200-Word Story

Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month, the task is to use the five words: toilet paper, TV, midget, flamenco, dragon. This week’s contribution comes from Phil Yeats.

In December 2018, Phil (using his Alan Kemister pen name) published his most recent novel. Tilting at Windmills, the second in the Barrettsport Mysteries series of soft-boiled police detective stories set in an imaginary Nova Scotia coastal community is available on Amazon. He’s currently working on a saga about the hazards of ignoring climate change.

 *****

200-Word Story

by Phil Yeats

 He woke with a start. It wasn’t anything on the TV that woke him. It was the dream, the dream of being in the grocery store with empty shelves looking for toothpaste and toilet paper.

“Damn COVID dreams!” he said to no one in particular. He was alone, as always. Even the cat was off somewhere looking for mice or birds or lady cats or whatever sparked its interest. One thing was damn sure, the stupid cat wasn’t worried about coronavirus avoidance.

He turned down the sound and settled back, intent on resuming his nap. Soon enough, he was dreaming again. He’d turned the clock back fifty years and entered an orgy from Federico Fellini’s Satyricon. There were giants and midgets, flamenco dancers and erotic pole dancers, and sexual deviants of all kinds. The scene dissolved as a dragon breathed fire on everything and everyone.

“Damn,” he said again. “I might as well pretend I’m actually working for a living.”

He started hammering away on his laptop. Yup, I can do it, he decided. I can turn the Satyricon dream into a flash fiction story for 200-Word Stories. It just needs a little pizzazz to snazz it up a bit.

 

*****

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/