When the woman on the phone asks for a meeting, I envision a comfortable table, a set of four stiff-backed chairs, a pitcher of ice water with four to six glasses, and a smallish window where some gloomy ray of sunlight strains to show through dusty blinds.
In other words, a setting like most of the interviews I’ve endured these past six months.
I knew nothing about this company when I applied for the positon of “Director of Possibilities”; we’ve only communicated by e-mail. At my age – on the upside of middle-age – I’m in dire straits, having applied for dozens of jobs in my field: CREATIVITY. My applications have been repeatedly denied. Each of those firms want someone “fresh,” “innovative,” “a thinker outside the box” – their terms for why I don’t get chosen for the job.
I know the real reason. Ageism.
But my spirits rise as I prepare for this up-coming meeting. I wear my trendiest “young” clothes: blue jeans with a snag at the knees (which I pay extra for), an orange sweater with a loose scarf around my neck to hide the wrinkles, and high-top florescent blue sneakers.
Thank God for the sneakers, I think with a doomed sense of humor as I park the car at the address I’ve been given. Turns out I’m in a state park. The instructions, just texted to me on my phone, state:
“Follow the path for five minutes. At the fork, bear left. At the pond, bear right. Then follow the birch trees to the chairs.”
And now here I am. Three empty chairs on a bed of tall green grass await with wildflowers dancing wildly in the background. No one else in sight.
I THINK I’M GOING TO LOVE THIS INTERVIEW.
I wrote this piece of flash fiction after viewing the photo prompt, above. I wonder what YOU imagine when you view this picture?
I am *so* appreciating the timing of this piece, as I prepare for an interview later this morning!!! I’m jealous of the environs the character has encountered;). All I know is that a talking toad definitely belongs in one of those chairs.
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I need to know how the interview went! I hope you kept this fanciful piece in your mind, and that imagining three chairs in the forest kept your vision clear, focused, and CREATIVE. 🙂
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Those chairs could definitely have been in my interview… The place I went to had lawn games (resort), and an ocean view… Magic, indeed. And lucky for me, I got the job:). Thanks for starting off my morning with such a pleasant adventure!
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WOW! Congratulations! Lawn chairs at a resort with an ocean view is my kind of interview – and most likely what you’ve begun is my kind of job!
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My initial thought of loved ones gone – then imagining how the grandkids got the chairs out there!
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Your first answer made me sign and think “yesssss.” Your second response made me laugh out LOUD. Hahaha. Those grandkids and the tricks they pull …. 🙂
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Pam,I love your response to this prompt and was hooked from the start and the slow build up of preparing for the interview! Wouldn’t that be a grand location for one! These reminded me of an area in the forest in Sweden called the ‘King’s Throne’ from ancient times. Today only the stone seats remain in a circle with a far grander one at the top…this is a mini modern version of that! Happy Weekend, my friend! 😀❤️
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The ancients knew how to set their stones, that’s for sure. Now, I wonder if they were planning a big interview session…? I guess the head of HR sat at the top grandest stone. 🙂
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Same here!!!
I was totally taken in by it and was shocked it was ‘only’ a prompt piece!! By that I mean it is a genius start to some huge piece …. surely it must go on – please???? x
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Viola…I agree this only feels like the start to a much longer work. Pam often manages to leave us wanting more – wonderfully so!
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The sign of a great writer, not just a ‘good’ one … can’t wait to read more of Pam’s work 🌸
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Pam, how wonderfully you wrote this piece of flash fiction. You have me swinging with your feelings and thoughts and then – surprise! There we are,
In a lovely garden with three chairs. How inviting. Where is the little coffee table for our drink and cake?
I have been to the stone circle Annika talks about and it really would invite to a deep and thoughtful interview. No ageism there.😊.
miriam
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I’ve never been to Sweden and feel as if I’ve missed out on much by not doing so. I agree – get people out in the forest, listening to the woodland animals, smelling the pine and the acorn, feeling the breeze in the trees, and ageism and discrimination are erased. Only creativity abounds.
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I like this Pam. This story takes the idea of creativity in the work place and “fresh thinking” to a new place. Wouldn’t we all like to work at a place like this?
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YES, I think that’s the point of this chosen place for an interview. Potential employees can express and relate true “out there” possibilities. If only we all could get out of the boxed-in walls of bureaucracy and let creativity abound.
