Author: Doug Jacquier

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Tasmania

/ Doug Jacquier / 19 Comments

This piece was written for the Min Min weekly prompt challenge for 27 January 2023.

Adam lived in a weatherboard cottage in Tasmania, surrounded by his apple orchard.

Sales of his annual apple crop were declining due to the perfect storm of the Australian market’s demand for certified organic versus the demands of their Japanese customers for unblemished perfection. As Adam’s hitherto simple life began to unravel, his nights became increasingly apocalyptic.

His nightmares always began with a tympanic pelting storm besieging his eardrums akin to being duct-taped to AC-DC’s concert amps, punctuated by thunderclaps of Biblical proportions and the sound effects of Cyclone Tracy.

The overflowing water flooding into his brain began to short out his synapses and sizzling spark-fests criss-crossed his lobes in a chain lightning reaction.

The ventricles of his heart began to sport stalactites, transported via the ice in his veins, and driven by the Antarctic blizzard invading his gasping mouth.

He loved God but now saw him as a sadist.

Until the arrival of Eve, carrying a backpack, and asking if he had any work available. Adam was immediately smitten and invented a job on the spot, with no idea how he was going to pay her. He needn’t have worried because Eve immediately took stock of the situation and re-positioned the business as ‘Hissy Fit Cider – The Asp-irational Drink’ and she appeared on the label, picking apples, naked.

Now Adam welcomed the cyclone of orders that kept him up all night.

Gentle reminder – This week’s Min Min prompt

/ Doug Jacquier / 1 Comment

I know you’re probably just letting your engine idle while you get your ducks in a row and take the path less traveled, but just a gentle reminder about this week’s prompt. https://sixcrookedhighways.com/min-min-weekly-prompt/

Don’t worry about all the Rabbie Burns stuff (sorry, CE and Jenne, no disrespect intended).

The prompt is simply about best laid plans going astray. Up to 250 words will do the trick.

We are the little folk, we.

/ Doug Jacquier / 18 Comments

This piece was written for the Min Min Weekly Prompt Challenge for 20 Jan 2023. It was inspired by ‘The Pict Song’ by Billy Bragg, with lyrics by Rudyard Kipling.

It began with tea and tears. Sophie had been sacked by the local supermarket.  

‘I’ve been replaced by a self-serve scanner. What am I going to do, Gran? How am I going to pay the rent and everything?’

Gran said ‘Let me think about it. We’ll find a way. Now, wash your face and go home to your family.’

After Sophie left, a plan began to take shape. She hit her email list, filled them in on Sophie’s story and arranged the first meeting of We Are One.

The next day, some members of the group each collected a large trolley, filled it to overflowing with randomly selected items and presented at the traditional check-out queues. Simultaneously, another group did likewise but entered the self-service checkout corral. There they laboriously scanned each item, including large bags of apples, which they weighed and checked individually. It was not long before there was a logjam at the ‘Not OK Corral’, so legitimate customers headed for the now burgeoning queues at the two checkout desks that were open. When every checkout was opened, Gran blew a whistle and the members left. And Sophie was called in to help put all the goods back on the shelves.

Gran’s email to the supermarket chains was succinct. ‘We Are One. Remove the self-serve checkouts immediately or we will send you broke. We refuse to be cyphers. We will be counted and we will counter. We Are One. And this is just the beginning.’

New weekly Min Min Prompt – 20 Jan 2023

/ Doug Jacquier / 4 Comments

Min Min has taken flight into the unknowable night sky in such a way, I’ve decided to start the regular weekly prompt today (Friday my time) and thereafter every Friday. The link will close the following Thursday. Thank you to all the inaugural contributors for supporting the building of this new community.

As CE Ayr has informed me, the birthday of Rabbie Burns is coming up next week.

So this week’s prompt is:

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley (often go astray)

John Steinbeck borrowed the phrase ‘Of Mice and Men’ for his famous novella, which became a play and has been made into a movie twice. Once in 1939 with Burgess Meredith, Betty Field and Lon Chaney Jr and in 1992 with Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and Sherilyn Fenn

Let the prompt take you wherever you want to go.

Remember to read the guidelines here before you start.

Let the fun begin! Remember, no more than 250 words!

Then post your story on the Min Min Inlinkz link party page! 

 Click here to post your story.

When you click you will see a page like this.

Scroll down to Add link + and click on it.

On the next page, paste your link into the box marked Link.

The title of your piece will be automatically completed.

Then scroll to the bottom and click SAVE.

And you’re done!

Sample entry for Min Min Weekly Prompt

/ Doug Jacquier / 21 Comments

I’m posting this story of mine to test the system and get the party started. https://sixcrookedhighways.com/min-min-weekly-prompt/

Solitude has its own rewards

Keith turned his gas bottle on and lit the flame under the wok. When his campfire meal was ready, he gave some to his German Shepherd, Arfer. He had just poured himself a glass of cabernet sauvignon when a SUV towing a white caravan pulled up some fifty metres away.

A middle-aged couple emerged and shouted to Keith ‘Great spot you have here’.

Keith looked at them coldly and said ‘Why did you stop here?’ They both looked perplexed and she said ‘Well, we saw strange lights in the sky and it got scary.’

Keith said ‘Just don’t go chasing them or you’ll never come back.’

The man said ‘Come on mate, you’re scaring the missus. There’s no need for that sort of talk.’

Arfer stood up, bared his teeth and growled menacingly. The couple moved rapidly to their vehicle and took off.

Keith picked up his well-worn leather-bound journal, pumped up his lamp and said ‘Arfer, what do you think of this passage? I think it has a sort of timelessness about it but that may be beyond your sense of the aesthetic.’

Keith read the passage in his sonorous voice. When he’d finished, Arfer revealed nothing.

Keith said ‘You’re right, it needs work. Time for bed.’

He turned off the lamp, burrowed into his swag and, as he drifted off to sleep, he noticed the Min Min lights and heard Arfer laughing in his sleep.

Launching the Min Min Weekly Word Prompt

/ Doug Jacquier / 4 Comments

Hello to all my loyal followers. Today I’m launching a brand new weekly prompt site, Min Min, and I’m hoping you will be a regular contributor. I am doing this to provide a community for international writers to submit short responses to a weekly prompt (word/s, quotes or photos).

It will be a home for fearless writing for fearless readers. No trigger warnings need to be provided and there will be no diversity quotas. Wit, humour, satire and irony will be applauded in the heavens. The guidelines are here.

Comments will be encouraged because that’s where the real payoff is for writers. Forget hitting ‘Like’. If you like a piece or a piece didn’t appeal to you, write briefly about why or why not. Contributors will need to leave their preciousness at home but they will also be encouraged to say what they think in a generous and thoughtful way and/or be funny.

Looking forward to your contributions.

Write away right away!

Note: A big thank you to C E Ayr and Jenne Gray for their thoughtful and humorous contributions to my thinking on this project.