WAR’S OVER

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tree2bcrook

Copyright — Madison Woods

It’s time once more for the new Friday Fictioneers’ weekly story challenge. This weekly challenge is to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt supplied for that week. The gracious hostess for this challenge is the talented author and artist Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s prompt is the Second Summer Rerun as Rochelle is enjoying a well-deserved vacation. It was first posted on August 16, 2012, and supplied by Madison Woods. Thanks again Madison.

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/27-june-2014-summer-rerun-ii/

Genre: Historical Fiction

Word Count: 100

WAR’S OVER by P.S. Joshi

“Dad,” said Bob Jr., “Is it true that great-great-great-granddad Mitchell came home from the Civil War in 1865, put his gun in the old maple tree, and the tree grew around it?”

Bob Sr. looked at his son and become serious. “Yep, he sure did. He was sick of war and had seen both his cousin and his best friend die. It almost broke his heart. So he came back, put that gun in the tree, married his childhood sweetheard, and never used a gun in anger again. He always said there was no glory in war, only loss

friday-fictioneers

45 thoughts on “WAR’S OVER”

    • Thanks Bjorn. He’d just had enough of the memory of that war and the gun was part of it. I’m glad you liked the story. At least the northern soldiers got a small pension. I don’t think the southerners got anything. In fact, many of them lost everything in that war. —Susan

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    • Thanks Courtney. Yes, that was a terrible war. Men died in the hospitals as well as on the battlefield. In the hospitals they died from disease as well as infection. I’m glad you liked the story. 🙂 —Susan

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  4. Mitchell had an unusual way of being sure the gun would never be used again for war…and a great way of showing a lesson. Unexpected take.

    Two things, one large, one small. Large: your inLinkz link doesn’t work, so you may want to re-link and have Rochelle remove the first one. Small: ” cousin, and his best friend, die”–commas aren’t needed. 🙂

    janet

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    • Thanks Janet. I wasn’t sure about those commas and have removed them. I tried the link and it worked okay for me. No one else seems to be having a problem. I don’t know what happened when you tried it, but it seems fine now. I checked it out when I linked and there didn’t seem to be a problem then either. Thanks. 🙂 —Susan

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  9. That’s a great idea, well done Susan. I too had a problem getting to your story, and the same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I ended up re-posting but then was told the original link had started working again. Gremlins…

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    • Sandra, With my story “Campus Visit”, WordPress had inserted “Private” in my title that cut the link. I reposted it as “The Campus Visit” after sending a message to WordPress to tell them what happened and that I didn’t want the blog to be marked as “Private” I emailed Rochelle to tell her what happened. At that time I found it wouldn’t link so I knew there was a problem. When I posted this story, I double checked to make sure the link was okay and it worked. After Janet’s comment, I checked again and it worked. I left Rochelle a comment telling her Janet had a problem and to also check my story’s link. No one other than Janet, and now you, has reported a problem, so I don’t know what’s happening. It seems to be an “on and off” problem and that’s really tiresome. Thanks. 🙂 —Susan

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    • Thanks Rochelle. I’m very glad you liked the story and that you were nice enough to check out the link and my story. I don’t know what was happening with my link for a while. Every time I tried it there was no problem. For some reason, both Janet and Sandra said they had trouble. Sandra said that she had some problem on and off with her link also and that maybe it was gremlins. 🙂 —Susan

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  13. Those who has been in a war and seen its dark side knows well to stay far from it.. the tree covers the death with life.. beautiful Susan.

    Just one thing confuses me.. the title says the story is by P. S. Joshi ??

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    • Thanks Perry. I’m glad you liked the story. I can’t guarantee anything about that tree after reading some of the other stories. That’s one odd tree as it seems to have multiple personalities. 😀 —Susan

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    • Thanks Russell. I’ve read about the Civil War, but I hadn’t remembered the statistics. It was horrible both for the soldiers and their families as well as the country. I’m sure the statistics were high in WWII as well. My dad told my brother to go in the U.S. Navy during WWII as he had done in WWI as the conditions were better than in the ground war. I think my brother intended to go in the navy anyway. They sensed war was coming. My brother joined up before the war started. I’m glad you liked my story. In reality, I think many of the soldiers who could keep their guns used them after the war for hunting for food. My dad did some hunting during WWII. He hunted for ducks and rabbits. I’m glad you liked the story. 🙂 —Susan

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    • Thanks Cole. I know what you mean. In reality those veterans who could keep their guns probably took them home and used them to hunt for food. My dad used to hunt during WWII to supply extra meat for us. He hunted ducks and rabbits. I’m glad you like the story. 🙂 —Susan

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    • Thanks Liz. I think we certainly need a lot stricter gun control. My dad was actually a gun collector, but he never used one in war as he was in the U.S. Navy. He was born in 1897 and had hunted since he was a boy. In later years, he stopped because he said there were too few animals left. He’d hunted ducks and rabbits. 🙂 —Susan.

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