{This is a short-short story of 100 words, in response to the weekly photo challenge called Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the den mother of this operation. I have participated in this challenge since May 2018, but have been absent for a while, busy with other things. Still, I always enjoy coming back, for the comradery and encouragement of the participants. I am also always impressed with the calibre of writing this challenge attracts.
This photo, with its strings of shells and starfish curtaining one door-window, reminds me of Key West, Florida. I tried to convey what that mysterious island of seaside kitch might be like, in our own dreary days of COVID-19. It may well be, that my own experience during the last week, deprived of a working air conditioner, mid-summer in North Florida, has led me to write on this steamy theme. I hope it will not come off as too callous.
Those “not from around here” should know, that there exists a certain contingent of Southerners who despise the North, and especially in a tourist state like Florida, would just as soon all the Yankees and Snowbirds (tourists who come for our mild winters) would go home.
Hope you enjoy my story, and please poke around at the Friday Fictioneers link above, for lots of great stories that use this photo prompt.
If you have time, check out my series of retrospectives, Sixty Days. As we muddle through the sixty days leading up to the US Presidential Election on November 3, 2020, I am regularly adding politically-inspired posts, written over the last four years. Warning! These posts lean most decidedly left!
Thanks for stopping by to read. And stay safe out there!}
At Riddles’ in Key West, one of the few bars still open, Alex and Henry sat, stooped, over their whiskey, neat.
A salty droplet dribbled down Alex’s nose, plopped in his glass. He swirled it around.
“McFalen liked his whiskey,” he observed gravely.
Henry’s head bobbed.
“McFalen hated a fuss.”
“Yup.”
“McFalen was a practical man.”
Henry raised his empty glass.
“But God! Up North?! Why ship him there?”
“S’not right.”
“Why not keep the damn container here?”
The barest of breezes wafted through the lean-to, like a ghost whisper in your ear.
“You know damn well. Ice don’t keep.”
For another tiny story set in Key West, read Generations.
S’mothering
Hot despite the ice.
Motives of the characters doesn’t seem nice.
Thanks, Anita. A drunkard’s lament, I’m afraid.
No, ice don’t keep. Neither do dead bodies. Blech.
Just the reaction I hoped for. Thanks Linda!😊
Way to hot… i think I would head north too.
Preferably not like poor McFalen, in a refrigerated container like they have been parking outside of over- crowded hospitals during the pandemic!
Oh,,, didn’t know that… live in a safer part of the world it feels like
Not sure its hit Key West like this, but earlier in the year NYC and Italy had it that bad. And Florida is definitely not out of the woods yet.
Well told. I could feel the heat.
Thanks, Sandra. I definitely feel a case of the vapors coming on. 😊
So true. I could feel the ghosts in this one. Had a Hemingway-esque feel.
Thanks ahtdoucette. I think I saw a six-toed cat in a corner, somewhere!
You told a short story through great dialogue.
Thanks Alicia!
Having been to Key West (in December and March), I could easily picture this. Loved the details and I could just feel the heat. Well done.
Thank Dale.
You’d need some neat whiskey to hear that news!
You sure would!
Dear Andrea,
I could feel the heat through your descriptions. Love the dialogue.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks Rochelle. Stay cool!
A walk on the macabre side . . . I’ve been to Key West once, on a Fourth of July weekend. Some interesting historical sites, but so hot and humid I could barely breathe.
Not for the faint of heart in summer. But oh, try February!❤️
My husband was trying to talk me into returning to Florida for a visit–but when I bailed out of there with my disillusioned higher ed administration tail tucked between my legs, I never wanted to set foot in the place again. Who knows, when I’m done with higher ed administration for good, I might change my mind.
No pressure. The cooler Northeast is looking pretty good to me right now!😊
September in northern New England is one of the nicest months of the year.
How whisky can create perspective for things we dislike. Nicely done.
Thanks Bill. Some bitter pills do not go down without a swig of something strong. 🥂
Could taste the Key West heat. Nice one.
Thanks Iain! With no AC, it didn’t take much imagination on my part. 😊
Enjoyed your warm bar setting and the whole whiskey neat reminded of HEMINGWAY and even more of the south Florida connection
And nice to “see” you this week Andrea – I miss doing Friday Fictioneers – esp like Rochelle – but had to scale back my blogging too-
Take care and ttys
Thank you Prior, great to hear your voice even on a silent page. Have a drink on me!
Oh will Also
Toast to you with that drink –
😉
What a fun read, Andrea! I take it McFalen is in deep freeze for a macabre and mysterious reason. Somehow him being a “practical” man raises all sorts of chilling potentialities. And not just “ghostly.”
Thank you, Dora. I was thinking of the refrigerator containers that semi trucks (lorries) haul, which were parked out back, behind many hospitals, during the worst of the covid crisis, because of the overflow of dead bodies. What was left of McFalen (RIP) was in one of these containers. The container got shipped Up North, much to the ghost of McFalen’s Southern dismay, for the reason stated. Macabre is a good word for it, fact or fiction.
Sorry if, as with many of my stories, you had to hunt for that nugget of unstated truth that makes it all make sense. I am a Master of Indirection, if I do say so myself! 🙂
That’s what made it so interesting: the potentialities 🙂
It’s certainly snot right
😊