Dear Readers,
Here is the picture prompt for this week. Remember, you have from now till Sunday, Oct 4, 2015, 6:00 P.M. (PDT) to enter your 500-1500-word story or essay. The winning story will be posted to The Literary Nest blog the following week.
Now let your imaginations roam all over the universe, let it loiter there, and bring back amazing loot.
Thank you for playing.
On the Wings of Words
On the Wings of Words
Lantana Flowers/Colorful visage/Silently stand in the/Bitter black soil/Under the bright sun/Happily hosting/Hummingbirds
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Travails of the Wayward Writer 
Well…it’s not exactly hilarious but it does bring a smile to one’s face…
Christmas in October
@hollygeelly
600 words
The intoxicated old man walked up to the counter, leaned forward, and with vodka scented breath whispered, “I believe.”
Santa sighed. “What can I get you?”
I thought it was cute that the employees dressed up for Christmas. It was only October, but they were just subscribing to the new doctrine of the corporate overlords; I’m not going to complain about how Christmas is commercial, but hey, it is. Mine is usually merry anyway.
“I want a pony,” the old man said.
“This is a deli, sir.”
“Yeah, but I’m as likely to get a pony as a free sandwich, so I’ll ask for the pony.”
Santa shrugged and looked past him to me, the next customer, with hopelessness in his minimum wage eyes. I put my hand on the old man’s shoulder and patted him encouragingly.
“I’ll buy him a sandwich,” I said. I’m not made of money, but an extra five dollars to rescue two miserable souls is a fair price. I was feeling the Christmas spirit, even though it was still two months away. Good old Santa, making his sandwiches, looked relieved.
The old man was ecstatic about his tuna and sour cream. I tried not to watch him eat it, because frankly that’s disgusting, but I smiled and nodded while he told me about it. He gave me most of his life history, starting with his first tuna and sour cream at the tender age of three.
“I always wanted a pony,” he said. I knew his story was reaching its conclusion because he’d finished his sandwich (and mine, too). “Even just for an hour. I know what people think when they look at me, but they don’t know, do they? They don’t know why I drink.”
The details are depressing, but I now knew, and I could see why he’d fallen so far.
“Believe in yourself, John,” I said. “You can do anything if you try.”
His smile was so sweet I bought him another tuna and sour cream for the road. He waved goodbye and stumbled outside.
“I used to believe in Santa too,” I said. I paid for the three sandwiches and left the employee a generous tip. His smile was almost as sweet as the old man’s.
“What would you ask Santa for, sir?” Santa asked.
“Oh, not much. I do all right,” I said.
“Come on, everyone wants something.”
“Well…Your Christmas décor has got me thinking about the season. I’d give anything to spend the holidays with my folks, but they live a province over and none of us can afford the trip. The holidays are when I miss them most.”
“Moved for work, did you?”
“Nah, I moved out to be with my boyfriend and that didn’t work out. By then I already had a job, but not enough money to move back home. It’s the same sad old story, isn’t it?”
Santa slid me a cookie, free of charge.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
A sudden commotion had me running out onto the street. The old man was hollering something fierce. When I saw why, I could hardly believe it – I know you won’t.
He was riding a pony.
I answered my now-ringing cell phone.
“Hey, Harold. I have some news for you…don’t know if it’s good or bad. We’re transferring you to the branch in Victoria.”
“I’m going back to B.C.?”
“December 21. Just in time for the holidays.”
I turned and looked back at the deli counter, but Santa was gone.
“PONY!!!!” old John shouted.
“Pony indeed,” I said.
And that’s why I, too, believe in Santa Claus.
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The Perfect Job
Apart from hating Christmas and loathing fish, this was the perfect job for Colin.
When he first put the outfit on he wondered how low he’d sunk to find himself dressed like this. The white curly beard irritated his nose and made him sneeze onto the taster plate of buttered shrimps. His supervisor had glared at him and booked him on a food safety course.
Colin’s face itched more and more as he got hotter and sweatier throughout the day. And he couldn’t get the smell of fish out of his nostrils before it was time to start the next shift. His co-worker said the only way was to stick the whole outfit through the machine at night and have a good long soak in the bath. Dave was a pro, having done this job every year since university. Present money for the kids, he said.
But on the third day, a young woman, taking her package of smoked salmon and Dublin bay prawns from the counter, flashed Colin a gorgeous smile, all blue eyes and lovely teeth. She beckoned him closer. He leaned forward, false beard dipping into the clam chowder.
‘I do love to see a man in a Santa outfit. Kinda sexy.’
