And with @jayna cooling her heels in sunny California, the rest of the 50 word camp toils away in the depths of the steemit blockchain dungeons. We pick away at the walls of our prison in the hopes a glorious 50 word nugget might spill forth so we may offer it up to our betters. Maybe someday we'll see the sun. Maybe someday we'll be free.
But for now, in a prison of our own choosing, we offer up stories using the prompt word of shade.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://negativerealm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/needswork.jpg)
“Eh. It’s in bad shape, mom.” Lucas looked under the hood, frowning. “See, your jeezlebabbus shade unrolled from your jehoshaphat valve, and that’s going to be a really expensive fix—”
“Pretend I don’t know anything, Lucasssssssss…..” I hissed, letting out air.
“You’re leaking, mom.”
“What?”
“Just like your car.”
“Ah.”
This particular vignette has a couple nuggets of memory for me. I had a friend back in elementary school named Lucas. (Unrelatedly, I always thought it was interesting his name rhymed with mucus, but I would never say it to his face. He was a big kid and had a mullet). Our teacher back then (one Mrs. Froom) had a tendency to drag out syllables when she was deep in thought. Lucas, a very unusual child, often confused Mrs. Froom. She'd look at some of his test papers or schoolwork, and it'd be like "I don't know what you were thinking here, Lucasssssss." And she'd frown, trying to make sense of something nonsensical on the paper. I always thought it sounded like Mrs. Froom's brains were leaking.
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdZUMH8taHa5io4RQ1JwtRYE2JVnp7cF6F1sNX1dsDsBM/seperator-black.gif)
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmWQQ6kv2hR4c8Jr4QmGqjvKfzQxrXjBEkPNAMgpPoxicS/footer.jpg)
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXmpLgCfjY1zx7UXDTC576VXTtLGeopsiLLjhrdZbnXn3/image.png)
A great community of writers there, helping each other get better at what they enjoy doing.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://negativerealm.com/needs-work-50-word-short-story/
A funny one ... nice work, Negative:)
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Thanks :)
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Quality just quality... the back story adds such weight and relevance to the lovely little nugget. Well worked my friend and funny too!
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Much appreciated! I suppose I am mining my memories for nuggets for stories, but I guess that's pretty much the source of all stories we write, yes?
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Mining your memory is a great way of putting it! That's what we do alright, and sometimes we unearth some real diamonds...
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Hahaha! This is wonderfully humourous, Neg. And the backstory compliments the 50-worder, bringing it to life.
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Thanks @anikekirsten! The backstory is becoming more important to me in these stories, since every story we write has a seed of truth or history or memory that came from the core of the writer, and not sharing that to the reader is denying them the gift of an extra level of insight.
Of course, some stories are just dumb and don't deserve extra insight :)
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I love the backstory too. The origins of stories are so interesting!
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Hah! Very humorous vignette. Nice work!
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I laughed. The cleverness in this humor flirts with the bizarre. The back story is also quite funny; children are definitely macabre sometimes.
Loved it, @negativer :D
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Kids have weird ideas sometimes, gross or clever or strange without realizing it. Thanks for reading!
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Love it! This is a lot of fun, and it shows the delightful interchange between mother and son. Excellent job with the dialog!
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Haha good one, Neg. I could totally see it happening.
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