This was Julia's prompt sent from Geneva to Rick and D-L in France. No matter where they are the three writers share a prompt and write ten minutes. When they are in the same country it is in a café over an espresso or tea. In separate countries, the cup of something is almost as mandatory as pen and paper. Sharing their creations can be as fascinating to determine, who saw what in the prompt and why.
Julia's Free Write
The motorcycle stood ready, but he obviously wasn’t in a hurry as there he stood – outside the local pharmacy – scrolling through his phone.
Nothing unusual in those gestures as these days everyone seems to always have their eyes riveted on their phones, young, and somehow worse, old alike. Even in restaurants no one – or very few – seem to still interact. Instead of staring into space, even the elderly have their eyes riveted on a screen.
But I digress.
Jean was not only scrolling on his phone, but smoking: something much more seldom. And not only one cigarette but two before he put out the second one and tucked his phone in his jacket.
Another couple of minutes and he was off.
Somehow it reminded me of a prisoner having his last moments. As it was noon, I presume that he was on a lunch break, but maybe it was more serious: those last few moments before having to go do that 100th job interview.
I mentally wished him luck.
Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends. Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/
D-L's Free Write
Where were his two brothers? They weren't answering. Neither was his sister. They always had their mobile ready.
His parents didn't answer their landline.
He wanted to tell them he was running late for his mother's birthday party.
He turned the corner. A block ahead, his bus pulled away.
Damn, Eddie Chin thought. He would have to pay for a cab. No Uber. He'd left his credit cards in the top left drawer of his desk in his flat.
Miracle of Miracles: an empty taxi spotted him and stopped.
Ten minutes later he pulled up to his childhood home, a Cape Cod style. As always his father had the lawn perfect. Eddie joked that his father measured each blade of grass to make sure they were the same height.
Thomas and Janice Paulson, the family's neighbors since forever, rushed out to speak to him.
"Thank God Eddie, you're here," Thomas said.
"ICE took them away," Janice said.
"They kept calling them Damned Spics," Thomas said.
"Too stupid to tell the difference between a Chinese and a Latino," Janice said.
Thomas put his arm around Eddie and guided him into their house, also a Cape Cod.
"We'll help you find a lawyer. You'll need it," Janice said.
Visit D-L.'s website https://dlnelsonwriter.com, is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504
Rick's Free Write
He could be the poster boy for Gen Zs in Europe. Slender, sweatsuit, cigarette, gazing at his mobile, moto at the ready. And no job.
Had he tried since getting out of school? Sort of. But he didn’t have the personality, or the patience, for waiting tables in a resto. And he had no office skills, having passed on uni. The moto had taken all of his mother’s spare savings.
Unemployment in the far southwest of France ran into the 20%+ range. The tourism-dependent region had consistently failed to attract business interests who could provide jobs. Even rejecting an auto assembly factory that would have provided several hundred good-paying union jobs.
So the young people drifted away to bigger cities such as Toulouse, Lyon, Paris. Or hung around on village street corners, unmotivated except for the occasional fix. Some begged, positioning themselves by the grocery entrance, using a dog as sympathy bait.
Meantime the politicians touted austerity, agitating the workers, fueling the rise of the far right. Dark clouds gathering over the Pyrenees.
Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.
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