What can I say, right here, right now, in this moment of time, that will give you an inkling of an idea of what it means to be a Wednesday? Well, sure, the obvious is that it is the middle of the week and most people are now looking forward to Friday. I won’t so much as say that today is humpday, cause that would be just down right common and what not. We are above such things, right? Right?

Okay, fine, it’s humpday. There, I said it. Do you feel good about badgering, and bullying me?

I bet you didn’t know that today is also vote day for Indies Unlimited flash fiction challenge. Saturdays are the day that we are given a picture and written prompt and the opportunity to write a 250 word story based on the prompts. Turn the story in by Tuesday and then it goes through a “select” panel that finds the best stories for the week. And on Wednesdays we get to vote on our favorite. It’s a great opportunity to hone your skills for telling stories and what not.

Check out this week’s story. As always the story is presented with the picture and written prompt to make a whole.

Wonderfall

photo by K.S. Brooks

When he was little, Mark had come here with his father, a life-long fisherman. Mark had misunderstood the word word “waterfall,” and called this place the wonderfall. Mark’s dad thought it was cute, and his nickname for this special fishing place stuck.

In the course of an otherwise long and difficult relationship, that was really the only inside joke he and his father shared. They loved each other, but they were very different sorts of men. Their interests diverged further as Mark grew older until they were estranged. It stayed that way until it was too late.

Mark now looked down at his own young son who seemed more than a little disappointed in the wonderfall. Perhaps this is how it starts. A tiny twinge of fear that he and his own son were too very different got him thinking…

His thoughts drifted to the first moments, the day his son had been born. So small, so frail, he had come a few weeks early. The doctors assured Mark that it wouldn’t be an issue. They encountered stuff like that all the time and his boy would grow to have a perfectly normal life.

They were right of course, but that never really reassured him and his worries. Toby had always been a bit different than him. He had hoped that the wonderfall would be that moment that would bring them together like he and his father had never been, but cycles repeat, and Mark had fought for so long to find something, anything that might be that bit of connection.

Lost in his thoughts, Mark hadn’t noticed the boy lost in his own thoughts. His head had cocked at an odd angle as he looked up at the top of the falls. Mark stood beside him and matched the angle to see if he could see what was so fascinating.

In that moment, Toby leaned against his father and looked up at his chin. He giggled at the angle of his father’s head but didn’t say anything as he looked back up at the top of the falls again.

Mark looked down at the boy as he wrapped his arm over his shoulder and wasn’t pushed away. He still couldn’t see what the boy saw at the top of the falls but he saw something else in the boy.

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