2026 Writing Challenge: Write On Prompt - Ned Comes Home

 Note: During our Write On meeting last night, we continued to study Point of View during our Writing Workout session. We had two prompts and spent about 15 minutes on each. This is the first prompt and what I came up with. I will post the second in the coming days. 

Part 1: 15 minutes.

Ned is returning to his childhood home for a reunion with his family, and he is very nervous. Write a few paragraphs or scene in first-person POV from Ned’s perspective as he greets his family.

---

The left turn came at the top of a long incline on the two-lane highway in rural Illinois. I stopped at the top, waiting for an approaching minivan to pass, and considered hitting the gas and continuing north, maybe follow the road the entire sixty miles or so to Wisconsin. It wouldn’t be the first time I said I was coming back, only to beg off because of illness, or bad weather, or the rotation of Saturn in the solar system. I eased off the brake, so tempted to hit the accelerator, but then the van passed, and I turned onto the gravel road, probably more out of latent habit than desire.

The house was three-quarters of a mile down; a two-story, clapboard structure with a wrap-around porch and a yard spotted with dandelions. Two boys frolicked in the yard, each carrying sticks and wearing football helmets missing the face guards. I suppose those are Josie’s boys. Eli was the oldest; he was probably ten by now, and the other, Edgar or Evan or something, was probably eight. Talk about being a shitty brother, I don’t even know the names of my sister’s kids.

They waved as I entered the driveway, parked beside an outbuilding that leaned noticeably to the southeast. Twenty years, and the place still looks the same. I still feel the same, too. That knot in my gut. That cold trickle of sweat sliding down my spine. I can’t face these people, not on this turf.

I left the engine running and stared at the rickety wooden stairs leading to the front entrance. It was four stairs, but it looked like Mount Everest. Josie appeared at the door. She was short, just like Mama, with her dish-rag blonde hair cropped tight to her ears, and she had a baby in her arms.

I can’t believe I’m here.

Tap. Tap. A finger at my window. I jumped, my hand hit the steering wheel, and a short, peppy beep came out.

Eli’s grin nearly extended to the ears of the football helmet.

“Well, come on out, Uncle Ned.”

Evan or Edgar stood beside him, the stick held before him like a sword.

“If you dare,” the other brother warned.

2026 Writing Challenge: A letter from Camp Wherever

 

Note: We had our Writing Workout last night at Write On – a writing group located in Rock Falls. We were given three prompts to pick from, and this is the one I chose. 

 Letters From Summer Camp. Imagine your character is a child or camp counselor at a summer camp that is the setting of a horror-comedy movie. Write a letter home to family or friends from your character's perspective, telling your family about the strange happenings at camp.

 

 

Dear Jason,

 

Remember how you warned me last spring that signing up for this counseling gig at Camp Wherever was a terrible idea? Well, I am about to admit something I never dreamt I would, and if circumstances were different, I’d feel miserable about it, dreading the knowledge that you’d spend this fall gloating about your foresight. So, here it goes: YOU WERE RIGHT!

 

There, that’s out. I suspect you’ll pause here to relish your victory, but before you get too big a head, I am going to disappoint you. You were right, but not in any way that you imagined. 

 

It isn’t because of bratty kids. Or that my fellow counselors are trust-fund slackers. It has nothing to do with mosquitoes, rock-hard foam mattresses, or cabins with no air conditioning. The food admittedly wasn’t great, but no worse than the dorm food we stomached for nine months freshman year. I wish those issues mattered now. 

 

I regret coming here because I know I will never leave. 

 

No one does. 

 

Ever. 

 

I mean it. 

 

You probably think I’ve gone nuts in the woods. Well, maybe I have a little bit. I mean, I am hunkered in the corner of my cabin at midnight, writing this letter by flashlight without a clue on how I will ever post it. Outside, the drums have started. I call them the rain-dance drums. That’s probably not PC, but I grew up in the 80s, and dang it, it sounds like every stereotypical Native American drum that I have ever heard.