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I adore this story, Pam. I’m positive the woman with fluorescent blue sneakers is a shoe in for the job! When I looked at the chairs I imagined forest animals recently vacating them, cleaning up the remains of their impromptu party so two legged creatures are none the wiser.
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Haha, a “shoe in” for the job. Love your sense of humor always, Molly. And I love your imagined story from this scene. Wind in the Willows all grown up and keeping the humans unaware. xo
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Yes! With a little Alice in Wonderland mixed in.
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Most definitely. In fact, I’m drinking my tea now – but no Mad Hatter here – yet…. 🙂
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I’ll be right over as soon as I brush the snow off my hat. 🎩
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Black tea or green? Lemon’s already sliced… 🙂
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I’ll have both with a splash of purple.
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I loved the story, Pam, but I really wish it was the first part of a longer story! 🙂
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My imagination runs rampant with the thought, but in this case, I’m having such a fun time hearing the story lines that others create from this scene. Thanks so much, Mary. I plan on some ‘serial flash fiction’ in the near future. ❤
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I think of three friends just getting away from it all for a chat. Great story!
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Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. Sigh. Could I be one of the three friends? Please?? xo
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As a former recruiter and employment counsellor, I really love this story. I would have imagined a meeting of three witches (good ones of course).
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In my mind, all witches are good witches.
And perhaps in this scene, two witches are interviewing the third one about joining their “flying” club? Or no, perhaps seeing if the interviewee knows a good broth for creating a higher sense of — imagination!
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There are so many stories there!! Here’s to all the good witches out there. xo
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Great flash! This picture definitely looks like anyone who sits in these chairs will be talking with purpose, don’t you think? I think I would also love an interview like that. My library job interview was long (indoors in a windowless room) and I was asked very specific questions and then took a test on the Dewey Decimal System (it was easy) at the end. I hadn’t been on an interview in 20 years, so I didn’t know what to expect, but my previous job interviews were a lot less structured. Maybe someday, I will have an outdoor one like your narrator did!
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Anyone who finds a test on the Dewey Decimal System easy – is a genius in my mind!
Hmmm, an invisible library only available to those who can access the secret chant, given in these chairs by the head librarian if the two ‘inductees’ pass the Dewey Decimal System test. How’s that?
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A job interview! Who would have imagined that your mind would have taken those three chairs and moved in that direction??!! My first thought involved fairies. I’m thinking fairies lead a little girl out in the woods to those three chairs. (The creative mind won’t give any other hints as to what happened unless I start typing.) Good one!
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I like your fairy three-chair imagination, Kathy. Perhaps they’ve brought the little girl out to teach them how to sit still on a chair for three minutes while blowing bubble gum bubbles. Maybe? ;-0
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Love that image! And love you too!
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❤
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I’d love an interview in that setting, but make my chair a 1970’s bean bag chair! I’m thankful that I’m already a director of my possibilities. Great piece, Pam!
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You ARE the Director of your possibilities. How right you are. May we authors all believe with such positivity and light.
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Tee hee … like that Jill! A bean bag … x
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Pam, I honestly thought you were telling a personal story. Great job!
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🙂 Thanks, Bernadette. Just keep an eye out when you’re walking around your town of Haddonfield and watch for the woman in florescent blue sneakers.
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I was so hoping this was real, Pam–and I know you would have aced this interview. I can imagine you wearing–and rocking–that outfit.
So many interviews now are phone interviews–or SKYPE.
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How BORING – interviews by phone or Skype. Most likely, those jobs are set in sterile walled cubicles. I’m fortunate to work in a space that overlooks forest and hawk with the classical music beaming out Magic Hour composed by Kenji Bunch while the aroma of my crock pot beef stew sneaks up the stairs to tell me when it’s dinner time. 🙂
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And I work in complete disarray with hovering cats–Mom, it’s time for dinner!–and I can work in my p.js. 🙂
Enjoy your beef stew!
The phone and SKYPE interviews might be boring, but they are practical when the job is in another city.
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True. I’m sure we could come up with some imaginative ‘out there’ story of a Skpe interview that turns magical and/or wild. :-
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I’m sure we could. 😉
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Good take on the pic. Not a clear picture in my head yet about my first thoughts of the photo, but I’m sensing something around sorcery.
