Help Requested - Critique Needed

Writer's Digest, a website and magazine, offers an online flash fiction contest called Your Story. I never seem to remember until the last minute to check out the prompt. (This month I remembered two days late, Your Story #29.) Last month for Your Story #28, I got the story written but life did not allow me time to edit and get it entered into the contest.

I have decided to share it here on my blog and request honest if gentle feedback.

The Bet

Tidying up the beige damask pillows on the overstuffed couch, my hand touch something cold and hard. Afraid I let my hand close around the object and pull it out, a silver and black cell phone. What the? It wasn't my husband's or mine. We haven't had anyone over since those boorish Tinnins last month. The phone began to play a ringtone I didn't recognize.


I slid the phone open. I had never seen one like it even in commercials. "Hello."


"Melissa?"


"Yes."


"You don't know me."


Well, duh, I was holding an unknown phone in my hand. How did he know my name? "What's going on here?" I demanded. "Who are you?"


Laughter was the reply I received.


"I'm going to hang up if you don't answer my questions."


"I'm glad to see you haven't lost your humor." A unknown male voice said. "Melissa. Melissa, have patience I'll tell you everything in time."


"Who are you?" I whispered. Then stronger, "Well, get on with it. I don't have all day." I gathered my cell phone on the way to our home phone.


"Melissa, there's no need for that." he said.


My eyes scanned the room. How could he see me? The sage drapes were pulled closed. What should I do now? Play it cool, "No need for what?"


"Go turn on your computer." he ordered.


"Why?" I stood there frozen as dozens of scenarios ran through my thoughts. Then I laughed.


"What's so funny?"


"Okay, where's the camera?" I asked.


"What are you talking about?"


"You know those old TV programs that catch you doing something silly or dumb." I stifled a giggle.


"Wrong show!"


"Which show then?" I asked. Laughter again, but was there more than one voice this time? Spinning around, I demanded, "Where are you? Whose with you?" Dizzy, I fell into our chocolate brown recliner, breathing hard.


The laughter subsided, "Are you okay?"


He definitely could see me. I rubbed my arms as chills assailed me. "Like you care!" I said.


"Just do this favor for me and I'll tell you everything."


"Who are you and what do you want?" I cried. Why am I doing this? I thought. I simply closed the phone, cutting the connection. I tumbled the phone over and over in my sweaty palms.


It sang at me again. I shrugged stetting the cell phone down and walked away. Pulling the drapes open, were there any unfamiliar vehicles out there?


Yes? Yes, there was a small red car. What was the make so I could tell 911? The plate number? There were two dark haired men sitting in the front seat. What were they hunched over? That man in the passenger seat looked familiar. Should I approach the vehicle? I debated.


My husband got out of the car smiling, waving a wad of cash at me. He slapped the roof of the car. It drove off. He was suppose to be golfing with a buddy.


As he entered the house, he said, "Good job, baby." He kissed me on the cheek.


I pulled away. "Someone's watching." I whispered.


He held up a small screen thingy. He walk to the computer desk in the attached dining room. He held up a tiny camera. "All gone! You did great. I won," he cleared his throat, "I mean, we won a thousand dollars."


"You bet on me?" I whispered, my voice gained strength, "You bet on me!" I reached over and grabbed the money. "Thanks, I can have fun shopping."


"But, baby. . . " He stopped at my glare. "Have fun."

 
The End
 
Leave feedback in the comments, please remember to be gentle. Don't forget to check out other free short stories available at Writer's Digest. They post the winning entry for your reading enjoyment.
 
Leann Holland

Quick Feet, Soft Hands -- Movie Review

Last week late one night flipping through the TV stations, I stopped on a short independent film, Quick Feet, Soft Hands on my local PBS station. I was intrigued with the TV description of a movie that was only half an hour. It fit the time frame I had available.

Quick Feet, Soft Hands is a movie about dreams. A young couple is following his dream of being a professional baseball player. He's currently playing minor league ball. He is struggling with his quality of life and the real cost of chasing rainbows.

I liken this short movie to a short story and it's very different from a typical Hollywood flick (a.k.a. a happy ending and rose colored glasses.) I enjoyed this movie's real life grit.

Leann Holland

Bug Hysteria

The Bugs Are Back!