 

I heard the drums the first night I came. It wasn’t as loud as it is now. I think Tammy Warner, she was one of the other counselors, had it right: It’s getting stronger. Whatever “it” is. 

 

Dang it, I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Writing is helping, I think. It’s distracting my brain from that sound, so I want to make this letter last, maybe even until dawn. When the sun arrives, the drums go away. I want to make a run for it then, but we are miles from anywhere, and everyone who has tried loops back to here before nightfall. Every path, every road just winds back to the camp. It’s like the camp is a black hole, bending the laws of nature and physics, sucking everything toward it with its massive gravitational pull. Maybe I’ll be the lucky one that pulls away. Finds the right path. Escape. 

 

Anyway, that first night, it was just counselors here at Camp Whatever. Mr. Takoda, who owns the camp, met us here. A squirrelly looking fellow, probably 98-pounds soaking wet with one of those old handlebar mustaches. He’s some sort of Chippewa or Sioux, I think, and looked like he was about two hundred years old. He gave us keys to the cabins and our assignments, and then left with a bus. See he was picking up the kids in Stovington, the next day. We were just here to get everything ready. Clean the cabins, prepare the mess hall, all that jazz. 

 

It was a lot of work, but fun then. Twelve counselors. Six males and six females with sixty kids coming the next day. We counselors got along well enough, we’re all the same age and stuff. A couple of the guys were even cute. But don’t get jealous, the best-looking ones are already gone. The cabins were old, sturdy structures with six-by-six frames and slate roofs. Ten cabins in all, plus the mess hall, and a building with six shower stalls and four toilets. The lap of luxury. 

 

I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought. There’s the drumming, you see, and if you listen very close, there’s something else. Chanting, I think. But it’s more like some producer turned off the lead singer’s voice on a pop song and all you can hear is the backing vocals. Hollow bits and pieces with breaks and fades, and the words aren’t anything I can understand, but sometimes I can just make out a little bit, and I want to stop what you are doing and listen closer. Maybe just walk outside and see if it’s clearer there. Maybe go down the path that leads to the lake… 

 

Oh, the lake, it’s a thing of beauty during the day. So clear that you can see every fish that swims by. Musky. Blue Gil. Trout. I don’t know anything about fish, I am just making up that’s what they are. They could be piranhas for all I know. The bed is made of little white rocks, and some of them look like they have little painted symbols on them. I like to think they’ve been down there since the last ice age, and the Neanderthals smeared some berry juice or something on the pebbles before tossing them into the water. At dusk, a fog over rolls over the lake, a thick, green fog – I’ve never seen green fog, have you? It absorbs into the into the lake like a blob, turning it into a mossy swamp of yuck. 

 

The drums come from that direction, but I don’t think there from the lake. No, it’s from the other side of the lake. Billy O’Hearn, a real cocky counselor with more muscles than brains, said there’s an old Indian burial mound over there. Eight to ten feet high, about twenty feet in diameter. I don’t know how he would know that. We all came here on the same day. Cocky Billy followed the drums two nights ago. His buddy, Frank Conners, tried to stop Billy, but there was nothing good old Frank could do. Billy was all muscles and Frank was half his size. Really busted Frank up seeing Billy go. Maybe even more than seeing the kids going, one by one. Although the going is better than the finding. 

 

This isn’t making any sense I suppose. Not to you. You’re probably thinking, ole Connie, is telling a real ripper here. Well, I wish that were the case. Jason, there’s something out here I can’t explain. All I can say is everyone eventually follows the drums, and when we find them the next day – or what’s left of them – well, it’s not pretty. Billy O’Hearn didn’t have any skin when we discovered his body about a half down Eagle Point trail. 

 

Frank Conners couldn’t handle finding Billy like that. He jumped in the lake, and just kept swimming toward the middle, so far there was no way he’d have the strength to come back. He wasn’t going to let the drums get him, I guess. I don’t think it mattered. When his body floated to shore, his eyes and teeth were all gone, along with everything inside his skull. Like something just sucked them all out. 

