Next Friday

Sunday Photo Fiction is a weekly challenge to write a 200-word story based on a photo prompt. This week’s photo is courtesy of C.E. Ayr.  If you are interested in contributing your own story, or to see what others have written, please visit  Sunday Photo Fiction

Photo Courtesy of C.E. Ayr

My Dearest Love

How I have missed you! Every moment we are apart is torture. I want so much to hear your sweet voice and feel you in my arms. I have good news! I am coming home. Meet me at the train station Friday at 4:00 pm. I am counting the days until we meet again.

The station was busy for a Friday night and Daisy worried she would miss Bill when he arrived. Everyone seemed to be in such a rush. She noticed an empty spot on a bench next to the tracks and sat down. Daisy gripped the tattered letter and replayed his words from memory. She had waited for this day a long time. As the old clock tower chimed four times, her heart leaped. Daisy pulled her fingers through her graying hair and straightened her dress.

It won’t be long now. Any minute and I will see his face.

By 4:30, Daisy realized Bill was not arriving today. As she has done hundreds of times before, Daisy patiently picked up the small suitcase that held all she owned and walked three blocks to the homeless shelter. There was always next Friday.

 

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It’s in the DNA

Sunday Photo Fiction is a weekly challenge to write a 200-word story based on a photo prompt. This week’s photo is own I took at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. The character here looks a little frightening, don’t you think?

If you are interested in contributing your own story, or to see what others have written, please visit  Sunday Photo Fiction

Photo Credit: Susan Spaulding

Hearing the knock at the front door, my father peered through the window shears, cursed softly then turned on me.

“What possessed you to submit your DNA to that website!”

The mild-mannered man who never yelled, even when his favorite football team was getting trounced, now resembled The Incredible Hulk.

Shocked by the sudden change in demeaner, I mumbled something about curiosity. “You never talk about your side the family,” I challenged.

“For a good reason! It’s not something I am proud of.”

Innocently I countered. “All families have black sheep in their past. It’s not something to get worked up over.”

“It’s not past history I am worried about.”

I wondered if Dad had a secret. Could he have fathered a child my mother knew nothing about?

His hysterical laugh told me otherwise.

The knocking intensified and my father wilted.

“I never talked about my family because I didn’t want you to know about the murder gene, passed from father to son. You have put our family at extreme risk.”

I remembered hearing the FBI used DNA from ancestry sites to solve cold cases and realized what my father was afraid of: the DNA he left behind.