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Ah, but what is the SOURCE of the Sorcery? And when you find it, you have your story! 🙂
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Yep – absolutely the way it works … and one of these days I may try sometime that is outside the box for me.
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You’ll LOVE it! 🙂
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That will be a challenge for me to do. I know … we all start somewhere. I’ve done 1,998 posts, and 4 have been fiction. If you get bored sometime, check them out. … well actually 3 because one was about a challenge … Oh no … and one was a variation of the first. https://afrankangle.wordpress.com/category/fiction/
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Yes, I love your footprints in the sand series, and in fact, I had included one of my footprint stories in this post that you link here. Ocean, sand, walking, footprints evoke wonderful writing images for us. Your fiction iswonderful, and evidence that you should try it more often!
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Thanks for the encouragement. I took that picture last January and used the setting … then came up with the challenge idea (after I had already written mine). … The other story (On the Floor) turned into another challenge for an alternative ending – inspired by some readers who were surprised at my ending. I have another on in the queue – one inspired by a video.
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PS: Oh yes … I returned to the Footprints post … saw your story, and noticed that was your first time at my little corner of the world. I recall thinking how good it was for a first-time commenter to join in the fun. Thanks for the special moment.
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I see three old ladies, sisters, known collectively as The Magpies. They’re sitting there waiting for their grandnephew to arrive with his fiancée, who they already know they do not like.
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L.O.V.E your imagination!!!! Yes, and when the fiancée arrives, turns out she has some dark magic and she turns the three sisters into thee brothers, who then conspire to…. well, you know the REST of the story, I’m sure.
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I was just thinking what a perfect spot for an interview when I realised it was fiction. Brilliant.
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I think the best fiction is that which brings us into a reality (even if it’s make believe). Thanks so much for your comment!! ❤
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You need a response with a positive tale. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my talent for fiction now that I’m involved in marketing nonfiction. Your early mention of “ageism” brought back memories of interviews where I’d walk into the room and watch interviewers’ faces fall as they thought, “I don’t want to hire my mother.”
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Ouch! I know what you mean, Paula. The bad thing is that I remember when I was 35 and thought anyone over 50 was ANCIENT. ;-0
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Cute short story Pamela. Sadly, I can relate to your character in having a hard time finding work. Age seems to be the block. 😦
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Our job is to unBLOCK the youth with our wisdom…and perhaps blue florescent shoes.
Best of luck, Brad. I hope you find your perfect work space soon.
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Thank you Pamela. Or maybe some blue suede shoes? 🙂
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They would do just fine! 🙂
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🙂
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That seems like the perfect setting for the perfect job interview for the perfect job! Who would not want to work there?
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I know, right? I’m hoping some HR managers read this. Maybe they’ll see how many more enthusiastic applicants they could get if they changed the work environment a bit!
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I was so hoping this was a real interview! Wouldn’t that be cool? Great piece of flash, Pam.
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Same … I was convinced it was!
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The fact is, when I visit offices of friends/family/associates and see the huddled forms stuck in their tiny cubicles, I shiver in horror and wish on a star that they could find an office in a forest with the sky and leaf canopy as ceiling.
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I worked in a cubicle for 18 years, Pam. I can relate to the wish for something green besides one little florescent-bathed plant. There would be something so magical about being invited to an interview in the forest. 🙂
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To be honest, Diana, with your creative energy and imagination, I’m not sure how you survived those 18 years. I’m hoping you did clinical work outside those walls often also.
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Those were the business years before counseling. I was a project manager and spent a lot of time in the field — not the kind with grass and wildflowers, but out of the cubicle. 🙂
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What a wonderful piece of flash fiction, Pam! It would be so great for interviews to take place in an environment like this! My first thought when I saw the picture was that Alice and the Mad Hatter had already left the tea party. 😄
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You’re not alone in wondering if the Mad Hatter just left for another pot of tea. 🙂
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I loved this, Pam!!!! My now, long ago career in HR made me laugh, wonder and speculate at this quirky,
unusual interview setting!!! Loved the job title and the requirements!! LOL!!! Thank you for
this delightful little story!! Would love to hear Chapter 2….