 

There’s only eight of us left, Jason. Five kids. Three counselors. None of us have seen old Mr. Takoda since he dropped the kids off. Some of us wonder if he ever was real. 

 

I’m want to keep writing, Jason, but thos drums. What is that voice singing? 

 

You were right, I sure do regret coming here…

2026 Writing Challenge: An Interview Writing Prompt

Last night was a Writing Workout Session at Write On - our local writing group. We had a fictional interview prompt to explore some character development. Here was the prompt: 

Tonight, you will put on your reporter’s hat as the dynamic feature writer for the “Write On Inspirational Ledger.” The charming but demanding editor of the Ledger has provided you with three possible assignments for your next feature story. Here are the tips:

• 1.      Luca Rossi, 81, is closing the local landmark restaurant – “Rossi’s Ristorante” after 60 years. Rossi has owned and operated the business since opening, alongside his wife, Adelina, and children.
• 2.      Janie McKenna, 12, recently survived a harrowing experience on the Rock River. Her mother, who has called eight times, says it’s an amazing tale, but won’t tell it until a reporter is at the door.
• 3.      Malcolm Hart, 51, is a former Catholic priest who has left the church to investigate the paranormal activities he says are prevalent in three abandoned factories in the region.

Activity No. 1 – 10 minutes

1.      Pick one of the subjects above and develop a list of 5-7 questions you would ask this person for your story.

Activity No. 2 – 30 minutes

2.      Now become that character, and answer those 5-7 questions. 

       Here is what I wrote based of Luca Rossi: 

What made you want to open a restaurant?

Oh, I loved a girl. Isn’t that why all men do foolish things? She was the daughter of the bank president. Mr. Cooper Hall. I suppose you’re too young to know that name. Well, back in the 1960s, Mr. Cooper Hall ran this town. Along with Graham Larson, the steel factory fella, and Jackson Porter, the mayor. Those fellas were lockstep with each other, and if you wanted anything in this town, you better check with them first.

I always thought this girl loved me, too, you know. She’d sneak out of that big house over on Wellington Lane, just about midnight mostly, and wouldn’t you know it, I’d be waiting right there on the sidewalk. No, I didn’t have a car. I was dirt broke. Each night, I’d ask her to marry me, and every night she’d tell me not until I made something of myself; otherwise, her Daddy would run me out of town and lock her away in her room until he could pawn her off on one of his banking buddies. 

Well, I had family in the old country, and they had some connections with a family in Chicago that had some cash they wanted to sink into something. One thing led to another; I did some jobs for this family in Chicago, just some deliveries and such. I didn’t ask any questions, and they didn’t tell me nothing I didn’t need to know.

Once I had enough in the bank, I asked for a loan to buy an old restaurant on the west end of town, and would you know it, Old Mr. Cooper signed off on it his own very self. Dud of a joint really, but with some spit shine and a good Italian cook, I thought we could make a go of it. Took three years to get all that together. The year I turned 21.

On opening night, I was on top of the world. That is until the Hall family came in for a table a little after eight. Old Mr. Cooper Hall in a pressed suit. Mrs. Hall in a burgundy gown with a diamond blinging on her necklace. And their beautiful daughter, who clearly had a diamond of her own, shining on her finger, and it certainly hadn’t come from me.

Did you know right away it was going to be a success?

 I didn’t know anything right away. The first night was busy, after that barely anybody showed for the next month. Mostly because I had stiffs working for me, and a lousy cook. What a mess!

Nah, it was two years before anything good happened here, because that’s when Adelina Capelli walked through those doors. She was stout, foul-mouthed, but had the goods when it came to making pasta sauce and homemade pasta. Once word got out about her, the place was packed every night, including Sunday. We were the first joint to stay open on a Sunday night in the entire county. It was a Mayor Porter, who said we had to; there were too many people coming from all around to taste our food, we couldn’t turn those folks away on account of the Sabbath.

