Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

A quote: “The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.” ~~ Jordan Peterson

I’ll start with a story …

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She had been – what? – 15 years old when he disappeared? Mom retreated to her bed and a bottle. She was left to grapple with a crumbling apartment, drug-dealing neighbors and a leering landlord. She was too busy to even spare a thought for missing her old man save for “screw” and “you”.

So, color her speechless when the lawyer showed up at her work with a key.

It was a tiny 3rd floor office. Pictures of her hung on the walls.

Three things she took with her. His gun, a banker-box of files and his fedora.

A new career. Joy.

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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped and modified, Adobe Stock standard license

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2 Comments
  • Navig8r says:

    The envious say that some people have way too much money for their own good, but I’m not complaining. Some of it is paying for a fun and very expensive jet setter lifestyle for me. Some of those people decided instead of a scavenger hunt, to let their kids play Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego on the world stage and I play Carmen. Once in a while I let them catch me, and it starts over. And yes, I’m putting some away into savings. I do pity the nannies who have to ride herd on the little brats.

  • Leigh Kimmel says:

    How relieved I was when each of our children’s psi talents proved to be the ordinary sort of telepathy. Yes, I know how valuable the truthseer gift is, but most people have no idea what a burden it can be to literally be unable to tell a lie.

    By the time I was getting to school age, my parents were getting worried about my blunt honesty. They’d managed to teach me not to blurt out awkward truths, but if someone asked me a direct question, no amount of encouragement or punishment could get me to tell the “little white lies” that help grease the wheels of social interaction.

    The school district brought in a specialist, who diagnosed me with a communication disorder. Once she realized that I could enjoy and even retell stories, she reframed “little white lies” as “polite fictions,” bits of make-believe we do to smooth over the awkward parts of life.

    However, the damage had been done, and I remained suspect in the eyes of the community. No matter how hard I tried, I would always be the rude little girl who either blurted out unacceptable truths or stood sullenly silent.

    How different everything became when I arrived out here and started my Institute training, learning how to function as a human lie detector. But the old habits die hard, and even after more than a decade here, that misdiagnosis of communication disorder still lingers in my mind.

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