The child showed his obstinacy and stomped his foot while yelling, “NO!”
“I will not put up with this,” his mother said and reached out for him to pull him over to her.
“NO!” he screamed louder and stomped his foot again.
“Do you want to stand in time out, Stanley?” his mother asked the obstinate child.
“NO!” he said but didn’t yell this time. He started to move over to his mother, and she caught him and quietly explained what she wanted him to do and that she wanted him to do it now.
Stanley slowly picked up his toys, put them away, and then started to get ready for bed.
Tessa–
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
As a very young child, I was eating what was supposed to be boneless fish. Whoever did the filleting missed a large piece of bone unbeknownst to my mom. She cooked the fish and served it up. I began eating quickly and suddenly felt something hard stick in my esophagus. I couldn’t swallow it down, and it wasn’t coming back up. I was in a full panic, as were my parents. I can’t at this time remember how they finally got that piece of fish bone out of my throat, but they did, or I wouldn’t be here today.
October 24, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about bones. It can be any genre or tone. Is it spooky, irreverant, poignant? Go where the prompt leads!
Submit by October 29, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
Please include the hashtag #99WordStories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts on social media.
Tessa–
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
This week’s theme is THE WEATHER Your three words today are: HAZE DRY SUNNY
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Lazy Days
By Tessa Dean October 2022
Even though the rainy weather finally dried up, there was a fine haze this morning, and in the distance, the fog almost blanked out the trees that hung over the river where Christopher and John were fishing. The fog and haze didn’t affect their fishing, so they hung in there, hoping for the sunny day that had been predicted for later in the afternoon.
John caught a fish, and as he held it up to show Christopher, he noticed the trees were more defined as the fog started to burn off due to the sun finally coming out. Christopher told John the fish was too small to keep, and he had to throw it back. John argued about it briefly, but Christopher pulled out the ruler and showed him it was too small to keep.
The next fish John caught, there was no doubt that it was large enough to keep. In fact, it was probably one of the largest ones they had caught on this river.
By now, the fog was completely burned off, and the sunny skies were bright blue. Beautiful weather for fishing. They decided to continue fishing for a while, as Christopher had yet to catch a fish, which wouldn’t do. These two guys were always in competition with each other.
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Tessa –
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
Tessa Dean - Author 