I knew I had to keep Adelina around, so I made her co-owner and my wife. 

What has changed the most in 60 years running a community restaurant?

The prices. I ain’t kidding you there. I remember folks throwing a fit when I started charging fifty cents for a steak and a spaghetti special; now these kids scoff when you give them two quarters back with change. Don’t know the value of that coin.

When I started courting that pretty daughter of Cooper Hall, I didn’t have a quarter to my name. If I did, I would have thought I owned the world. Hah. My pops made like eleven dollars a week working sixty hours at the steel factory for that robber baron Graham Larson. It left him stooped by the time he was forty, and deaf at fifty. No health insurance. No nothing.

Well, what did you ask? Oh, what’s changed?

Kid, when you live eighty-one years, you learn everything changes, but everything stays pretty much the damn same.

Did you have any favorite or famous customers over the years?

Ah, couple of ball players through the years. That old announcer, Harry Carey, would stop in, eat a big meal, drink a dozen beers, and then stumble out.

I could name a few infamous folks associated with the family in Chicago that spent time here, but they ain’t all dead, so I ain’t talking. You can get a subpoena if you want, but I’m not a snitch, and what they did was none of my business.

Did all the family get involved with the restaurant?

Ah, my daughters, four of them in all, took turns waiting tables and working the stove with their mama. They all got married, though, and didn’t need to work the long, hot hours. Didn’t need the blisters on their toes and heels. Didn’t want to put up with the handsy drinkers at the bar. They haven’t worked here in years. A couple of their daughters helped, but it’s not in their blood. This is work, not a video game.

Oh, and my son. Luca Jr. When he turned 16, he refused to step into the kitchen. When he turned 19, he never came back to the restaurant. Said the place sucked the life out of him, like the rest of us. Well, he got into a crowd of stupid people, and stupid people do stupid things that end badly. You can look that up. Your paper covered it enough back in the 80s.

Did anyone offer to take over the restaurant instead of closing it?

Ah, you want to talk about the mob? It ain’t the gangsters carrying tommy guns no more. It’s the hedge fund flunkies who want to turn everything into a chain. Hook people with a good name and reputation, then turn the food to crap and have the robots do the cooking and the service. I’m not letting that happen to the restaurant Adelina and I built. Better off being a fond memory than some hinky joint that’s next to a strip mall every twenty miles.

What will you do in retirement?

Stay above the dirt for as many days as possible. 

2026 Writing Challenge: A One Act Play

 Note: Last night Write On Writing Group prompt was to write a One-act play. This is what I came up with. 

Act 1 

Scene 1 

The interior of a PitStop Full-Service Station at dusk of a summer night. LEIA, a twenty-something female with thick-framed glasses and an orange and blue shirt is behind the counter.  MATT, a skinny nineteen-year-old, is mopping the floor in front of the freezers.

 

MATT 

I bet some guy did this job in the 70s after watching Star Wars, and thought, you know by 2026, there will be a robot cleaning the floors at gas stations, so he could be out having fun. 

LEIA 

Except he probably never considered that then he wouldn’t have a job and couldn’t afford to have fun. 

MATT 

You don’t have to have money to have fun. You know, we’re both off tomorrow night, I could show you… 

LEIA 

I’m not going out with you. Ever.

MATT 

Why not?

LEIA 

First, you have been out of high school for like two weeks. Maybe you’re legal, but it’s still kind of creepy. 

MATT 

I have an early birthday, so I am old for my class. 

LEIA 

Second, I have spent ten hours each of the last four days working within ten feet of you, so the last thing I want to do on my night off is spend it with you. No offense, but I have heard every angle of your latest video game victory seven times already, and I have told you about my roomate’s stinky boyfriend ten times, so I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other. 

(MATT puts his head down, moves down the aisle with his mop bucket) 

MATT 

You know what made me think about Star Wars… 

LEIA

Don’t…

MATT 

I mean, were your parents really big fans? Did they go on their first date and watch that movie? I know there are fads, but I think you’re the first person I have ever met with the actual name of Leia.

