It’s time for Friday Fictioneers, courtesy of Madison Woods. Ron Pruitt provided the photo for the prompt. Thank you, Ron. This conjured up many reminders of my travels on a bus.
Dear readers, if you would like to participate, please follow this link, write a poem or a story in 100 words (approximately), and upload your post to the site. Give it a try. It’s a lot of fun and a great writing exercise. I have 105 words today in the form of a story.
Image courtesy of Ron Pruitt
Cooped Up (105/100)
Sweat, soap, aftershave, and a piercing, spicy floral permeated the air. I slid my way down the aisle, each step unveiling a nod, a smile, or a distant gaze.
The promise of a sixteen-hour journey influenced my choice of a traveling companion. I sat next to an elderly lady with her head in a book, hoping I might pass the time with sleep. Directly across from me sat a man with a cage hidden under a towel. Wisps of feathers escaped onto the grimy floor.
Cluck. Cluck. He shook the cage and offered me a toothy grin. Am I the only one who’s hearing this?
AmyReeseWrites 
Thanksgiving?
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Yes, it very well could be. I was on a bus ride once where, indeed, I heard a chicken. Or turkey? Or, I could have been delirious!
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Very nice Amy…
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Thank you, Boomie!
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I don’t think I could do 100 words, I’m too rambly.
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Oh, yes you could…I have faith in you.
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Nice Bumble! I don’t think I could do this. I ramble on and on and on…..
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Thanks, Brigitte. I bet you could do 100 words. I’ve seen your Haikus and they’re less 🙂 Well, if it’s something you want to do, the invitation is always there.
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Nothing says pleasure like a 16-hour bus ride… Nice job. 🙂
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No doubt! The bus can be kind of miserable. Thanks!
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Hi Amy,
I think your main character can look forward to an invitation to a chicken dinner. Good job of capturing the scruffy nature of bus travel! Ron
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Thank you, Ron! It’s inspired by true events…the chicken, too! Or, I may have been hearing things. Thanks for reading.
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Reminds me of a Dominican Air flight I took once. 😦 Your bus journey sounds only marginally more draining. Nice one.
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Thanks, Sandra! I’m sorry you had a bad flying experience. At least it can, perhaps, provide inspiration for a story.
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Reminded me of something from “Romancing the Stone.” 🙂 A long bus ride is bad enough, but this is fowl. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself and I’ll stop before I lay another egg.
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Ha! Good one, Janet. Fowl, indeed, with a little fluttering bird taking over the whole trip!!
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Loved the walk down the aisle… er, slide.
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Thank you, Ted! You know the bus slide feeling?! Thanks for reading.
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Took me back to an earlier time when folks in Clevelander, from all ethnic backgrounds rode the bus to the West Side Market. Women with live chickens or turkeys would sit next to a kids clutching school books. A hot, stinky,noisy, (but needed) experience.
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What a wild experience! Thanks for sharing. I did experience a chicken on a bus, or at least that’s what I thought it was. It was very dark, but I heard that thing clucking away. It was very strange.
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I think my favorite mode of travel, so far, is by train. But way too expensive. Enjoyed your take.
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Thank you, Paul. I don’t like the bus either. It always takes so long!
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i don’t think anyone who takes a bus really wants to take a bus. it’s usually out of necessity – either financial or directness.
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Yes! I agree with you 100%.
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in one of my novels, in the very first sentence, a man gets on a bus. we later learn how broke he is andhow he sold everything he has just to get a bus ticket and some spending money to go across the country.
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Sounds like a good way a to start a story. The bus often reminds me of people in dire straights.
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zzzactly.
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The worst part is when someone gets hungry and opens his/her brown, paper bag and begins eating greasy chicken with his/her dirty fingernails. A great stomach churner.
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Oh, joy! A little too close for comfort…
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Bumble,
You really captured the sight, sound and smell of a bus.
On a tour bus in Israel I heard a chicken. Oh yeah, it was our guide’s cell phone.
shalom,
Rochelle
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Funny! Thanks for sharing, Rochelle. It’s interesting how people’s bus experiences differ around the globe.
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We all walked down that aisle with you trying to pick and choose our bus companions.
Although grams was an “owl”, the old man was “fowl”
Animal Farm bus
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Ha, that’s very funny! Thank you for sharing that with me.
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good one! Never shared a bus with an animal, but in Rome we rode the bus, and at one point about 25 four foot eleven inch old ladies dressed in black got on and pushed everyone out of the way, poked us with their woven reed shopping baskets. I was holding on to the overhead rail ( which they could not reach ) with a death grip to avoid being swept out of the bus in a rip tide.
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Wow! Bill, this sounds like a real adventure. It must have been a sight to see and to have your bus overrun by little ladies dressed in black. This would be make a most excellent bus story! Thanks for sharing.
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I was with my sister and my friend for a whirlwind trip of Italy and we were standing on a cramped bus, my sister ahead of us. All of a sudden the young man behind her goes “ugggghhhh” and slumps back.
Afterwards Footer ( my friend ) and I ask her what happened, and she replied he was rubbing my bottom. We exclaimed she should have told us, and she said she didn’t want to start trouble and the elbow to the solar plexus send the message she intended.
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Another spicy story, Bill! She told him with that punch. I think it was an appropriate way to handle this. You have some fascinating international stories! Thanks for sharing.
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I have lots of stories, funny how goofy things always happen to me… but good things too. I must try too hard to be cool ( laughing ) and then real life happens.
have you been to lots of countries ?
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No, sadly…I haven’t been to much of anywhere. I’ve traveled across the States and I’ve been to Mexico! I know that’s sad. Someday, I’d like to travel. I want to go Italy and Greece. Those are my top two for some reason.
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those are good places.
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Dear Amy,
A long strange trip is underway. Ar least she’ll have something to eat.
Aloha,
Doug
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Ha ha. Yeah, maybe the bus will be stranded and out of gas, and there would be nothing to eat but the chicken. Thanks, Doug!
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Hahaha…
I wonder how much fowl fare is these days?!
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This really happened to me. That guy away with it, SIG. Only it was really dark and I was starting to wonder if I was imagining the whole thing…
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Oh, I don’t wish to be on this journey. 🙂 Very nicely written.
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Thank you!
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