Colin was speechless. Had he misheard? He felt anything but sexy at the best of times, never mind in the stupid Santa gear. The fleecy jacket and trousers were stifling and the false belly not exactly flattering. Yes, he must have misheard. His mind was paying tricks on him. She was probably asking for a soda or some clams.
She pocketed her change and laughed. ‘See you then Santa.’
He watched her walk away. Blond curly pony tail swinging back and forth, pink jacket and tight jeans. He should’ve thought to keep her talking but he was gobsmacked and flabbergasted by what she’d said.
After that the Santa costume didn’t seem so bad. He thought about her all shift long, imagining what he should’ve said in answer to her revelation. He daydreamed about her as he filled the crab baguettes. He resolved to get talking to her properly next time. Ask her out for coffee. The cinema maybe. Or even dinner.
Four days later he was still thinking about her. He had got them as far as his place and a weekend of staying in bed. She liked all the same music as him and the same pizza toppings. Pineapple, ham and mushrooms. No fish. They’d walked together on the beach and he’d taken her to meet his parents. Family Christmas dinner, a day he usually dreaded. They loved her of course. In the New Year, they’d been to that fancy jewellery shop and bought a ring. Throughout all these fantasies, Colin was still in the Santa costume, washing it while she slept and back in it for breakfast. Bacon bagels. Her favourite and his.
He moved ahead a few months. Summer wedding. She, a vision in frothy white and he in a newer, shinier Santa suit, with a rounder belly, bigger buckle and longer, curlier beard. A barbeque wedding supper. Still no fish. They honeymooned in Lapland. Before this Colin had fancied the Caribbean but he’d have died of heatstroke in his outfit. They crossed vast sheets of soft snow in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. His bride was delighted, especially as the sleigh lifted up from the snow and shot up into the night sky.
Colin was snatched from the finest part of his honeymoon by the supervisor crashing in through the door at the back of the truck and telling him to scrub the dried fish splatters from the microwave.
Yes, it was quite dilemma. If she said yes to a date Colin had to decide whether he should turn up in his uniform, beard and all. He’d get some funny looks but she might be disappointed with his jeans and t-shirt. His boring old parka and trainers. And could he really take this luxurious synthetic beard of white curls off to reveal the rather less impressive gingery-brown one beneath?
After the microwave was done, Dave arrived, late as usual. He stuck his beard on, adjusted his buckled belt and started refilling the fridge.
‘Oh, Colin. I meant to say. The supervisor has a great trick for getting you to be happy with this daft outfit. He sends his daughter over to tell you she loves to see a man dressed as Santa. Got me with it on my first day.’
Dave chuckled, his head in the fridge.
Colin felt his buoyant mood and rampant imaginings of the past few days slump down into his black wellies and disappear through the floor of the truck. He yanked the beard from his face and groaned. Christmas was a week from today. He had a horrible job, no lovely young woman to take to the family dinner and both his beards stank of chowder.
823 Words
#FlashDog
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Hoe, Hoe, Hoe
“Giz a cheeseburger mate!” Customer number one said, seemingly in a hurry.
“Eh?” Santa said, cocking his head to one side.
“A CHEESEBURGER!”
“SNEEZEBLURGER?”
“Is he taking the piss or what?” Customer number one said, turning to customer number two, who shrugged.
“Who are you?” Santa said to customer number one whilst tidying the utensils. Customer number one gave up and trudged back to his car.
“Hoe, hoe hoe!” Santa said, waggling a kitchen knife in the direction of the remaining customer, who stepped back a little.
“Er – it’s not Christmas yet, it’s only August,” said the second customer, who seemed to have more patience. Santa returned to his tidying.
“I’d – I’d like a hot dog, with extra onions if you don’t mind,” Customer number two said. Three more people arrived.
“Hot dog. Hot dog,” Santa said without doing anything in particular. The three new customers started murmuring. Customer number two was hungry so he tried again.
“You sell hot dogs yes?” he said.
“Hoe, hoe, hoe!” Santa replied, lifting his arms in the air. Customer number two, exasperated, turned round to the others in the queue. Suddenly, a man came running around the corner, out of breath.
“Sorry, guys, so sorry! I was taken short, phew -then it – er – well – it took longer than I expected, and I had to, well, you know what I mean, no toilet paper!” he said, disappearing into the door of the van. He put on his apron while talking quietly to Santa. Santa exited the van and sat on one of the tables outside, nursing a steaming styrofoam cup.
“Hoe, hoe hoe!” Santa said, pointing to the garden opposite.
“So, sorry about that everyone, now what can I get you?” the man in the van said to customer number two.
