Tag: #sixsentencestories

As a popular guide Steve told his clientele what they wanted to hear about the history of the island, its famous sandy beaches, its monarchy (or rather dictatorship), and the concentration camps. Things went well for him until he himself stopped believing the narratives he told others.

His doubts began when construction workers discovered mass graves followed by the leaked results of forensic analyses. His suspicions were confirmed when the graves suddenly disappeared and every major news outlet reported over and over again that the graves never existed nor had any “forensic analysis” ever, ever, been conducted implicating the royal house.

Since he was merely a tourist guide Steve felt safe including his suspicions, albeit in a hushed tone, during the narrations he gave of the island figuring he ought to slip the truth through the cracks if he could. When he lost clientele he suspected he must have crossed someone’s line in the shifty island sand, but that no longer bothered him.

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Denise offers the prompt word “guide” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Pharaoh’s annoyance increased when his magicians, one after the other, and then his wise men could not come up with a satisfying interpretation of his dream where seven thin cattle ate seven fat cattle. After the chief butler remembered how Joseph, a foreigner and prisoner, once calmed his own anxieties with dream interpretations that later came true Pharaoh ordered that Joseph be brought to him.

Joseph told Pharaoh that his dream meant he should set a discerning man over Egypt to reserve a fifth of the produce from seven years of plenty, represented by the fat cattle, so the people would have food to eat during the later seven years of famine, represented by the thin cattle. The interpretation pleased Pharaoh as well as many of Pharaoh’s top courtiers who saw themselves being chosen to lead the project.

Joseph’s humility in crediting his own God rather than himself for any dream interpretation he gave impressed Pharaoh. Not trusting his own courtiers he set Joseph in charge.

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Denise offers the prompt word “reserve” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. This is a partial retelling of Genesis 40-41.

When George saw his simple-minded companion, Bart, go through the narrow entrance way showing George how to squeeze in if he bowed down a bit (actually quite a bit) George realized he wouldn’t fit, at least not with all the baggage he had. After yelling at Bart to come back, calling him an idiot for going through that hole in the wall, and seeing its door close George gave up on his companion as lost.

Later in the evening George saw Bart through a bright window at the very wedding feast they were both originally planning to attend. He went back and found the door banging on it after he, George, of all good and worthy people, was refused admission by the doorkeeper.

His complaints turned into weepy indignation which George alternated with teeth gnashing, a futile rebellion at this point. The fire burning inside him synchronized with the growing darkness as he uttered ineffective curses against those at the wedding feast, a feast he declared he wouldn’t attend now if they paid him.

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Denise offers the prompt word “lost” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. I was thinking of Luke 13.

Greg told his three friends sitting with him in a booth for lunch that he had peeked out from under a cultural blanket of deception, a demonic snow job, that had covered him for decades. They listened politely amused by the stuff he came up with knowing he’d be over with his revelations shortly.

It’s not that he had been right often before. Generally he got things wrong especially when he offered health tips for losing weight. But he seemed pretty sure about what he had seen.

That they thought he was nuts only confirmed Greg’s suspicions, which he tactically kept to himself for the moment, that the cultural deception he experienced had disarmed them as well.

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Denise offers the prompt word “blanket” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Jeff knew from personal experience that he was not only up against human beings although they were the evident ones attacking in the field so much as their demonic manipulators. It was still possible for those human adversaries to flip and become allies, but no chance at all for the demons to do so.

The manipulated, however, didn’t believe in demons and pursued Jeff with extreme prejudice.

If it were as easy as taking a red pill Jeff would have taken one himself when he was under their influence. Today if someone offered him such a pill he’d wonder whether it contained the very witchcraft that caused the war in the first place. As he put on his armour that morning, his last morning as it turned out, he was grateful that he was still found useful in spite of all he had done wrong.

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Denise offers the prompt word “armour” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. I was thinking of Ephesians 6, but you are welcome to imagine these manipulators as zombies, aliens, rogue robots, or some other symbol of the demonic.

Joe tossed the letter into the box not as a keepsake but as one of those things he didn’t have time to sort through at the moment. More than two decades later while cleaning the basement he noticed the box and went through its contents. He found his father’s letter at the bottom. Reading it for the first time he realized his father was not scolding him in spite of their disagreements but rather offering him assistance should he need anything during that tense period when he decided to move away from the family home.

Having a rebellious son now of his own Joe understood what must have been going through his father’s mind. Although he and his family reconciled shortly after his move, it wasn’t until he read his father’s letter that he began wondering just how much of his past was lived under misconceptions of what was actually going on.

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Denise offers the prompt word “keepsake” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Tom could not see how to get from where he was to where he wanted to be. Nor did anyone have a suggestion outside of praying that he get well soon.

In desperation he resigned himself to whatever would happen hoping he could get his house in order before it did.

While sitting outside in the warm summer air Tom’s appetite returned and his death influenced fantasies left him. Within an hour and without any evident treatment to credit with the change he suddenly found himself where he didn’t think it was any longer possible for him to be. He got better.

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Denise offers the prompt word “treatment” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

In his basement Brian kept books on mystical mathematics, astrology, post-modern literature, psychic philosophy and occult guides featuring faeries, demons, muses, mother goddesses, and witchcraft practices promoting what was in effect a year-long Halloween for him. As he read those books he was charmed by the writing, but nonetheless they failed to relieve him of his self-loathing and depression.

During a particularly low period and after persistent nagging from a friend who insisted that he had nothing of value to lose by doing so Brian started listening to an online audio Bible along with commentaries. Following a suggestion for deliverance in one of the commentaries he destroyed any occult object he could find in his house including books, tarot decks, pendulums, crystals, and horoscopes all stuff he picked up over the years to help him see into what he thought were innocent spirit realms. Who knows where the devil loves to hide?

Today, far removed from those times and looking back, Brian sees his former ways like the viewer of a video asking himself how he could ever have been that guy, but glad he no longer was.

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Denise offers the prompt word “video” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

George was told that the fall colors this year were particularly beautiful near the nature center and so he went there and followed a trail leading from the picnic tables by the river.

He hadn’t thought that he had ever been there before, a place where parents would take young children, but then the fountain of his memory opened. He recalled that there should be a loop up ahead of this trail leading back to the center and sure enough there it was with the remembered rustic rail fencing and signs. He also remembered his father and uncle slowly walking behind him while his mother and aunt were waiting for them with sandwiches and pie.

As George returned to the nature center, having forgotten all about the foliage, a rush of regret and remorse led to repentance, something he should have expressed decades ago, for all of his idle words and rebellious deeds directed against his family. Leaving the center he felt a burden lift from his heart opening a future he had not imagined was even there before, but which had been waiting for him all this time.

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Denise offers the prompt word “fountain” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. I was thinking of the last two verses of Psalm 138.

Robert looked at the nearly empty jar of oil wondering how to handle the rest of his afternoon. He could read, but even though the words made dictionary sense, together they conveyed no ideas to him. Earlier in the day his retreating fever allowed him to reply to some emails sent by those concerned about his heath. He kept messing things up with his typing making mistakes he would not have made before this cold.

He could sleep more and he might try that if those feverish dreams would stop telling him weird tales of spinning spirals absorbing the cosmos and begging him to help.

Robert realized he should take death seriously since this could be it and indeed, if it were it, he knew he wouldn’t be ready, because there was no way in his present state he could get near enough oil for his lamp.

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Denise offers the word “handle” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories. If the oil and the lamp seem puzzling rather than terrifying think of Matthew 25:1-12 about the wise and foolish virgins and the oil only some of them carried for their lamps.