Midge Left Something Unexpected in Her Will
Flash Fiction, Newsletter and Writing Prompt — Could I handle the Legacy I Discovered?
I switched off the engine and stared at a bunch of keys on the passenger seat of my car. Their ancient appearance was only enhanced by the cardboard luggage label annotated in faded ink tied to the ring.
Great Aunt Midge’s house was not pre-possessing, it looked as diminished and sagging as she had at the end of her life. My guilt spiked that she’d lived here alone; I had only visited once when I was a child. I nurtured a hazy memory of a picnic in the garden, with apples from her orchard and cake with delicious fudgy icing.
My family had lost touch, but over subsequent decades Midge had not forgotten me. Her solicitor tracked me down when she was hospitalized, so I was able to offer companionship in her final days. Now the house and the barn were mine — an unexpected legacy, for me to occupy or sell.
I scooped up the keys, shouldering my handbag as I climbed out of the car. The stiff front door needed a nudge with my hip after I turned the deadbolts. The living room was a riot of floral patterns, a tired sofa vying with the blooms on the curtains and wallpaper for dominance. The walls were lined with books, calling me to browse their titles, but they could wait until I’d looked around.
Midge’s kitchen was pin-neat, although the cabinets and appliances could’ve come from the Wartime Museum. I pushed through to a sunroom at the back where a comfortable love seat was faded but well-used. Midge’s spectacles and a romance novel nearby let me know how she liked to while away the hours.
Another key in the bunch unlocked the half-paned glass door into the garden. It swung wide open allowing fresh air into the house. I stepped down to a red brick patio that led onto her garden. Butterflies and bees were humming and circulating the herbs and flowers, which had not grown unruly without Midge to tend them. The grass was neat rather than the knee-high jungle I’d expected. Someone had been tending the plot, but my great-aunt had never mentioned having a gardener.
At the end, she hadn’t always talked sense. Frequent rambling references to the old ways and promises were likely indicators of the onset of dementia, but plenty of the time she was grounded and lucid.
It was quite a shock when a diminutive figure drew near and spoke.
“Who are you?” Their voice was gravelly but piping.
The roughness matched their weathered face and stooped posture and perhaps the pitch was because they were small, with a head that only reached to my waist. The creature wore green garments, which blended with the foliage, but had tightly curled fleece on its bottom half like a Herdwick sheep.
“I might ask you the same,” I snapped back because he’d startled me.
“I’m Parsanovan,” he replied, giving a courtly bow.
“I’m Hannah, Midge was my great aunt.” I matched his politeness with some of my own.
“Where is Midge? She has not visited the garden of late.”
“I’m afraid she’s died,” I said gently and studied the creature’s face.
The other-worldly amber eyes clouded at that news, but after a pause they were turned on me.
“So you will be my new mistress.”
It wasn’t posed as a question, but the creature’s words invoked many from me.
April Prompt — Legacy
Welcome to Tantalizing Tales’ monthly newsletter, and the start of spring (in my part of the world). April brings a fresh prompt : Legacy
Legacy could take your fiction in many directions : something that’s inherited in a will worked well for the story above. A legacy can be positive or negative, something in a character’s genes, such as a skill or bloodline passed down via ancestry. In a futuristic context it could mean something political or social, the landscape left behind after a war or geological disaster.
- Why not surprise the editors at Tantalizing Tales with how you utilise this prompt to create historical, supernatural, sci-fi, steamy romance, chilling, or humorous stories.
- We’ll take your flash fiction (under 500 words) for Micro Monday and publish longer stories for the rest of the week.
- It’s not obligatory to publish your response to this prompt with us, although we’d love that. If you place your ‘legacy inspired’ fiction with another publication, please link back to this post and tag me or May More 💜 Tales so that we can find your story to feature it in the next newsletter… Like Paula Shablo did in Uncle Burton’s Little Black Book.
Please be kind and clap the max (50) for whichever story submissions you read, and scroll to the end so the writer scores a ‘full read’ from the Medium algorithm.