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Hello my long-time (but long-time no-see) friend. Yes, I thought of you with your HR background. Think of how much fun you could have had if you had free-range on the interview setting! Knowing you, though, perhaps it would have been on the deck of a sailboat. 🙂
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I love the way your mind works, Pam. You’re tempting me to try this flash fiction exercise someday. 🙂
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I hope you DO try it, Jennifer. Photo prompts are so much fun, particularly if we writers don’t THINK about what we’re going to write, but just move the pen and see where it leads. That’s what happened with me. I saw the photo and realized immediately that this woman was going to have the surprise of her life when she reached the interview address. 🙂
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Wonderful, Pam. Loved the story. The image conjures a bit of Wiccan practice to me. That would make for a whole other story!
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Ah, yes. I have several friends who are Wiccans, and they’d probably love your story. I know I would!
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You got me! I thought this was a real story and wanted more. What an original spin on this photograph. When I looked at the photograph, I thought of Queen Victoria spending the time in the woods — you can tell I’m a fan of the PBS show.
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You and me both, Patricia. I finally just saw the first episode of the new session (there were two parts for some reason…?). Yes, the forest was so much more prevalent and part of life back then, before it was cut down as the population increased tenfold.
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What magic you weave, Pam. I should know by now your story telling mixes reality and make-believe, but I fell for it hook, line and stinker. 🙂
Still, I understand the truth of age-ism, which I have encountered recently trying to test the waters for a publisher. TIght jeans and an orange sweater might do it – ha!
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I did feel a bit badly, using the first person with this flash fiction, wondering if my readers would think it was me. But all of our fiction includes part of us, does it not? Ageism shows a lack of imagination in the young. We need to change their minds, either with blue florescent shoes, or better, with our witty wise words about life!!
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Ha!
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Look how much traffic and chit chat using first person has created, so on this occasion it was a fabulous choice. Finding out it was a FF piece was like a sneaky twist! x
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I admit, I like twists in my yoga practice…and in my stories. 🙂
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I loved that ending. What an awesome site for an interview!
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We can only hope that such an interview setting really takes place somewhere in this world! ❤
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Looks like a Pow-wow of ghosts!
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Now that’s a neat story line!
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Pam, your stories turn out to be true in the end and I wasn’t expecting this interview to be fictional but those chairs in sharp contrast to the prompt speak volumes about your creative spirit. I would love to be interviewed in those surroundings though I have always enjoyed to be on the other side of the table but I am delighted that there is no table! 🙂
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Oh, I like your turnaround here, Balroop. I think for those who are usually doing the interviewing, it’s good to get the perspective of those being interviewed. Interviews are funny creatures – they’re like tests without pen and paper, but just eye-to-eye contact and perhaps trick questions. But if the setting was serene and beautiful, my guess is that both sides would be more relaxed and less pressured. 🙂
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I absolutely agree Pam…serenity of surroundings does seep in 🙂
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Love your alliteration here! ❤
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The future director of possibilities . . . interviewed in a field of possibility. Perfect!
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Actually, your comment here is PERFECT! 🙂 xoxo
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“A stiffed back” interview for a director of burial services with the cemetery bordered on one side by a thinned forest. Or it could be an interview for a field manager/ranger of a nature preserve. The job seeker might be quizzed about the trees and plants and birds that inhabit the area and what could be offered to encourage public participation.
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You are a realist and a thinker, Yvonne. Great ideas on what’s really going on in this photo prompt. Made me think of when my daughter took a teaching test in MA after she graduated with a teaching degree in CA. The test included lots of questions about MA trees and plants, but she only knew about CA nature, not New England’s!!! Ack. 🙂
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I love your response to this photo, Pam. Just seeing the photo alone would make me start thinking of a scary story. I like your creative, positive spin!
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I don’t/can’t watch scary horror films, nor read horror books (too many nightmares afterwards). So, yes, my fiction turns more fantastical and toward the light. Thanks so much for reading it here! xo
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Beautiful and entertaining! I was disappointed to find out at the end that it did end. Damn prompt .. keep it going!!!
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What every writer wants to hear —- MORE! ❤
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I want that job! Where can I apply?
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Somewhere in the Realm of Possibilities. 🙂
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There is nothing lacking in your creativity! I love this piece and the way you interpreted the photo. 🙂
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Thanks Norah. My imagination keeps me company on these cold wintry days for sure. Haha. I loved entering that green beautiful forest in my mind. Hope YOU’RE staying cool. xo
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I’ll join you in that beautiful forest. It sounds cool. I hate to admit that I’m using the air-con on and off to stay cool. Our summer is still quite warm (hot, even).