“A hot dog please, with extra onions…”
“I hope he washed his hands then,” another customer remarked under his breath. In realisation, customer number two turned to them in horror.
“So sorry about that,” the man in the van said whilst scooping onions into a bun, “my Dad, he’s a bit senile, he meant no harm, he thinks it’s Christmas, silly old sod.”
“Hoe, hoe, hoe!” Santa said, pointing to the garden opposite. The man in the van chuckled.
“No Dad, it’s not Christmas.” Customer number two looked thoughtful for a minute.
“Sorry – sorry to mess you about – have to leave the hot-dog – I gotta – gotta go,” Customer number two said, holding his mobile phone in the air, following his lead the other customers left as well.
Santa got up and purposefully walked over to the opposite garden, picking up a garden tool he started digging into the garden bed.
“No Dad! Oh for CHRIST’S SAKE!” the man in the van shouted. Santa looked up.
“Hoe – hoe – HOE!” Santa said, waving the hoe in the air. The man in the van slapped his hand to his forehead.
“Everyday, it’s like trying to decipher a bloody crossword puzzle!” the man in the van said, then when realising all his customers had gone –
“Right! RIGHT! That’s the last time I take you out with me – Dad, Dad, are you listening – DAD? You just lost me my customers!!”
@AvalinaKreska
(533 words)
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Some Traditions Never Change
@carolrosalind
WC 855
Christmas was always a big celebration in our house. We followed all the usual traditions but one we keenly observed was the pulling of the wishbone. Each Christmas we took turns and this particular year it came down to me and my brother to perform the ritual. The idea was to pull the bone in different directions with your little finger until it snapped, leaving whoever had the biggest piece the chance to make a wish that would last throughout the year to come.
Dad carved the turkey with surgical precision, removing the wishbone and handing it to Mum to dry out in the oven whilst we ate our meal. Everyone was merry. It had been a good Christmas, with all of us receiving the things we had hoped for, plus a few surprises. We had eaten well and were all enjoying a drink when the dried wishbone was brought to the table .
Everyone gathered round to watch us grapple with it. My brothers’s extra few inches in height gave him more leverage, winning him the bigger piece. And that’s when he made the biggest mistake of his life, one that in hindsight we would all live to regret.
The following morning I was woken by a commotion in the garden and, on peering out of the window, caught sight of Mum and Dad chasing a reindeer around in an attempt to catch it. I called out to my brother to come and see.
When he entered my room he was dressed as Father Christmas.
‘Bro! What’s with the getup, Christmas was yesterday?’
‘It’s all I’ve got to wear, all my other clothes are gone.’
I scratched my head thinking I was in some sort of waking dream until I noticed all my usual clothes had disappeared as well, leaving nothing but jeans, jumpers and novelty slippers.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked him.
He blushed the same shade as his outfit and then explained how he was having such a good time yesterday that he had wished that every day could be Christmas Day and now it was — for a whole year. There was no way out of it, a wish once granted had to run its course.
We sat our parents down and explained the situation to them and, to be fair, they took it quite well. Mum started looking up recipes for different ways you could serve up turkey and Dad set about designing a pen to hold the reindeer.
It was much harder though for me to explain to people at work, especially as the bank had quite a strict dress code. However, being a necessary cog in the machine, they had no choice but to put up with my casual attire. The novelty jumper didn’t go down well with some clients but at least I could cover the flashing lights on my jumper with the novelty tie and hide my slippers under the table at meetings.
Unfortunately my brother was not so lucky. His Father Christmas costume brought him no end of trouble. He lost his job as an undertaker for obvious reasons, and his social life took a massive nose-dive until he had to rely heavily on Tinder. Even then he had to be careful how much he revealed of himself due to some subscribers interest in, ‘uniformed men.’
His costume had to be padded out at first, but without the restrictive fit of his skinny jeans, not to mention the regularity of the Christmas dinners, his waistline soon took up the slack. We all tried replacing our clothes but almost immediately they morphed back into the Christmas outfits.
We even tried leaving home, but Christmas just followed — even to the beach. It seemed like my brother was Christmas.
Finding a suitable job proved difficult for him, even though he applied for hundreds, until one day he was offered some casual work flipping burgers. He needed a job to keep his mind off his predicament, and to keep up with the daily present giving. However, by March we had moved on to re-gifting in order to save time and money; we didn’t even bother opening the presents, just passed them around.
We marked off the months and days of the calendar one by one, breathing a huge sigh of relief as we approached Christmas Day, knowing that we would soon be done with it all. Looking back I think the worst part for me was the food. I’ve never been able to face a Christmas dinner or even turkey since. After a years worth of them I find even the thought of them leaves nothing but a sour taste in my mouth.
