Welcome to the Spot Writers. Today’s contribution comes from RC Bonitz, author of DANGEROUS DECISIONS, which was released in September. The prompt for this month is “how could he do a thing like that?”.

HOW COULD HE DO A THING LIKE THAT?

by RC Bonitz

I met her six months ago today. Mark, our Clinical Director, introduced her at the regular Tuesday morning Clinical Dept. meeting, one more social worker joining our ranks. Except she was not the typical social worker. Vera Bingham, the most striking woman I had ever seen, late twenties I guessed, flowing light auburn hair that looked like it had been permanently sun-bleached, a perfect figure, and eyes that glowed with life. She knocked my socks off.

He showed up three days later to fill our last vacant social worker position. I made the mistake of calling him Bill and got a curt, “The name is William,” for my trouble. William Rankin looked to be in his late twenties too, was about five foot eight, prematurely balding and generally non-descript. His claim to fame was that he was working on his doctorate. I was not impressed.

Vera was. As soon as we met I tried to make friends with her. I managed to join her for lunch in the café once and bought her coffee twice, but that lasted all of the three days before Mr. William showed up. The next time I tried to join her for coffee he got there before me. Join her for lunch, he was there. Sit next to her at a clinical meeting, he was there. I began to suspect they were checking with each other before leaving their offices. You know, like, “Want to go for coffee? See you in the café.”

I caught the clues. Weak chin and all, he was numero uno. I capitulated without a murmur of dissent. Can’t fight city hall as they say.

Things chugged right along, getting warmer all the time. Soon they were holding hands at clinical meetings. When he caught some flak for a technique he followed in treating an abused child, only Vera defended him.

The open question everybody on staff discussed ad infinitum was, when would they announce their engagement. Sleeping together we figured was a fait accompli.

Walking down the hall about ten fifteen this morning I met Vera coming out of Bill, er, pardon me, William’s office. Tears streamed down her face and she brushed past me in a rush, shrugging off my brief attempt to stop her.

My medieval knighthood gallantry came to the fore and I barged into William’s office.

“What was that about? What did you do to her?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” he replied, offering me a look of total innocence.

“Come off it. You did something.”

“She’s upset ’cause I told her I don’t want to get married.”

“You broke it off you mean,” I snapped.

He nodded. “She has too much hair on her arms.”

“What?”

“She has hairy arms. I can’t have that in my woman.”

I stared at him. He broke off a serious relationship because Vera had hair on her arms? How could he do a thing like that? I stared at him for a second, then turned and left his office. I’d have to add that to my “Not For Me” no dating list. No sense getting too involved with a doomed relationship.

DANGEROUS DECISIONS is available now. I hope you enjoy it. RC Bonitz

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The Spot Writers–our members:

RC Bonitz: rcbonitz.com

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: http://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Tom Robson: Blog pending

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This week’s flash fiction comes to you from Val Muller, author of the young adult novel The Scarred Letter, a book dealing with bullying and truth in a world that lives a lie.

The prompt for this month: Opening sentence: “It’s still not clear what started it all.” Closing sentence: “What can be done to change that?”

Synced In

By Val Muller

It’s not clear what started it all. It may have been the Fitbit craze, the obsession over fitness-tracking watches and smartphone apps tracking movement, exercise, and calories. It may have been people’s use of GPS technology as a crutch, or the constant need to feel connected.

But now everyone at school was Synced In.

Except Charlie.

His parents were old school. Really old school. They’d home-schooled him until the tenth grade, at which point he needed the advanced courses offered at the local high school. When he first got there, he didn’t know how to log on to a computer, let alone use a mouse for that matter.

Not that many people were using a mouse anymore.

Now, the students held their fingers up to the sensor, and they were logged in, able to save their work, able to access countless databases. In gym class (they made Charlie take Gym with the freshmen), students logged into a computer terminal to track their pulses, their activity levels, and their caloric intakes for the day. Charlie was surprised there was no actual physical activity.

Charlie, who had not been Synced, flipped pages on an old-fashioned book with his old-fashioned finger and read about the benefits of cardiovascular work—without being asked to get up from his desk.

In fact, the teachers were all pretty lax compared to the books Charlie had read in preparation for life in public school. The teachers in the books were always sly and sneaky. They all seemed to have eyes in the back of their heads, to catch students sneaking around, and to have all kinds of clever ways of inspiring students into caring just a bit more about life.

Maybe books were art and life was life.

Or maybe life had just become too synced.

These teachers walked around with a small tablet attached to their belts the same way cops walked around with guns in the detective stories Charlie read as a kid. Attendance was taken as the students walked into the classroom—their Sync Chips scanned by each classroom’s infrared sensor. The teachers needed only to input Charlie’s presence manually, a task they did with the subtlest eye roll.

“Charlie, we need to get you Synced,” they would sigh.

They also had to manually enter his grades. With no finger sensor for him to log into the network, he could not complete the online courses the way the other students did. At first, he was met again with eye rolls. But after a while, his physics teacher seemed to enjoy the quaintness of a pen-and-paper activity. In the absence of immediate online feedback, Mr. Bloomton sat down with Charlie to review formulas and problem sets, to talk of theories and the best way to solve each assignment.

With the other kids, he simply checked their progress on his tablet, making sure the data fed correctly into his grading program.

Before long, Mr. Bloomton had spoken with Mr. Frierson, the public speaking teacher. The class couldn’t understand why Frierson abandoned the computer’s speech algorithm one day and asked the students to deliver an impromptu speech—actually standing in front of the class with everyone actually watching and not logged into their computers.

