Tag: Children

Jade’s Arcade: Video Games at the Mall

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Flash Fiction: A Wayne Donald & Kinley Chris Adventure

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels. The image depicts a glowing, lit sign that reads “Arcade” hung above the entrance to a hallway. At the other end of the hall, we see a doorway leading to a room with different arcade games.

“I gots $5.75″ to spend at the arcade, Kinely Chris. That ain’t enough for four hours’ worth of playing video games. What you got?”

Wayne Donald yells to her big sister as she’s scraping change from her piggy bank for their impending trip to the mall to explore Jade’s Arcade. The girls do not get out often. With their grandmother being the town’s declared homebody, their Uncle Henry has access to them every few weeks and allows them a trip or two upon those visits.

“I have ten dollars. Now, lemme just say this… You know as well as I do that Uncle Henry ain’t gon’ give us more than $5.00 a piece when he comes, so I’ll go on and give you two of my ten dollars, so you’ll have $12.75 once he’s done handin’ out money. I’ll have ’bout a dollar more’n ya, so we can split that last dollar later, before we leave. That sound all right t’ya, Wayne Donald?”

Wayne Donald is shaking up her piggy bank, trying to see if any more coins are dangling from side to side. The empty echo of nothingness signals to her that she has nothing left to spare. She looks in Kinley Chris’s direction and nods her approval before speaking.

“Thanks, Kinley. I sure do appreciate that. I know which games I’m gon’ play, too! Mrs. Pac-Man, Frogger, Skee-Ball, and Air Hockey. And if Uncle Henry’ll put me on his shoulders, I’ll play basketball, too!”

“Ya ain’t skilled enough to play Frogger, and you always bouncin’ the balls into other lanes with Skee-Ball. Stick to what ya’know, and that’s Mrs. Pac-Man and Air Hockey.”

Silence fills the room, and the younger sister nods her head in agreement, and tilts it to the left—she’s trying to gauge whether or not she should just stick to what she knows. More than likely, she’s going to do what she wants anyway. She coughs into her cupped hands and rebuts.

“Kinley Chris, I do believe I’m gon’ play what I said I’m gon’ play. If I don’t try, how will I learn?”

“Y’know what, Wayne Donald?! Ya got me there. Ya got me.”

Uncle Henry pulls up to their grandmother’s castle-like home, parks his truck in the driveway, and honks the horn twice. The girls skate down the stairs, yell their goodbyes to their grandmother, and bolt through the front door.

“HEY, UNCLE HENRY!” They shout in unison.

“Hey, girls. So, Jade’s Arcade, right? Should be just a few tykes there by the time we get to town. Y’all buckle up for safety. And here’s ya money.”

He leans slightly over the front seat of his truck and hands the girls a $5.00 bill apiece—crispy bills, too. The girls look at each other with huge smiles, slapping their faces.

“THANKS, UNCLE HENRY!” The hum of the truck presses into the cool air of the late morning. Uncle Henry turns his radio to 94.5, and the lovely sounds of electric jazz fill the truck. A smile slaps his face, too, and before the girls can say anything else, he says tenderly…

“Y’all welcome.”

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

This concludes the adventures of Wayne Donald and Kinley Chris. Thank you for joining me on their memorable journey!

This flash fiction piece is my offering for this week’s Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. It is week #357. When I saw the image, the girls sprang into action, and the story above is what came to me.

Perhaps, you’ve got a story brewing within you, too, for this week’s image offering?

Scattered Words: Poems for Jernee Timid Loadholt is available now! Have you gotten your copy? Hardcover|eBook

The Fat Cat and the Red Balloons

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A Wayne Donald & Kinley Chris Adventure

Photo by  Reba Spike on Unsplash. The image depicts a fluffy tabby cat floating through the air. It appears the cat is suspended in midair by ten red heart-shaped foil helium balloons, the strings of which can be seen near his midsection. The sky in the background is a deep blue, with clouds scattered throughout.

“Kinley Chris, you see that fat cat anywhere down there? Grandma said it rushed outta the art room after knockin’ over her famous vase, and now I can’t find it nowheres!”

Wayne Donald shouts from the top of their ancient staircase down to her sister near the basement. She is standing on her tiptoes with her right hand on her hip, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“Wayne Donald, girl, you better stop that yellin’ at the top of them stairs like that before Grandma come huntin’ for ya. I don’t see that fat cat down here, and it shouldn’t come this far anyway. Check the bedrooms and then the two guest bathrooms. It’ll probably pop up again when it’s supper time.