Christmas Day arrived and the spell finally ran its course. Luckily for him the heat generated from flipping the burgers whilst wearing the festive suit had melted off all the weight gained from the dinners, meaning that when his old clothes reappeared he was able to fit straight back into them.
Of course tradition being tradition Mum insisted we had to continue with the wishbone pulling — after all it wasn’t like we were short of them.
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@AvLaidlaw
742 Words
All I Want For Christmas Is A New Job
“Ah. Good morning. I’m Tim, head of human resources. Mister… Mister Claus.”
“Everyone calls me Santa.”
“Santa! Great! Take a seat. Good journey? Hope you found us okay? Did you come by public transport?”
“Bus.”
“Bus. Fantastic. Can we get you anything? Coffee, tea?”
“A little tot of whisky’s traditional.”
“Whisky? Um, you do understand that, if your application is successful, we do have a strict policy about alcohol during working hours. We’re a fun loving bunch down here at The Burger Bazaar. The most fun loving bunch you could meet. But rules are rules. You don’t have a, um, problem we should know about?”
“No. Just in my last job…”
“Brilliant! Now, looking at your CV, you’ve had quite a varied career. Perhaps you could fill us in with some of the details.”
“My first job was the Bishop of Myra.”
“Bishop. Now that’s impressive. Now, when exactly was this? There seems to be a teeny misprint here. It looks like 300 AD.”
“That’s right, fourth century. I was called Nicolas, then, or Nick to be informal. The Church was still something of a start-up company, everyone mucking in. Good opportunities for promotion, though. I made it up to Saint.”
“Gosh, a Saint. Don’t think we’ve had a Saint working at The Burger Bazaar before. It sounds absolutely fantastic. So, why did you leave?”
“You know how it goes. Fall of Constantinople, Ottoman Empire. Not much call for Christian Saints.”
“I put that down as laid off due to economic conditions. Then you became a delivery driver.”
“Self-employed.”
“Excellent! At The Burger Bazaar we believe in empowerment. Who knows, within a few years, you could be running your own franchise. Now tell me more about the delivery business. You have an HGV license?”
“Not exactly.”
“A white van man!”
“More of a sleigh.”
“A sleigh.”
“It flew.”
“A flying sleigh.”
“Pulled by reindeer.”
“For home deliveries, we tend to use mopeds.”
“I’m willing to retrain.”
“That’s, um, great. At The Burger Bazaar we believe in self-improvement.”
“And empowerment.”
“Yes, quite so. Moving on, what three qualities could you bring to this role?”
“First of all I’d say, time management. Getting all those presents delivered on Christmas Eve was no easy feat.”
“You only worked one day a year?”
“No. The rest of the time I was supervising the elves.”
“Sorry, did you say managing yourself?”
“Elves. You know, pointy hats, whistling a merry tune as they whittled out a toy train or sewed a dress for a pretty doll. Little people.”
“I’m not sure if that’s the politically correct term.”
“Well, they called themselves Elves. Whole mixture really, pixies, brownies, fairies.”
“A culturally diverse work environment. That’s good. Very good. At The Burger Bazaar we have a full anti-bullying policy. A strict no-no to racism, sexism and, er, size-ism. So what would you say your major weakness is?”
“Oh. I haven’t really thought about that. Mince pies, I suppose.”
“And how, using examples from your career, have you overcome this weakness?”
“You might be able to guess from the size of my tum, I haven’t really.”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean it isn’t my place to comment . Remember, courtesy and respect to fellow co-workers. That’s what we believe at The Burger Bazaar.”
“Along with empowerment and self-improvement.”
“So why are you looking for a new position?”
“Kids.”
“I hope there’s not a problem. This is a customer facing role. Our younger clients are our most valuable.”
I mean, the kids stopped believing. We’ve had trouble before, back in the Seventeenth century when the Puritans banned us. But we picked ourselves up, got on with the work. By Victorian times we were booming again. Hired us a PR man. Name of Charlie, Charlie Dickens. Lovely fellow. Put me in one of his books. But this time it’s different. I blame all the Playstations and iPads. Kid’s not happy getting a wooden train set when they really want one of these electronic gizmos. The jig’s up. Easier for them to badger their parents into ordering something off Amazon than to write a letter to Santa.”
“Well, some great news, Mister Claus!. We do happen to have a vacancy on the night shift. The pay is £6.70 an hour. You’ll be starting on Environmental Hygiene Duties, but who knows how far you could go. At The Burger Bazaar, we believe in giving people a chance.”
“So you do believe in Father Christmas?”
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