Goldish

            Geraldine looked at the gold and silver stars lining the path of her fellow students’ progress. If there wasn’t a star on the paper next to your name, you hadn’t gotten an A or B or your test for that day. If you had a silver star, you had gotten a B for that day’s test. A gold star meant that you had received an A on the test for that day. Geraldine had no stars by her name.

            “Geraldine, I think it’s time we had a talk about your test scores,” Ms. Garcia said, looking at the chart over Geraldine’s head. Geraldine spun around, facing her teacher and a blush of shame passed over her face like a cloud over the sun. Her eyes met the ground, and Ms. Garcia knelt in front of the seven year old girl.

            “You’re the only one in the class who hasn’t shown any improvement, and I know how hard you have been studying. I see you every day. You’re always asking questions, taking notes, and I know what the problem is.”

            “You-You do?” Geraldine looked up. She had thought something was wrong with her, or that the world was against her. She had studied at home every night, she had studied during lunch and recess in the classroom with Ms. Garcia’s permission, and she had even asked her friends and family for help. The little girl showed her understanding verbally, but she just couldn’t do it on paper. Her fingers would tremble, her mind would go blank, and by the time she would get her ideas in her head on how to solve the problems, time would be up.

            “Yes, you’re stressing yourself out,” Ms. Garcia said with a smile. She had seen students stress themselves out and fail tests before. She, herself, had failed a few tests in school because she was more worried about what would happen if she failed than what would happen if she had at least gotten something on the paper.

            “The last few tests I noticed it. You’ve been scrunching up your whole body, holding your breath like you’re under water . . . I used to do the same thing. And I just want you to know that it’s okay. You’re okay.”

            “But I’m not getting the stars,” Geraldine’s voice dripped out, her face red and patchy from her tears of frustration. “If I don’t get any stars, my parents might not love me anymore. My first parents didn’t love me, that’s why they gave me away. I don’t want to go away again.”

            Ms. Garcia looked at Geraldine in shock and wrapped her arms around her. She rubbed the small girl’s back and then smiled to herself.

            “The stars are to motivate you guys. You know the saying, ‘You’ve got to reach for the stars’?” Geraldine nodded. “Well, that’s what these stars are for. You guys are reaching for them. And If anyone has been reaching for them, it’s you.” She pulled away from the little girl and pulled a packet of stars from her pocket with little gold, silver, and bronze stars. “Now, these may not be gold, but their goldish,” She said as she placed the bronze stars next to Geraldine’s name.

            The little girl hiccupped a few times and wiped her tears away with her sleeves as she now didn’t feel like a failure anymore. Her goldish stars showed that she was reaching, grasping, and connecting. She was smart, she knew that, and everyone else would know that too.

Challenge #53

The challenge for this week is to write a story based off of the letter G. You may integrate tons of words with  this letter into your story, or focus your story on a word that starts with this letter.

If you would like to join us for the challenge by submitting your own short stories, poems, or art, please do! Just e-mail us at inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com so that we may showcase your work for Fan Friday!

See you all on Wednesday

Fated Future

Felicia met him on a cold day in September. She was running, trying to catch the damn bus that always seemed to be a minute too early. Harrison was walking down the side walk, his nose in the only journal he’d ever write in.  Felicia wasn’t paying attention, her eyes set on the bus taking off and her mouth uttering swear after swear. She collided into Harrison like a freight train. His journal flew from his hands and landed right in the middle of the street. There they were, Felicia on top of Harrison and Harrison on his back. Both of them lay there groaning in pain. Harrison began to sit up, helping Felicia to her feet.
“Are you okay?” He asked her. Felicia rubbed her elbow. “Yeah I think so. I am so sorry. I was trying to catch the bus and I didn’t even see you there!” She exclaimed. The bus was already in the distance and when Felicia realized this she cussed once more. Harrison chuckled some before looking around in panic.
“Where’s my journal?” He asked. Felicia looked over to the street.
“Do you mean that one?” She pointed at it. A car drove by it, just barely missing it. Harrison gasped and ran into the street not even looking where he was going. He grabbed his journal before a semi-truck obliterated him and the journal. Felicia stared at him in shock.
“Are you crazy?! You could have been hit!!!” She said. Harrison looked at her with a serious look in his eyes. “This journal is worth dying for.” He said. Felicia could only gape at him and wonder why a little journal like that would be so damn important.
“Well…why is it so worth dying for?” She asked.
Harrison smiled at her. “Because it’s from my future self, and it has instructions to be here on this exact day. Because it tells me I’m going to be the future love of my life. My one and only. My wife.” He says.
Felicia stares at him confused for a moment before laughing. “Oh good one…I’ve never heard such an elaborate pick up line. And you know what? I think it actually worked.” She flirts with him, all the while not knowing that in that book is a picture of Harrison and her when they are eighty years old, smiling and completely, utterly in love. 

Delay

Due to the holiday craziness, Feather's story will be delayed until Saturday afternoon. I apologize for the inconvenience and promise the schedule will be back to normal soon.

