Month: February 2023

Not Quite Silver Screen

~ annemcsommers ~ 9 Comments

Hello hello and welcome to this week’s response to the six-sentence story prompt WRAP.  I decided to go with the classic Hollywood version of the word, and tell the story of our narrator that just headlined a production disaster. 

I never thought I could be so relieved as I was when they yelled out, “That’s a wrap,” after two months of production hell.

It was a low budget film, which we all know, and why it was supposed to be done over three weekends, not the eight that it took, or the many days and evenings it took during my weeks.

Everything we shot, we reshot at a secondary location after flooding washed out the bridge we filmed our outdoor scenes at, then the building we rented for indoor scenes was condemned, and of course after we all lost so much weight from the food poisoning fiasco of weekend five that it became a continuity error.

Someone literally caught on fire, not like special effects fire, because our special effects were not that good, and while he ended up being okay, I was cold, tired and miserable, just wanting to go home.

What I did make, went towards paying overnights at a no-tell motel nearer to set after 12-hour days, and between that and the lost wages from missing my day job this had put me in the red rather than the black, not even including the next contract I would lose when they saw the weight change.

Sitting there on opening night though, it had been all worth it, because if the audience reaction was anything to go by, I had just starred in my first hit.

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Travelling Alone

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

Hello Hello and welcome to my sci-fi micro fiction based on the prompt: Write about a character travelling. This follows the story of Gem, who is travelling alone for the first time and has some anxiety about it. The goal was to work in the worldbuilding. *Note, I am going back to bi-weekly updating for a bit, taking two night classes and I just am not quite on top of weekly microfiction AND weekly six sentence stories

It wasn’t Gem’s first trip to the Geren, but it was a fair number of credits to take the trip, and though her parents were fairly well off, even they could not afford the trip more than once a decade. 

It was why Gem was alone this time, strapped in between two strangers, eyes squeezed shut, more scared than she had been in her entire life. 

It seemed, to Gem at least, that knowing that you had taken a jump ship before, was not the same as remembering it, and she kind of wished that she was little enough that she didn’t know the 3000 ways that this could go wrong, or that 1 in 20000 flights never made it to their destination, or that there was were 100000 flights per day in the commonwealth, so that meant that 5 would likely go catastrophically wrong, and she could be on that flight right now.

She was pulled from her musings by a woman in from of her, a Graxan, Gem guessed from the deep blue of her skin and overly large eyes.  Gem had only ever seen pictures in books, Franme was not exactly a diverse world.

“Are you coming dear?” The Graxan asked, voice echoing through multiple chambers to sound like a chorus.

“Coming?” Coming where exactly, was what Gem wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“Off the ship dear.”

“Was there a problem?” Maybe this ship wasn’t making it, a little less catastrophically than Gem had imagined, or well, dreaded.

“No dear, we are here.  Welcome to Geren.”

The Heavy Weight of Knowledge

~ annemcsommers ~ 5 Comments

Hello hello and welcome to this week’s six-sentence story, based on the word date.  I took this one and used it in a rather strange manner, but since it’s PG and fairly harmless, I am going to leave it at that.  Follow out narrator as she discovers the true nature of the item she has been sent to retrieve, and how knowledge can change everything.

She looked down at the package in horror, what in gods name was this abomination that she had been sent to collect?

She looked up, desperate, pleading with him to tell her that this was a mistake, that she had been given this in error, and that her quarry was elsewhere, but he was steadfast that this is what she had come for.

She paid the price demanded, heading home disgusted and disillusioned, wishing that she could unlearn what she had learned, and go back to her blissful ignorance.

Her last hope lay with her mother, that she had erred, and this had not been what she was sent to retrieve, but the smile on her mother’s face as she held out the offering destroyed that notion.

She went to her room to contemplate what she had seen, what it would mean for her, for her life going forward, and the betrayal she had suffered on that day.

The next day she stood staring down at the date squares, trying to decide if she would be able to stomach one, knowing now that they were made from a block of disgusting looking dried fruit, and for the first time she passed on her favorite dessert.

One False Step

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

Hello hello and welcome to this weeks Microfiction Monday a response to the adventure prompt on the Writer’s Mess, Write a piece under 300 words about a quester who doesn’t feel that the quest has changed them at all. Follow a friend of our quester that sees the changes wrought, only after the quest has ended.

She wished that she could turn back time, and pay a little more attention to him.

She wished that she had told him that this was real life, not a fantasy novel, and that he didn’t have to fit some sort of rigid character structure, that just because he was unchanged it didn’t mean that he was destined for the sacrifice play.

She wished that she had told him that even though he couldn’t see that he had changed, he had grown stronger, wiser, more empathetic, and that while she loved him before, he had become a man that she could fall in love with.

Looking down at her reflection in the glossy black surface of the casket, she flashed back to her reflection In the obsidian room on the tomb. He was by her side then, the relic secured in his trusty messenger bag, and they were on their way back out when the trap was triggered by a single misstep.

She had tripped, and it was over, she knew it would kill her to lift her foot, and if she pressed down any longer, the stone would sink low enough to trigger another. She looked up to say goodbye, and for a second when she saw the resolve in his eyes, she thought he had a plan.

He did have a plan, and she lay dazed, messenger bag in hand, watching him sink in her place before she realized It wasn’t a plan to rescue both of them.

The worst part was the smile on his face, the look of accomplishment, like this was the way it was always meant to be, and it was what made her wish that she could turn back time.