LEIA. 

You want the truth?

MATT 

Why would I want a lie?

LEIA 

Neither of my parents has ever seen Star Wars. They just saw the name in a baby book, didn’t bother to find out if there was a famous fictional princess with that same name, and then doomed me to be drooled over by every dorky teen boy for the next twenty-four years. 

MATT 

Really? 

(A customer enters wearing a ballcap over his eyes and heads to the back of the store where there is a restroom. Matt leans on his broom handle, waiting for the customer to disappear into the restroom.) 

MATT 

You’re messing with me. 

LEIA 

Am not. You want to hear another wild one? I haven’t watched Star Wars either. Not one second of the ten billion movies they have made. 

MATT 

Cripes. (He mops more actively) I don’t think I could date someone who hasn’t seen Star Wars.

LEIA 

Is that really all it took? I should have introduced myself with that information, it would have saved me from denying you every night since you started here. 

MATT 

It hasn’t been every night. 

(The bathroom door opens, the customer rushes out with a ski mask on and a knife in his hand. He runs to the counter.) 

CUSTOMER 

Give me all the money! 

LEIA 

Are you robbing us with a knife? Hey Matt, this guy is trying to rob us with a knife. 

MATT 

Is it a long knife?

LEIA

No, normal size.

CUSTOMER 

Shut up! Give me the money.

(Matt comes to the front of the store)

MATT 

I mean he’ll have to hurdle the counter to even get to you with that thing. 

CUSTOMER 

Shut up! I’ll come after you. 

MATT 

Well, I don’t have any money, and I am pretty lethal with this broomstick. 

LEIA 

Here (she drops small wad of bills on the counter). You can take this for your trouble.

CUSTOMER 

What’s that?

LEIA

The money from my drawer.

CUSTOMER 

That’s not even a hundred bucks. Where’s the rest of it? 

MATT 

Hah, this guy thinks there’s more cash. That’s almost as crazy as a girl named Leia never seeing Star Wars. 

(the Customer returns his attention to Leia) 

CUSTOMER 

You haven’t seen Star Wars?

LEIA

Not once. Do you want the money, or not?

CUSTOMER 

Is there a safe or something? 

LEIA 

Hey, it’s 2026, man. Sixty percent of our customers pay at the pump, and of the forty percent who come in, ninety percent of them pay with a card. Only the dinosaurs use money. There’s never more than a hundred dollars in here. 

CUSTOMER 

What if someone comes in and wants to break a hundred-dollar bill or something?

MATT 

SOL. You might as well take a pack of cigarettes or something, because PitStop is going to claim you took over a thousand dollars, whether you did or not.

CUSTOMER 

What? That’s not fair.

LEIA 

Not fair? You’re at a gas station, you think anything here is fair? We’re all on the bottom rung of a ladder with only a few rungs, but the next rungs are way beyond our reach. Everything here is overpriced, overtaxed, and generally cheaply made. The people profiting are the oil guy, the stockbroker, and the politician. 

CUSTOMER 

Yeah, but why would they say I took a thousand dollars? 

LEIA 

So, the insurance company will pay up. All I’ll do when you leave is hit a button, and the machine will print a receipt of sales for the cops. It’s bogus, the cops know it, but they don’t care. 

MATT 

Plus, then it’s grand larceny. You’ll do 10-to-15 years instead of spending a couple of nights in lockup. 

CUSTOMER 

Seriously. 

(They all look at each other for a few moments.) 

LEIA 

Well, do you want the money?

CUSTOMER

I’ll take a pack of Marlboros, too.

(Leia puts a pack on the counter, and the Customer takes it and runs out)

MATT 

I didn’t think he’d take it. Wait till he figures out that half of it was monopoly money. 

LEIA 

Grand larceny, where did you come up with that? 

MATT

Hey, he bought it, didn’t he?

