8 Random Words - #1

One of the many meme and blog prompt sites I visit has a random word generator that spits out 8 random words to work with as you will. Story, poem, whatever. I decided to give it a whirl.

#1 athlete, tall, alarm, gift, soothe, piano, wide, command

KB was an athlete, very tall and graceful. He was also beautiful. Both men and women would see him and comment on his physical attributes. Whenever his team played in his home town, tickets would sell out immediately. Scalpers could command any price they wished. And they would get it, too. His alarm would go off on game day and he would rise and prepare. As a professional, he focused on nothing but the upcoming game.

He had another gift that he kept secret. He played the piano like an angel would play a harp. His wide hand span made playing octaves or more easy to reach. He kept this part of his life secret from everyone else so he could have something that was just his alone. Whenever the games, the crowds, the adulation got to be too much to bear, he would go to the small apartment that no one knew about. It had a bed and the basic kitchen stuff for when he got hungry, but the only other piece of furniture was a baby grand in the middle of the living room. He would approach the piano as if meeting with a lover. He would get the music from the piano bench, sit down and flex his long graceful fingers. Then he would play. For hours. Letting the music soothe his battered soul.

April 2018 Book Report

Adrift (2017) by Beth Adams

Martha’s Vineyard mystery. Priscilla helps the Coast Guard solve the mystery of the trashed houseboat set adrift. The owner and his dog have gone missing. She also helps Captain Gerald make a quilt for his pregnant daughter out of the baby clothes his daughter wore.

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Maiden of the Mist (2017) by Nancy Mehl

Martha’s Vineyard mystery. Priscilla is “haunted” by the Weeping Woman, the supposed ghost of the wife of a sailor lost at sea. A developer wants to buy Priscilla’s property to make into a B&B, and is very pushy about it.

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The Brain Machine (1959) by George O. Smith

5-year-old James Holden has a superior intellect, thanks to his parent’s brain machine. His supposed loving godfather kills the parents to become the guardian of James and get control of the machine. James destroys the machine to keep it from being used. He escapes from his guardian and hides out for several years building another machine.

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The Tea Will Tell (2017) by Elizabeth Ludwig

Tea Room mystery. Political intrigue regarding some valuable stolen Czech stamps. Bob takes a job in another state and says goodbye to Jan, since she doesn’t want to move. Elaine realizes that she loves Nathan and is finally able to tell him so.

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The Case of the Lazy Lover (1947) by Erle Stanley Gardner

A Perry Mason mystery. Mr. Allred wanted to make it look like his step-daughter killed his partner Mr. Fleetwood. When it’s Mr. Allred who ends up murdered, suspicion falls on Allred’s wife AND Mr. Fleetwood, who wasn’t dead after all. The dog’s paw prints showed the truth.

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The Case of the Fan Dancer’s Horse (1947)

A Perry Mason mystery. Who is the real fan dancer named Lois Felton? There seems to be two of them. Where is the horse? Who killed John Callender, the estranged husband of the real Lois? Everybody is lying, but they can’t fool Perry Mason.

The Prodigal Son

My friend Carol learned this alliterative story by heart and recited it at a church function. It’s very cleverly written and I thought I would share it…

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Feeling foot-lose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow forced his fond Father to fork over the family farthings.

He flew far to foreign fields and fritted his fortune, feasting fabulously with faithless friends.

Fleeced by his fellows-in-folly and facing famine, he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmyard.

Fairly famished he feign would have filled his frame with food foraged from fodder fragments......

“Phooey, my Father’s flunkies fair far finer!”

The frazzled fugitive, frankly facing facts, frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding flew forthwith to his family.

Flinging himself at his Father’s feet he forlornly fumbled “Father, I flunked. I fruitlessly forfeited family favour”.

The far-sighted Father, forestalling further flinching frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch a fatling from the flocks and fix a feast.

The fugitive’s fault finding brother frowned on fickle forgiveness but the faithful Father figured filial fidelity is fine; and so the fugitive was found.

What forbids fervent festivity? Let flags be unfurled, let fanfares flare ................

and the moral of the story is ....

The father’s forgiveness formed the foundation for the former fugitive’s future fortitude!