By Leann Holland

Bugs, bugs and more bugs
dominate the TV airways.
We thought we were
the dominate species.
Ignoring the old adage,
bugs will inherit the world.
Have we learned nothing
from elementary science classes?
The circle of Life,
the food chain,
ring any bells?
We’ve spent decades
studying the gaps
created by extinction.
Bugs, bugs and more bugs!
Everyone including me
freaked out by the little buggers.
How now brown cow,
do we protect ourselves?
We’ve lost solutions
handed down
from generation to generation.
The bugs are back!



Being a single income family, we’ve purchase a lot of our items used. The reports by all the major news outlets of the returning bedbugs and super bug Lice has me scratching, quite literally. Just thinking about bugs makes my skin crawl thereby making me itch. What about you? Is itching like yawning, contagious?

Summer's Finally Over

Here in the Tennessee, this summer was hot. Last week to this week our average high temps took a twenty degree drop, in this case it was wonderful. We went from average of 92 degrees to the mid 70's, which is beautiful considering we had 82 days at 90 or above this summer.

What I have loved most about this change in the weather has been hearing the neighborhood children outside playing. After dark last night, they played tag. I have great memories of playing these kinds of childhood games with my sister and cousins.

Take time and let the kid inside you enjoy this season.

Leann Holland

P.S. Still waiting for fall colors, I'll keep you posted.

Gluten Free Irony

Gluten Free is a term that is hitting the mainstream. I learned about it several years ago when I discovered I had a wheat allergy. While wheat allergies and Celiac Disease are two different disorders, I know I am safe if I choose Gluten Free foods. So armed with this information, I share my story.

Several weekends ago, our local chamber of commerce held our local nature fest. We had a prior engagement but decided to attend the last hour or so. It was fun mingling with members of our local community. Several businesses and churches had set up displays. A local church with whom we have no affiliation, set up fun ring toss game. My family loved the competition among ourselves. If you were successful ringing the target, you put your name in for the drawing. You guessed it, the prize was a wheat filled dream, pizza. I laughed with my husband about the irony if out of all the entries our family managed to place into the drawing, my name was drawn. Twenty minutes later, as my husband took our children out to eat at gluten feast restaurant, I got the call. I had won the gift certificate to the local pizzeria.

Hope you got a good laugh I did. (I also got several safe food treats)

Leann Holland

 

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Movie Review - It's Complicated

For our anniversary evening, my husband and I wanted to watch a non-family movie. We love our kids but once in a while we like to remember life before kids, a kind of preparation for when they leave us with an empty nest.

It's complicated  seemed to fit that bill. A single mother (Meryl Streep) with her youngest child's leaving for college embarked in relationships with a new love (Steven Martin) and her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin). The cast implied great potential for sensitivity and humor. Multiple times through the movie, situations would start to build but the movie kept falling just short of either humor or sensitivity. The ending was too little, too fantastical, and too late. I recommend you skip this movie. I wish I had.

Signs of The Times

I wish I could say that I was shocked at the news that the NY Times newspaper will at some date to be determined not be printed on paper any more. Okay, I guess you could say that I was shocked that they were brave enough to acknowledge that fact and announce it. The world is changing and changing fast.(See Yahoo's news article. http://news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20100908/tc_mashable/new_york_times_will_go_out_of_print_sometime_in_the_future )

The events of my life give me an interesting point of view. My high school graduating class was the first class that had computer class in our school system. available for our senior year. I also had taken an adult education class in the neighboring county to learn about computers in my sophomore year. I feel that I have had a front row seat to these changes, always trying to catch up.

In my research to become a published fiction author, I have found two distinct and powerful camps, traditional publication and epublication (Epub). A war is being fought but like modern warfare sometimes it is hard to decide who is friend or foe. Traditional publication is now fighting for digital rights and Epub is evolving at such a dizzy pace that readers and authors are confused.

As with any major technological changes, people will be left behind. There will be hundreds, thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of people left behind when the New York Times ceases their print editions. More will accumulate as the newspapers around the United States change. I wish I had a crystal ball, well, maybe just a story idea? Who knows? 

Trying not to be left behind, I am in process of self publishing my short stories into ebooks. I'll keep you posted.

Leann Holland