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Loved reading this Pamela, ‘The Director of Possibilities’ now that would really interest me 🙂 As to the chairs my first thoughts were saying, now these interviewers know a thing or two about Nature when we sit within her office of possibilities.
I want the story to continue as you sit down take in your surroundings to see robed figures walk out of the woodland with light surrounding them. As you felt their harmony envelop you.
And when one sits down to ask the first question..
” So tell me Pamela, do you Believe in All things are Possible? and how would you tackle some one who said told you only Dreamers thought that? 🙂
From one Dreamer to another.. Enjoy Your Creative Year as Director Pamela.. You got the Job! xxx ❤
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You’ve made my DAY!! (And you wrote the second part of this story…!!). I shall fulfill my new job as Director of Creative Possibilities as joyfully and lovingly as you do, Sue.
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Bless you Pamela… Have Super Day.. 🙂 I will.. xxx
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❤
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This was great Pamela…I loved wondering where you were going with this. I also wondered if it was you writing or a new character in your book. You have me thinking now.
The setting is calm and serene and beautiful…I love the woods. I see myself sitting there, waiting for my two best friends…I have brought the wine, one will bring the lemon meringue pie and the third will fly in late, in total disarray, flopped in her chair and asks, “what’s happening today”…the two of us that arrived on time, with our gifts, will roll our eyes to the heavens…once again.
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I can visualize your meeting-in-the-forest-with-friends scene perfectly, Cheryl, with your description here. Wonderful, how good friendships mean putting up with each other’s idiosyncrasies with rolled eyes and love.
Besides that, who could pass up a forest meeting with lemon meringue pie??? 🙂
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One of those two best friends makes the best lemon meringue pie….LOL
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Lucky YOU! 🙂
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A secret meeting of statesmen back in the 1700’s plotting some political upheaval.
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I’d like to be a butterfly flying amidst the tall grass, watching and listening to that plot!
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I love this story, Pam. So hopeful.
(I’ve been trying [trying everything] for 5+ years to get a job [any job] back in the southwest. Usually I’m just ignored. I could count the number of interviews I’ve had on one hand. I hide my age on applications as best I can, but they can tell age by the level of experience. As for the federal jobs… Oh no of course they wouldn’t engage in ageism. The date of birth is on the top line of their forms.)
So this little story gave me a smile. Hugs.
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Oh noooo, Teagan. My wish for you is that you find a job that allows you be the Director of all your Possibilities! ❤
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This is a great piece of fiction, Pam. I must be honest, that chair setting certainly doesn’t remind me of an interview in my field (accounting). It looks like something secret and fun and to do with reading and literature.
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My first thought was ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ – admittedly with not much foundation other than it’s in a wood. I think your reasoning is better.
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I’ve been meaning to come over and visit, so your comment on “The Art of Racing in the Rain” finally got me here. (And thanks for visiting.) I liked your piece a lot – on target, I’d say.
Me, I had a pretty strong reaction to those chairs. I felt they were for me, my mom, and my dad, who have both passed over. We were going to be given a chance to discuss how our lives went together, to clear away the old misunderstandings, to remember “the best of” our shared experiences, to see what they think of how their child is doing now, and to just let go of all that bothered us, and see each other in as pure a state as possible. And then I’ll be left in the chair alone for awhile to find a good place for it all in my heart.
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I loved your choice of flash fiction to match these three chairs, Pam. Definitely you would have been offered your position of a lifetime! Your outfit sounds positively fun and no one would guess your age, my dear, anyway!
I look at these chairs as a job interview for a member of the gypsy’s caravan. Out of the woods would be a handsome older version of Johnny Depp, wondering if you could improvise a scene from your favorite play or movie.
I would turn my chair around and act very relaxed, talking like I was confident to the other two people. I would say I wasn’t easily swayed or did I easily fall for suave men.
Then I would stand up, put a foot up on the chair and try to seem “hip” like a modern day Katherine from “Taming in the Shrew.”
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Oooh I love this! I want more 🙂 Who turned up to interview you? The trees? Fairies? People who’ve decided to live and work in the woods away from the mainstream? The wind? And what does the job involve? Great piece, and it’s full of possibilities!!! You definitely would have got the job 🙂 Love, Harula xxx
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