Wayne Donald searches each guest bathroom, bedroom, and then circles back around to the staircase, wandering down the hall toward their grandmother’s bedroom. With each step, she grows curiously curiouser as to where their tabby could be.

“Bruce Dennis! You fat cat, where are ya? BRUCE D-E-N-N-I-S!!! Where are ya, Bruce Dennis?”

Just like the girls, their fluffy and pleasantly plump tabby cat is double-named with what most people would consider a name fit for a man; however, the cat is female. On a somber and stormy night, the cat, who was then a kitten, found its way to their front door. The girls heard something scratching at it lightly. They begged their grandmother to walk to the door with them to see who it could be. When they peeled back the squeaky door, to their surprise, the kitten sat there with the most pitiful look on its face. The girls pleaded to keep it, and their grandmother approved.

They screamed names back and forth until finally, Kinley Chris chose the name Bruce, and Wayne Donald selected Dennis. Their grandmother nodded and tutted them with her hand to get the girls out of her hair. Bruce Dennis had become a part of their family.

“Bruce Dennis! Brucie! Where is that cat?”

Wayne Donald walked deeper into the bowels of her grandmother’s bedroom and slowly approached the old window. Upon looking outside, she gasped. Hanging at least 450 feet in the air was Bruce Dennis, tied to a bundle of red balloons. Wayne Donald almost fainted.

“Kinley Chris! Get up here right now! I say, get on up here!” She took a moment to breathe and then scolded Bruce Dennis for being outside. “Bruce Dennis! Now, how in God’s holy name did you get out there? Where’d you get them balloons?! KINLEY CHRIS!!! I SAY, GET UP HERE NOW!”

Kinely Chris raced up the stairs, taking them by two, and ran to their grandmother’s bedroom. If she had been any faster, smoke would be at her heels.

“Wayne Donald, I declare, you’d better have somethin’ serious for me callin’ my name like you The Law.” Wayne Donald looked at her big sister, her big come-hither eyes stretching wide as the Nile River. She huffed and pointed to the window.

“Kinley Chris, you just go on and look out that there window. You just look. Bruce Dennis is floatin’ up toward heaven.”

“Bruce Dennis is doing WHAT?!”

The girls stood at the window, both of them flabbergasted by the scene before them, and shocked at just how peaceful their fat cat appeared. They looked at each other and within seconds knew exactly what to do…

“GRANDMA, BRUCE DENNIS IS ALL RED BALLOONED OUT AND IS ON HER WAY UP TO HEAVEN!”

Their grandmother sat peacefully in her art room, playing her jazz records and tapping her feet. She tutted the girls silently to herself and shooed their summoning with her hand.

She would not be moved.

This piece is my offering for this week’s Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge, #347. As soon as I saw the image, I knew I wanted the girls to make another appearance. You can read their debut here.

Wayne Donald

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Flash Fiction: Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge

The image depicts the corner of a room with bright green walls and ornate stacked moulding in white and gold. We see part of a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A sofa with green and gold striped fabric and gold trim sits against one wall. Various artworks of different sizes adorn the walls, some framed in gold and some black. Photo by Elif Gulgac on Unsplash.

“Where the hell is Wayne Donald?!”

Kinley Chris yells from across the salty shore. Her younger sister shot like lightning from their grandmother’s front porch to the mouth of the beach when she heard the fireworks.

To try and coax her home, Kinley runs at full speed with a bag of gummy bears dangling from her back pocket–her sister’s favorite snack.

“Wayne Donald! Wayne Donald! I’ve got your favorite snack! Come on out here. I ain’t got all day!”

The girls are the two most oddly named children at their school–in their neighborhood. Wayne Donald, the youngest, at age 7, is a blonde-haired, green-eyed turbo train of unbridled anxiety. Kinley Chris, 13, is cinnamon sunshine with a pinch of “Don’t waste my time”, and their personalities speak before they do.

Plainly put, they don’t need an introduction.

The girls’ grandmother sits in her art room, rocking back and forth to the sound of the island’s fireworks.

