of the parking lot. Finally they parked behind a run down building. Lights out, motor idling.
“Contract's photo”!
SHE gave it to the driver: female, short red hair, no make-up, a few pimples, mid-thirties, flat chested. SHE wanted to remember this person.
“Why”?
“Why, what”?
“Why the contract”?
SHE paused. “One to many women in his life”. The driver was staring ahead, thinking....
“Do you have a photo of the other woman”? SHE did.
The driver turned to get the photo. As her face came into the dim light, SHE saw the woman in the photo.

Flash Fiction story idea #1..

.. 655 words


Gwen opens the door, Blake exits. She slams the door on his heels. She opens the door and shouts “The next girl you date, do them a favor and tell them you're still attached to your mother's umbilical chord”! She slams the door and I enter saying: “You or him this time”? ”STOP”! The director. I keep my body in place, but turn my head to face her. “Script says you enter downstage left. OK! Slam the door and enter”! I quickly walk to my correct entrance mark. The door slams and I enter saying: “You or him this time”? I pull out the chair to sit down, Gwen turns into the chair. “STOP! You pull the chair AFTER she crosses in front of you! Say your line and begin”! I say my line, she crosses, I pull the chair and sit down. Gwen turns and speaks her lines to ..air and “STOP”!
“ I'm supposed to sit after her lines”.
“WE are getting the hang of this”!
I stand. Gwen says her lines. I sit. I say my lines on cue, and in character.
I pick up a cup of 'tea' and act aloof. Aloof? I stretch out my legs, nod at Gwen and drink my tea. Cue: knock at the door. Gwen turns quickly, starts to cross to the door and trips over my legs and lands across my chest.
“STOP”!! I know the answer, but I decide to wait for the expert analysis.
“You decided to trip her...why”? Ah ha, it's one of those 'I'm screwed no matter what I say' questions. I help Gwen up. If her looks could kill!
“Well”? The director wants an answer so she can hurt me!
Here goes: “You know I didn't mean to. I was acting 'Aloof'”.
“I'll give you the aloof part. Cross one leg over the other”! I manage to make it to the end of the act without any more “STOPS”!
I'm not on stage again until the final scene. Backstage there are stools and metal folding chairs that some Baptist church tossed out and ended up here. These are reserved for the actors while waiting for their cues. I don't feel like sitting. I stroll over to the Stage Manager, his name is Mick. He is frenetically talking into his headset and looking at the script that is covered in his and the director's notes. When this show opens, its the Stage Manger that's in charge. The director becomes audience. I walk over beside him. He doesn't notice.
“ Beer's on me after we finish” I whisper.
“Bring up beer number three” he says into his headset. A pause, then from the light control booth we all hear: “What the hell do you mean 'beer number three”?
Mick freezes, then turns to me. Hell pours from his face!
Then: “STOP”!!
I'm turning five shades of shit-faced.
Then I quickly whisper to Mick “I'm just going to crawl under the trash dumpster out back”.
Mick starts ad-libbing through his headset an apology.
Again I have to remind myself – I really enjoy acting. I'm on again in three more pages. I decide to go wait at the prop table.
On my way over there the stage hands have moved the door for act three onto the aisle. I try to go around or through it, but then suddenly I hear my cue! I quickly turn and knock the door frame to the side. It hits the floor with a resounding crash of “You are so up shit creek without a paddle”! I hear my cue again and just jump onto the stage, evidently thru a painted bookcase.
I say my lines. Walk over to Gwen and kiss her..wet and long (my ad-lib).
The director starts to yell “STOP”! I turn to her and bow, exiting stage right all the while yelling “MacBeth”!
Curtain.

The Inward-Spiral

I was 'fired' from a job I loved, I worked hard to get the job, When I received my job certification I was proud of the accomplishment.
When called upon to perform my duties I did them to my utmost. I held my position for over 2 years. I never asked for any pay. Though I did receive the occasional paycheck, I usually ended up giving more than the amount back to the group.

The person(s) that 'fired' me, really were not on any list that had that authority. But, even though fighting them and winning was only a phone call away, I took the under-all message and gracefully, but silently headed east. Bye!

My job was a Lay-Minister to rural Methodist churches. It was the pastor, et al, who told me with a smile that my services as a Lay-Minister would no longer be required. He didn't hire me, or assign me duties. Those two items came directly from the Bishop for the state. But.... he was only doing what a few, I guess, church members button-holed him into doing. After all, he was a new pastor for this church, who did he really know??

That evening my (much)better-half reviewed the day. She said she wasn't surprised. She said that even though she wasn't active in the church, she felt that there were members that resented me for being a Lay-Minister. "Why?" Because their presumed authority in the church was diminished by my real administrative authority. She saw it. "Even though I took no administrative position in the congregation?" So? You were the one receiving mail from the district superintendent and the Bishop's office - they weren't. "So?" "Ohhh." Right!

And as my thoughts pull me northeast-ways, I who was raised in the church for the last 57 years, am without. So to keep me busy during the morning hours of Sundays now and to come, I have started writing down my bones.


and cleaning out the dog room........