Featuring Our Prompt Stories
Our prompt for March was AI which invoked several sci-fi stories, and a fairy tale. Write for this prompt or January’s if you wish, there is no deadline.
Prompt — Chat Bot / AI
I am Woman. Worship me, from here to Eternity by May More 💜 Tales
Cyber Woman: Take me to whatever debauched place a libertine, like you, wishes to visit…
He Was a Love Fool for the Robot by May More 💜 Tales
They could service any sexual desires, no matter how perverse. All they asked in return was devotion…
Plugged In Part Two: The A.I. Companion by Alexander Martin
We all need some love and care, but is it worth the price?
A Novice Sorcerer is in a Hurry to Make it Big by Jacinta Palmer
A cautionary tale about reckless multiplication
Robots Now Feel Love — Time to Start Breaking Their “Hearts” by Ryan Klemek
They’ll never truly be alive until they’ve experienced rejection and bitterness
Meet Eve-My A.I. Creation by Laura Knapke (Nap-Key)
How may I serve you?
The True Fake story of Chat Bot and the Obseletes by Zatanna Dark
Seriously, there’s like only Two Vague Sexual References
The Scary Feelings Of Artificial Intelligence by Marie A. Rebelle
Chatty-Miss is my AI and a friend, helping me to see, but then something changes
Love will never Die in the Box of Deadly Sins by Solomon Sinn Seer
“She was the best I ever knew.” Hoddler said, tugging my arm. The best what? I wondered, but it was time to put him into the Box
Virtual Lust [1] by Hardison Parker
An interactive series of sexual adventures.
Prompt — One way or another, I’m going to find you…
A Blood Transfusion Helps the Anti-hero by May More 💜 Tales
The Curse #10: He looked much better, happier. A hot dude once again. His eyes were sparkling, and he was smiling that slow sexy grin of…
“I don’t want you to be a gentleman…”
Featured Authors / Stories
In March we chose to shine the spotlight on some of our older stories:
An invitation from the last single girl in town Solomon Sinn Seer
Underneath that dress, Carmen is wearing the kind of lingerie that drives grown men crazy…
Lionel cleared his throat. It had been so long since he’d been in the company of a woman — let alone two hot girls like this — that it took him a second to find his voice…
A man recalls his first love in college
Shafira’s forest lover Heather Kinnane
Shafira has always loved the peace and quiet of the forest. But now there’s something else to draw her back…
Plus we featured a prolific author Dianne Herbert
I sat down to write at a computer and some erotica appeared! I write erotica as well as true stories of living nude and my life.
Have you ever wondered about those unfortunates that get pulled out of line?
News
- List Library Have you noticed that your Medium profile now shows that you have a Library? Select it from the drop-down menu, it will show lists you have created. Here’s a ‘how to’ on lists : Such a useful tool to organise your stories; to separate your essays from fiction or poetry, or group work by genre.
- If you write a series you can group every episode into a list and add the link to your stories.
- Maybe you’ve had notification that one of your stories has been saved to someone else’s list? I find it flattering to be added to someone’s curated favourites in this way, and anyone can do it.
- Another feature Medium added to the way lists work is that lists generate notifications whenever the curator adds to it, making a serialised story or any grouping you’ve set up much easier for readers to keep up-to-date with.
Thank goodness because Medium doesn’t give us fiction writers a lot of help!
Subscribers’ Newsletter
May More 💜 Tales is always looking for ways to help us provide a better service for our readers and our writers, and she’s just launched our weekly newsletter on Substack. It is a round-up of all stories via email, ensuring that your work is read as widely as possible. Why not subscribe so that you can support others who write for the publication?
It will be May More 💜 Tales’s turn to share stories and news with you next month, but in the meantime please consider writing for us — either to a prompt or freestyling.
Our niche is “Tantalizing” and we want the best fiction to entertain our loyal readers.
“Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda, playwright