LEIA 

I guess I better call it in. Idiot. That guy comes here all the time and pays with his credit card. It’ll take them ten minutes to track him down. 

(Matt goes back to mopping).

MATT 

What if I bring Star Wars over to your place? We could do that on our first date. 

LEIA 

Keep dreaming. 

(A new customer comes in, picks up a pack of gum and a candy bar.)

CUSTOMER #2 

Can you break a hundred? 

(Leia shakes her head). 

2026 Writing Challenge: Write On Prompt - I Remember Part 2 (My last first date)

 Note: This is the second writing exercise from Tuesday's Write On meeting. I took one of my "I Remember" statements and developed the fiction piece below. 

My Last First Date

 

We decided to meet on neutral ground, that’s the way we put it in the emails. A truck stop off I-80. Actually, the “World’s Largest Truck Stop,” according to the billboards I had passed over the last twenty-five miles. Is that what Iowa is known for then? Gone are the days of feeding the world with their corn, now they can wear T-shirts proclaiming they chowed down on a hamburger at the stop where the most truckers pause to sleep, eat, shower and do whatever else happens in such places. Enough of that already, it was neutral ground for us two old goofs, to hell with its size and standing in the grand scheme of things. 

Wanda is from a little town in Nebraska. Someplace with a couple stop signs, a gas station near the interstate and a handful of folks getting by the best they could. 

I still work in Chicago, if you call it working. It’s mostly staring at a computer screen and pecking at the keyboard to answer inane questions in emails. I remember the glory days when the customers called and screamed in your ear. Now, they just use all caps, failing to realize that such practice guarantees their correspondence won’t be read. When I’ve pecked enough for the day, I go back to my dingy townhome in Gary, Indiana.

We agreed to meet in the emptiest part of the parking lot. Her in a green Toyota (I am too old to care what kind of car she drives), and me in my black F-150. I would have preferred blue, but they would have had to special order it, and you can just guess what that meant for the price. “Any color you want, so long as it’s black,” that old nut Henry Ford shouted from his grave. 

I suppose if we had thought about it more, we could have picked a classier place to call neutral ground. There were probably dozens of weirdos arranging all sorts of mashups in the parking lot of this truck stop at this exact time. Druggos passing bags of pills. Perverts meeting to do pervie things. Animal owners walking their dogs, waiting for the mutts to poop. All the worst kinds, basically. Perhaps, we mislabeled it “neutral ground,” when we really meant cesspool. 

“Knock it off,” I say. “Be positive.” 

Yes, I talk to myself. That’s what seventy-year-old bachelor’s do. No one wants to listen to us, so we just hold conversations with the one set of ears we know can’t get away. Yes, I am an old dog with old tricks, trying something stupidly, giddily new. I am meeting a woman for the first time, and we both have agreed this will be our last first date. Quite the promise, isn’t it? Well, we’ve never been married to each other or anybody else for that matter, and we’re going to take a few looks at each other here, grab a bite to eat, and then it’s either full-speed ahead to the altar or thanks for coming and have a nice, lonely twilight to your life. I hope it’s not the later. I’d like to have a few golden years with a good gal. 

No pressure, right. 

Of course, I arrived a half an hour early. That’s the old baseball player in me. If practice started at 4, you came at 3:30, so you could stretch and then warm up for fifteen minutes. Not that my baseball career ever amounted to much. The best I did was draw a walk in the third inning of some meaningless game that my team lost by eleven runs. I never even swung the bat. Yet, baseball trained me to be early. What I didn’t think about was it meant that I had thirty minutes to really think about this woman. 

Wanda. Was she a fish? Why did I start a conversation with a fish? She’s sixty-eight. If she ain’t lyin’. For all I know, she could be lying about all of it. A single woman. Retired teacher. Physically doing OK, considering her age. She can see. She can hear. She line dances on Tuesdays. She once changed her own tire in twelve minutes. All lies, a panic rising in my throat. She’s probably a nineteen-year-old Asian boy named Phong, who drinks too much Mountain Dew while playing internet tricks on lonely old men. 

