Fun and Consequences
It’s Friday Fictioneers time again – on a Wednesday! Are we mad or what? Hosted as always by the talented Rochelle, this week’s photo comes courtesy of Kent Bonham. Our goal – to write roughly 100 words using the photo as our inspiration.
Check out other entries here – more are added throughout the week!
Copyright Kent Bonham
Skateboard ready, line it up. Just look at the length of this alley – this is gonna be a blast! Aim the board at some of those little ramps to keep the speed up. Fly off some of the steps. Is Jeff ready with the camera? Yep, he’s filming. This’ll be an internet sensation!
Here goes nothing!
Bobby thought back on that day as he lay prone, steel pins holding his pelvis together while nurses bustled around. He’d been the lucky one.
Luckier than the woman with the pram who’d suddenly appeared from a half-hidden doorway. Luckier than her orphaned child.
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draliman on life 
Oh, so terribly nicely done!!
janet
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Thank you, Janet!
This was more “sad/tragic” than my usual fare – I was quite wary about hitting publish. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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An interesting twist on consequences unforseen!
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Possibly some sort of risk assessment should have been undertaken here. Or at least some common sense applied beforehand.
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Goodness! Can the child sue? I am, after all, in America, where we due the pants off everyone else 🙂
Great job!
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Thanks!
I was going to have Bobby reminiscing in a jail cell but realised that this kind of thing is probably civil rather than criminal. There’s no such crime as “death by reckless skateboarding” or “skateboarding without due care and attention” 🙂
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Darn, sue, I mean. Even wordpress doesn’t like the word!
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I knew what you meant 🙂
Don’t you sometimes wish you could edit your own comments?
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That’s fer shur 😉
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Very nice, It’s got to be Jerusalem, but I’ve never seen it empty enough for skateboarding lol. It’s usually so buzzing you can’t even see the ground 🙂
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Several of the other writers this week also reckoned it was Jerusalem – I had no idea I’m afraid!
I guess though Bobby waited for a quiet time, it wasn’t as quiet as he thought.
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Yes, it’s Jerusalem.
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Thanks!
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Oh, that’s just AWFUL! Great surprise at the end. I feel like I got my insides kicked in, too. Super story!
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Thanks – I often like to pop a twist or a shock in at the end of these little flash fictions!
Great photo – I loved the angle, looking straight up the alley.
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Good job, A tragic end from such an innocent start. 🙂
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Just as too many of these seemingly innocent but ill-thought-out ventures end, I fear.
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I have come to anticipate that these little stories of yours are going to have a dark turn to them, so I was expecting skateboarding dude to have a bad ending…. but even I couldn’t anticipate the other victims! Well done again, sir!
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Thanks! Maybe one day I’ll leave the twist out and leave everyone thinking “huh?” The twist is that there is NO twist. That would be rubbish, though. 🙂
I had a couple of endings in mind but in the end I absolutely drew the line at killing the kid in the pram. Making him/her an orphan was bad enough 😦
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Nice, I like your twists. Very addicting.
Your mind must be a fascinating place to live in.
Yes, I want a comment edit button.
That street is so unusual, there had to be a purpose.
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“Fascinating” is one way to describe my mind, I guess! This story was more tragic and sad, rather than dark. It upset me a bit so I think dark is better than sad.
Judging by some of the other stories and comments, I think the alley in the photo might be in Jerusalem. I guess the little ramps are for wheelchairs and the like.
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Sadly there’s many a carefree or thrilling game that ends with such tragic consequences for someone not involved. You captured that beautifully.
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Indeed, this happens all the time – people wondering how fast their car will go down a particular hill for example. For some reason it often seems to be the innocent parties who come off worst.
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What a great title, too!
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Thanks! I often think long and hard about the title, but after a couple of minutes and a few possibilities, this one popped into my head 🙂
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Shockingly tragic.
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Yes, a very sad story.
Thank you for reading and commenting 🙂
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“Here goes nothing” – how wrong could he be?
I agree that the title is a great choice. Well done!
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Yes, about as far from nothing as could be. Several lives changed forever.
Thanks!
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A very dark tale of a fool hearty sports man/boy. Now he’ll regret his moment of daring for the rest of his life.
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Indeed he will. I wonder how many lives have been irrevocably altered for the worse by someone seeking a quick thrill without thinking it through first?
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However the thrill can feel so good, better than anything before and often all goes well. Just a thought.
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The operative word there is “often”, I think!
Hopefully others will learn from him and be better prepared, so they get the “thrill” without the “spill”.
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oh, it we can only bring back the time… 😦
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I think we’ve all felt that way sometimes!
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That was hard-hitting. Bravo.
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Thanks – that was the intention!
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A gut-wrenching piece!Life has a way to teach us lessons that we can never forget-young kids think they know everything and love living on the edge -till someday some innocent life has to pay for their bravado 😦
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Yes. I can imagine something similar to this happens quite a lot (often involving a new young driver and a car, I imagine). Of course the person mucking about is often the only one to walk away.
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Sad but I agree-it is true and then it makes us wonder why.
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Ouch. Punch me in the gut another time why don’t you? Here I thought this was just going to be comedy — a silly boy and a skateboard — but then you had to kill off a mother?? What the holy hell, darling?
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Sorry 😦
I stopped short of killing the kid in the pram – that was an option but I couldn’t bear it. Maybe a comedy next time (no promises)?
In my defence, I didn’t have enough words left to put the mum in hospital leaving the kid with relatives until she makes a full recovery.
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And don’t forget that a bunch of celebrities rallied around the poor kid — in fact, I think Brad and Angelina adopted him, and he has a pet llama now named Maurice, and is currently learning how to play the sousaphone…. but yeah, 100 words leaves all that out.
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Brangelina and Maurice are left to the reader’s imagination 🙂
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Didn’t foresee that ending. Very well done.
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Thanks, I like to pop in a twist or two on occasion.
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Wow, that was terrible!
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Hopefully you’re referring to the ending and not the writing 🙂
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Lol…but of course!
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Gosh this made me sad 😦
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It made me sad as well. I stopped short of hurting the child in the pram, I couldn’t face that. It was bad enough that the mum died.
I think next week I’ll try to go comedy, or at least my more usual “straight dark” rather than “sad and tragic”.
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Dear Draliman,
Quite an impact in the most literal sense. Good one.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Hi Rochelle,
Ha ha, yes it was. With tragic consequences, sadly 😦
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