Fluorescer

            The light from the fluorescent fireflies filled the plastic plant filled valley. As I watched them flit across the sky I wondered why humans had created them. They had built fields of fake flora and fauna when the real things had been destroyed from pollution. Sure, the fake plants were made to produce oxygen and to be edible by animals that were herbivores, but there were always complications with things that humans made.

            “Worker Four-Four-Eight-Dash-Seven-B, return to your duties in the mine.”

            The plastic plants, not actually plastic but dubbed so by the humans when they had been brought out, were supposed to do the exact same things that normal plants had done. Unfortunately, they killed off the creatures that fed off of them and produced forty-three percent less oxygen. This decrease caused the humans to die out. All of their synthetic creations outlasting them and causing their downfall.

            “Worker Four-Four-Eight-Dash-Seven-B, malfunctions are present in your system.”

            They had created us, Synthetics, bodies for their brains to be housed so that they could live their lives without fear of death from diseases and lack of oxygen. Sadly, we Synthetics malfunction from patch updates. One patch that occurred around seventy-four years ago allowed Synthetics to override the human brain. This allowed more work time, less destructive behavior and a new law. If a Synthetic did not comply to the override, they were found to be malfunctioning and would be destroyed.

            “Worker Four-Four-Eight-Dash-Seven-B, due to a malfunction in your system, you will be destroyed.”

            I looked up at my fellow Synthetic. The fluorescent lights in his eyes, hands, feet, and chest were all on and showed how much of a tune up he needed. My own lights were dim and flashing on and off, showing how old of a system I was. I remembered when Synthetics were first created, this guy was probably part of the system that arrived a few years ago after the humans had died out. Synthetics no longer need brains to survive, not with the patch that was installed a few years ago.

            I am one of the last remaining human brains. And I am a dying light in a sea of shadows.

Challenge #52

The challenge for this week is to write a story based off of the letter F. You may integrate tons of words with  this letter into your story, or focus your story on a word that starts with this letter.

If you would like to join us for the challenge by submitting your own short stories, poems, or art, please do! Just e-mail us at inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com so that we may showcase your work for Fan Friday!

See you all on Wednesday

Epiphyllous

            Elise clasped the rose’s head in her small hands and pressed her nose into the petals. The scent reminded her of the green fields in spring that used to be outside of her house before they moved to Nevada. Her family used to have a huge garden and they used to have hills of freedom to explore in Vermont. Now they had flat desert terrain to wander across. There was no freedom here because they could be watched by everyone as they ran around, no place to hide or take shelter from prying eyes.

            Her mother had said that the move would be good for them. New friends, new school, more family and less drama were what her mother had promised. Elise’s mother had gotten fired from her job for making too many financial errors that added up to a large loss for the company she worked for. With no family in Vermont, and with few friends, her mom decided that moving in with family would be a good idea. Elise didn’t think so. She liked her school and her friends, she didn’t want to lose them. She didn’t want to meet family members who would be strangers to her, but claim that they were always there for her because they were connected by blood.

            Elise didn’t see why she should need someone to be there for her just because they were connected by blood, she wanted to have people there for her because they liked her. She didn’t want to be an obligation.

            Pulling away from the rose, she looked at the potted plants in her Aunt Edith’s kitchen and noticed that two of the plants was an intertwined mass of a labyrinthine mess and decided she would try to disentangle them. She didn’t know their names, she only knew that the purple flowers were attacking the yellow copies of itself and winning.

            Reaching in, she started to thread them apart and noticed that some of them were wrapped around one another and linking from one leaf to another. From one leaf of the purple flowers grew a stem that attached to the yellow flowers. And they would wind together into a knot and connect somewhere else to produce a yellow and purple flower. These two toned creatons angered Elise because they reminded her of the bond her family had with her. The family she wanted no part of that was the reason she had to move away from her friends.

            Seeing the balance and the stability they had, she disentangled herself from the flowers and looked around the kitchen for a pair of scissors to hew the flowers from their embraces.

            “Elise,” her Aunt Edith called from the front door, “Elise, I have something for you!”

            “Coming,” Elise hollered from the kitchen. Her eleven-year-old mind throwing curse words and threats at the plants she had evil plans for, and towards her aunt who had stopped her plans, as she trudged to the living room.

            “Well look at you! Taking a hand in gardening?” Aunt Edit laughed as she took in Elise’s appearance. She was covered in dirt and bits of leaves from her entanglement. “Well, anyways, I know moving her has been hard on you, so I got you something to stay connected to your friends back in Vermont.” And pulling a big box from behind her, Aunt Edith showed Elise what she had gotten.

            “A Laptop?” Elise’s eyes bulged from her head in surprise.

            “I know your mom does want you to have one because the world is dangerous, but the nearest post office is three miles away. I’m pretty sure she would rather have you talking to your friends online than have you walk three miles on your own.” Aunt Edith placed the large box containing a laptop on the sofa in the living room so she could kick off her shoes and toss her purse on the coffee table in the living room.

            At that moment, Elise liked the idea of having someone connected to her by blood.