“Phong,” yes, I say the name aloud. Where have I ever heard that name before? 

A green Toyota pulls into the parking lot. Well, someone was coming. Perhaps a fish. Perhaps Phong. Perhaps my future wife. 

2026 Writing Challenge: Write On Prompt - I Remember (Part 1)

Note: Last night at Write On, we accepted the "I Remember" Challenge as described below and then completed two prompts off that exercise. The first was to write a poem off one of our "I Remember" statements. I will post the second prompt in the next day or two. 

The “I Remember” exercise.

Joe Brainard wrote a novel called: I Remember

It contains a collection of paragraphs all starting with “I remember”.  This is the inspiration for this exercise, and if you’re stuck for what to write, is a great way to get the mental gears turning.  Simply write “I remember” and continue with the first thing that pops into your head.

Spend 5 minutes writing a short collection of “I remember” statements.

Here are a couple of examples from Joe Brainard’s novel:

“I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn't fall off.”

“I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face.”         

 My "I Remember" statements:

I remember falling 12 feet from our barn’s hay mow.

I remember standing in a beehive.

I remember walking the gravel road from my grandparents’ house to my uncle’s house.

I remember driving on I-88 to move to DeKalb.

I remember breathing a sigh of relief for drawing a walk in a meaningless at-bat in a random little league game.

I remember my last first date.

I remember a toothpick sticking out of my foot, and a van door sliding over my thumb.

______

After that exercise, we were challenge to write a poem inspired by one of the statements we wrote. We spent about 15 minutes on this.

It takes a bit of courage...

Go play in the road, they would say

Just a funny expression, indicating get away.

Down the driveway, gravel under toe,

Another place to be, just a mile or so.

It takes a bit of courage, finding a path.

 

Go be a young man, they would say,

A throwaway direction, then see you in May.

The foot on the pedal, down the fast lane,

There’s no way of going without any pain.

It takes a bit of courage, finding a path.

2026 Writing Challenge: NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest Entry

Note: I entered the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction contest last weekend. I had 48 hours to write a 1,000-word story based on the following prompts: 

Genre: Fantasy
Setting: A Snack Bar
Object: A Flyswatter

The idea below came to me almost immediately, and I liked it, but not sure it fit the flash fiction requirements well. 

Two Old Heroes at the Edge of the Festival

 

The Tallow music carried across the festival grounds as the daytime games and contests relented to the evening revelry. Baldir grimaced, and for Galadrin, it was still bizarre seeing the dwarf’s facial features so clearly. Baldir’s once plush beard was gone along with so many other aspects of their former adventurous lives. The dwarf travelled the festival circuit these days, selling ale and various seasoned meats on skewers at an outdoor stand. Patrons didn’t appreciate the famous beard dipping into their ales or brushing against their chicken or lamb, so Baldir shaved it shortly after becoming a food peddler.

“Seven Dread Lords have forsaken FarHaven over the last thousand years, and every time, the cursed Tallow have followed them while the rest of us have fought against the evil, but at every blessed festival, there’s nothing but the pounding drums and blasted horns of the miserable Tallow music!” Baldir seized his flask, chasing his bitter thoughts with a healthy swallow of dark ale.

“When this valley was filled by a forest and fantastic creatures, the jubilant anthems and sorrowful laments of my elven ancestors echoed here,” Galadrin said. “Now the forests and the creatures and the elves have vanished from this place.”

“Aye,” Baldir didn’t say anymore. They were friends, more like brothers, but neither could fully erase the deep-seeded resentments felt between their two races. The great elven realm of Noltha Fey once ruled this region and often quarreled with the dwarves of the Wolf Fang Mountains to the north. Both races did things to dishonor themselves during those conflicts.

A DragonFly landed on their table top. The split-wing bug had a body the size of a baby’s fist that appeared to overstress its skinny six legs.

