Due to a crazy mishap, this post is later than normal. It is my hope that I will have the situation under control soon but in the meantime, it is Wednesday and you know what that means right? That’s right, it is time for your weekly torture session on the big comfy chair…

Sorry, I mean it is time again to vote for the Indies Unlimited flash fiction Challenge. You know the one. They give us a picture and a written prompt on Saturday and then we write a flash story of 250 words or less based on the prompts and then they open the votes on Wednesday afternoon (after going through a selection process to decide the stories that best represent the prompt). Pretty simple but oh so hard. Anyway, the story is coming right up…

And Your Little Dog, Too

Photo by K.S. Brooks

Every afternoon at three-thirty, Old Mr. Pritchard would lie down for his afternoon nap.

Every afternoon as soon as Mr. Pritchard fell asleep, bratty little Becky Vogel would ride down the street with her little dog, Yappers, in her bicycle basket.

Yappers would bark and bark and bark and bark. It was a horrible, shrill, bone-rattling bark that never failed to spoil Mr. Pritchard’s nap. Oh, how he had come to hate that obnoxious little mutt.

One day, Mr. Pritchard had an idea…

Becky couldn’t cart her vile mutt around if she lost the basket to her bicycle. But it wouldn’t be enough to take the basket. He had to do something more, something that would make her change her mind about how she traveled with that mutt.

Late at night through the cover of darkness he slipped through his neighbor’s yards, over hedgerow and fence, to sneak his way to Becky’s bike. It was there that he sliced through the wires of the basket, not all the way, but close, so very close. This would show her all right. When that mutt slipped through the bottom of the basket she would never ride with him on the bike again.

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Like clockwork, Mr. Pritchard had just fallen asleep but the yap yap yapping of that dog broke him out of his midday snooze. He rushed from the yard, through the house, and into his front yard, just as little Becky pedaled past his house. But that wasn’t all he found. Parked at the curb were three squad cars and uniformed officers with their pistols and riot shotguns pointed at his chest.

Becky parked her bike and called to Mr. Pritchard. She pulled a camera and recorder out of the new basket on her bike and waved them at him. Without looking back she hopped back on her bike.

The cops rushed Mr. Pritchard and knocked him to the ground. Becky giggled with glee as they slapped cuffs to his wrists.

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Remember to head over to Indies Unlimited and give the story some vote love.

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