No one is allowed in this room, not even her husband (not the girls’ biological grandfather). The room is both peaceful and creepy. It’s a vibrant green with a cream and gold ceiling, and has Art Deco-like furniture. It smells like a scene from a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon married to last night’s dinner. The girls gladly stay out of it.

“Wayne Donald! Wayne!!! Girl, where are you?! It’s getting dark, and I’m cold as the teats on a mama polar bear!”

On the pier, directly behind the viewers, Wayne Donald appears. She is wearing a snaggletoothed smile and sea-soaked clothes.

“I’m right here, Kinley Chris! If I was a snake, woulda bit ya!”

The little girl races to her older sister, slaps five with her, and snatches the gummy bears from her back pocket.

“If that was all I had to do to get these here gummy bears outta ya, Kinley, I woulda did it long ago.”

She leans into the tight embrace of her big sister, and they plop their tired bodies on the muddied sand.

“If all you wanted was some candy, Wayne Donald, all you had to do was ask.”

The girls’ grandmother lifts the window in the art room and calls them home. Her wretched voice echoes along the beach. They race each other back to the long-winding porch and float through the front door.

Tomorrow’s adventures await.

This piece is my offering for this week’s Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. The name, “Wayne Donald,” came to me first, then the image of the little girls, and the story wrote itself from there. I love these challenges, and I am grateful for them as kickstarters for buried creativity.

Poem for an Image

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#8: Playing Catch-up

Birthday Gifts for Caison and Jaidynn (my baby cousins). Jaidy’s birthday was on August 11th, and Caison’s birthday is October 7th. Jaidy’s gifts are called “Just Because” gifts in her card, but I could not afford to get her anything for her birthday this year because Jernee was so sick and in and out of the Emergency Vet, and my poor pockets had been SCREAMING bloody murder. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt

caring for my dying love made
my pockets thinner than
before–I missed Jaidy’s birthday.

it’s a blow to my pride to
not be able to shower my girl
with gifts on the day she was gifted to us.

making up for it at the same
time Caison’s 8th approaches
will push my heart to higher heights.

she knows where I stand.
she remembers every offering of
love she has ever received from me.

now that there isn’t a mouth
begging for money I can’t get
from trees, the babies shine brighter.

I’m playing catch-up, and I
am not ashamed to admit why I
couldn’t give what I wanted to.

I am not ashamed because life
happened upon me in a way
I never thought it would.

Death costs an arm and a leg,
and after you’ve run out of those limbs,
there aren’t many more to give.

Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?

I recently signed up to write on Substack as well. Poking the Bear’s Belly for Fun is a place of healing as I speak about the most recent events with a previous place of employment, as it pertains to racism and discrimination, growth from the transition after resigning from that company, and life’s foibles and overall experiences. I welcome your visit.

Daredevils

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Sunday Microfiction #2

Pictured Microfiction created with Canva. Sunday, June 15, 2025, was Father’s Day, and I already had two posts scheduled to publish. I did not want a third. Therefore, you get this treat today on a Tuesday.

Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?

I recently signed up to write on Substack as well. Poking the Bear’s Belly for Fun is a place of healing as I speak about the most recent events with my place of employment as it pertains to racism and discrimination. I welcome your visit.

Home To Nowhere: Part VI

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Microfiction: Nana Glo comforts Kelsey

AI Generated Image of an elderly Black woman wearing a white & light blue shirt with her silvery hair styled in soft curls. She has a contented yet thoughtful look as she leans across a white banister. There are soft pink flowers scattered behind her on bushes of green. Created with Canva.

Gloria Aduwala, known as “Nana Glo”, is sunshine and spiritual positivity. Kelsey finds her outside enjoying a spring breeze after a period of consolation with her father, Kazi.

Nana Glo greets her first grandchild with a light-hearted smile and a bear hug.

“What’s ailin’ ya, child?”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Nana Glo? I’m adopted . . . but I’m still family.”

“Child, what’s this I hear?! Why didn’t I tell ya?! That’s fuh ya parents to say. Not ya Nana. Ya still family–everything how it’s ‘sposed to be, child. Ya where ya should be. Ya loved right. Ya clothed, fed, and got a roof over ya head. Ya where ya should be, Kelsey Aduwala.”

Kelsey turns to hug Nana Glo–sinks her timid teenage face into her nana’s bosom–lets out a loud sigh.

“I’m where I should be.”

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, & Part V