“Remember when these damn things used to spit fire?”

“I am old enough to remember when they talked.” Galadrin remembered how DragonFlys were once intelligent and often devious, but now they were empty-headed nuisances scavenging for crumbs. The world was changing, and Galadrin wasn’t sure anymore for the better.

Before it came near Galadrin’s skewer of chicken, a wooden mallet with a wide face and pointed barbs smacked down atop it.

“Damn buggies,” Lara said. She was the wench of Baldir’s food stand, and Galadrin suspected their business relationship extended beyond that. She lifted the swatter, the DragonFly’s body was impaled on one of the barbs, and wiped the table with a rag with her other hand, removing the blotches of green and yellow innards.

They were the only three at the stand, which was arranged on the outskirts of the Anniversary Festival. The crowds were enjoying the music and temporary taverns in the center of the activities, leaving the two friends alone in the torchlight.

“Twenty-three years,” Galadrin pondered aloud the anniversary of Arturo’s coronation.

“Aye, about twenty-five since we vanquished Darorath Bloodstone,” Baldir snorted, “Not that it’s talked about anymore, and most say the Doom of Alecsandri or the Velkan Trolls or the Charge of Zaelwo Hill are figments of old soldiers’ imaginations.”

Galadrin sighed. Thousands of elves, including two of his brothers and one sister, died at the Charge of Zaelwo Hill, but in the end, they had broken Darorath Bloodstone’s eastern forces, allowing Galadrin to march his remaining force straight to the palace. Concurrently, Baldir’s regiment overwhelmed the Velkan Trolls at Metahischoo.

Now Baldir shilled skewers of meat, and Galadrin was part of an exhibition that celebrated elves’ customs and culture. He and his remaining kin were curiosities for women and children to stare at.

“Arturo has brought prosperity and peace,” Galadrin said.  

“And compromise.” Baldir’s bitterness was once again clear, as one of the most notable compromises was deploying the Wretches, the deformed former soldiers of Darorath Bloodstone, to the mines. A move that had undercut dwarf society, forcing most to scatter for work. Like the Tallow, whose culture had thrived after being enemies to man, the Wretches were said to be flourishing in the mines. Arturo believed this sort of progress would undercut any future rebellions by the two groups.

So far, it had worked: No war in twenty-five years, the proliferation of stone roadways and increased trade and commerce, and improved health and wealth. But, the elves and dwarves of the FarHaven with their thinning numbers and lost homes were diminished, and old adventurers like Baldir and Galadrin were relegated to the fringe and to lore.  And the magic, once so prevalent in FarHaven, was dissipating. Everything was turning to stone, steel and gold, choking the mystical and miraculous from the hills and valleys.

“I have heard whispers that an Oracle has foreseen the rise of another Dread Lord. Could be tomorrow, could be a hundred years.”

“Aye, I am already too old to fight, and if it’s a hundred years, I won’t see it at all. We dwarves live a long time, but not forever like you elves.”

Galadrin eyed the two empty skewers before him; elves traditionally hadn’t eaten meat, but now he couldn’t seem to get enough. He wasn’t positive that immortality was a guarantee anymore. A bright flash burst across the sky, followed by a thunderous boom. The pyromancers’ fireworks show was starting.

“Will Arturo’s heirs withstand an evil uprising?” The dwarf grabbed their empty mugs and skewers.

“I imagine a new hero will be required.” Galadrin had met both heirs, noting they were accustomed to comfort. They might have the old blood of Arturo’s line, but they lacked their father’s honor and grit.

“Another man sent to save us,” Baldir snorted. “The Gods should choose another race to rule next time.”

More fireworks blasted, and the two old heroes watched silently. They were removed from the story now; they could feel it.

“It was good to see you, my friend,” Galadrin said. Baldir nodded.

Galadrin journeyed toward the darkness, away from the fireworks, the festivities, and the memories. He wished there were a true forest near, one where he could hear the birds and echoes of old elven songs.