#SwiftFicFriday – Week 141 Winner!

Happy Tuesday!

Bill Engleson (@billmelaterplea) flew the highest this week and takes his twenty-first win!

You can find him at:

Check out his piece below and congratulate him on Twitter:

Congrats on your #SwiftFicFriday win @billmelaterplea! Check out his flash piece and show him some love #WritingCommunity
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Down at the Palace Hotel

We gather once, maybe twice a week at the Palace. Got nothin’ much else to do. Some of us have grandkids local. Harry has a feral pack of them, lives halfway down the holler, two sons, at least two daughters-in-law –I can’t keep track of my own grandkids, let alone those of my mates. Especially Harry’s, who, if I haven’t said it all that clearly, are prolific.

So we gather and swap the same old stories we have always told. Now, when I say the same old stories, they occasionally end up with appendages and transmogrify into a slightly different story.

Last Friday, there were five of us. Harry, who I’ve mentioned, Billy Turner, who has no grandkids but raises wolves – my little joke…terriers, which seem like mini-wolves to me– Dave Scooter, still working in real estate, sells maybe one condo a year but keeps his finger in and has a wealth of stories about newbies that he doesn’t mind sharing. Keeps us informed, I have to say

Then there’s Roscoe.

Never was my favorite. Old Roscoe Howe, he left town pretty much the first second he could get away. Angry kid. Rough family. Old man, a bruiser. Joined the military. Spent a few years in Europe, then, he says, went private. Occasionally mentions it, some of that private soldier stuff.

Moved back a couple years ago.

And last Friday, he started spilling a bloody tale. Some country he didn’t want to name. “We lined ‘em up,” he said. Men! Women! Children! A couple of babies! And then…you know, I can’t sleep for the sounds of the bullets breaking bone, blood geysering like an oilwell kickin’ in. The screams.”

We all went home early.

Me, maybe I’ve had enough of the Palace.