The next day, gym teachers around the school were perplexed at the irregular pulse rate and calorie readings reported from students’ devices, and they, too, spent time away from the automated programs. The students were especially tired that week, and parents came to visit—in person—with concerns about anomalous readings on their children’s devices.

With all the human interaction, teachers were more tired than usual, prompting calls from doctors’ offices calling for actual appointments rather than virtual ones. It made for a crazy week for most, but when Charlie’s parents asked him how he enjoyed being a public school student, he simply shrugged.

“A little different from what I expected at first, but now it seems to be a bit closer to normal. I probably would prefer to remain home schooled, but there is something unique about human interaction that I just can’t get at home. Besides, I need those upper-level science and match classes, so what can be done to change that?”

~*~

The Spot Writers–our members:

 RC Bonitz: rcbonitz.com

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: http://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Tom Robson: Blog pending

 

Welcome to the Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to use these words in a story or poem: star, pine bough, glass bulb, mistletoe.

A Visit from Saint Nicholas – and Others.

By Tom Robson

 

(With thanks and apologies to Clement Moore.)

 

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the condo,

The only ‘kid’ playing was my dad, on Nintendo.

The star sparkled brightly on the tree down below,

And hung right beside it was our mom’s mistletoe.

Concealed midst the pine boughs, so dense and so green

The white mistletoe berries could only be seen.

 

My pillowcase lay at the foot of the bunk.

I knew that, by morning, it would be full of ‘junk’.

My brother and sister lay in bed without sleeping,

From down in the kitchen they could hear mother weeping.

Her oven’s too small to fit her huge turkey.

And all she could serve to her kids was beef jerky.

 

Then out of the basement there came a loud curse.

I said to myself, “Now! What could be worse–

My mother upset or my dad in a rage?”

Then outside the window the sky came ablaze.

I jumped from my bunk to see what was alight,

But I didn’t believe when my eyes saw this sight.

A fire truck was coming. It’s lights were all flashing.

My kid brother and sister said “Cor! This is smashing!

Can we go out and see where the fire is, please?”

I said, “Are you crazy! Your fingers will freeze.

You’d have to dress up from your head to your toe.

Cos the temperature out there is thirty below.”

 

The fire truck stopped right outside our front door.

Out of the truck leaped brave firemen, four.

Quickly they started to unfurl their hoses.

The reason why suddenly came to our noses.

“Fire!” yelled my sister. “It’s here! This is fun!”

“Get down here, you kids! We’re on fire!” shouted mom.

 

The room filled with smoke. We dropped flat to the floor.

I reached out my hand but it touched a hot door.

“Too late to go that way! To the window! Let’s go!

Now both of you take a tight grip of my toe.”

Have you ever tried crawling, with two kids holding tight

To your toes, as you creep round a room, black as night?

As we got to the window we heard a loud CRASH!!!

So we finished our crawl in a shower of glass.

 

Then, through the smashed window, what should appear

But a frightening figure, all dressed in fire gear.

He was clad in thick clothes from his head to his toes

And out of his headpiece emerged a black hose.

His eyes stared out at us through a bulb made of glass

And he carried a fire-axe to clear a safe pass.

A voice! It was distant! He talked like Darth Veda.

It said, “Please don’t be frightened, kids. I’m here to save ya.”

 

He picked up little Becky, and then tiny Tim.

Passed them out to another masked man looking in.

I said, “Don’t you touch me! I can manage alone!”

But he picked me up like I was just skin and bone.

Put me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold

And took me to safety out into the cold.

 

With us each in a blanket, (mom and dad too,)

We watched the flames flicker, red, yellow and blue.

Our house it was burning and naught could be done.

This was just one more game Mario Brothers had won.

Dad said that, when he entered the Castel of Doom,

The TV exploded, igniting the room.

“Oh! What’ll we do? And it’s Christmas as well!!!”

Cried our mom. Just then we heard it, clear as a church bell,

A jingle! And emerging from out of the smoke

Came this sled-like vehicle and this very odd bloke.

 

Eight reindeer that pulled him had this very odd cough.

My father said, “This is no joke! Now clear off!

Get back to Walmart. This is no place for you,

Unless you’re a volunteer fireman, too.”

The man in the red suit and singed, wispy beard,

(Which made him look more than a little bit weird,)

Said, “I’m not a fireman! Oh, dear me, no.

It’s me, Santa Claus! Cough! Cough! Cough! Ho Ho Ho!

 

“I’ve brought you this ticket. Your future is fine.

It’s the winner of Saturday’s 6/49.”

As mam and dad thanked him for the life-saving prize,

He fixed us three kids with his red, smoke filled eyes,

“You kids! Look for sacks marked with your three name tags.

An elf put one for you each on that sleigh filled with bags.”

 

We found them; and as we began to explore

What was in those three bags, we heard this loud roar.

Santa had taken, from out of his pocket,

And attached to his sleigh, a miniature space rocket.

“Emergency measure!” he yelled with elation.

“Save my reindeer who are suffering from smoke inhalation.

And Rudolph, my guide, has a nose black from fire.

That’s it for tonight, I’ll have to retire.”

With a last, ”Ho Ho Ho!” he headed for home,

Leaving all of the firemen, and our family, alone.

 

Now all the town’s children, including us three,

Did not find any Christmas gifts under the tree

At that Christmas time when our condo burnt down.

All the other children from all across town,

Could not work out (though they tried hard to guess,)

Why that Christmas their gifts came by Courier Express.

-Tom Robson. (Original version written in 1992 for his grade six students. Revised December, 2015)

~*~

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

RC Bonitz: http://www.rcbonitz.com

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Tom Robson: website in progress