(FICTION) (Thanks to Anita http://anitashope.wordpress.com/, Kim http://inkonapage.com/, and Cath http://cathdeancom.wordpress.com/ for their prompts. I’m running out of time, so I’m combining the suggestions.)

Dr. Caroline Sams, while walking down the beach, trying to formulate her diabolical plan to create a Covid anti-vaccine for her ex-boyfriend, looked down to find her doggo, Buster, holding something muddy yet shiny in his mouth.

“Good boy,” she said, bending to retrieve the treasure. But as fast as she grabbed it, she dropped it. For it seemed to be screaming, “Help me!” in a tiny voice.

Caroline crouched down to peer at the bottle-shaped object. She reached out cautiously and rubbed off some of the mud, and there, standing on the bow of a ship was a man, waving frantically.

“Help me!” he cried.

“How did you get in there?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” said the tiny man. I was caught in a storm, and the next thing I knew, I was being bounced around in this container. All I could see was a tongue and two rows of teeth. I thought I was a goner!”

“Do you think you’re a genie?”

“No! I’m Brayden, captain of this fine crab ship!”

Caroline tried rubbing the glass container just in case, but when she looked inside again, Brayden was standing with his hands on his hips and an I-told-you-so expression on his face.

“Would you like to try three wishes?” Brayden asked sarcastically.

Not to be made fun of (and just in case it worked), Caroline said, “I wish Covid didn’t exist.”

Brayden cocked his head. “What’s a Covid?”

“It’s a disease.” But that was a bit of a stupid thing to try to wish on, because how could she know it worked? “Never mind,” she said. “Okay, how about this: I wish for a million dollars.”

And poof! a million dollars appeared, luckily in bound stacks so it didn’t fly into the sea.

“Ahhh!” Caroline exclaimed. “It works! So theoretically, if I make one more wish, you’ll be out of there.”

“Especially if you wish me out of here. AND,” he added hastily, “my regular size, please.”

“Hmm,” Caroline said. What to do? The diabolical plan to allow her ex, Jim, to get Covid wasn’t going to happen if Covid was no longer infecting the world. Should she find another way to get rid of him? Or should she rescue this little man who, despite is sarcasm, probably deserved to be rescued?

“Come on, I haven’t got all day,” Brayden said.

Caroline frowned. “What do you think, Buster?” she asked her doggo. “Should we rescue the little fisherman or should we do away with Jim?”

“Woof!” said Buster.

“Or, should I wish for a pickup truck to carry all this money home?”

“I’ll help you carry it!” said Brayden.

“Okay, fine. I wish Brayden and his ship could get out of the container they’re in and be regular sized again.”

And that’s how diabolical Dr. Caroline Sams got crushed by a crab boat on dry land while walking her dog and thinking up a plan to kill her ex.

And everyone else lived happily ever after, Covid-free.

THE END

(The prompts were; Anita’s: How about Dr. Sams or nurse Sams where they have finally got a vaccine for Covid at their hospital but they don’t want anyone getting well so they contaminate it; Cath’s: Caroline is walking her doggo in the woods as usual when doggo trots back to her with something muddy but glittering in her mouth. What if it’s a lost treasure?; and Kim’s: How about Brayden for the name, on a crab ship as the setting, and what if a freak storm sent them into another dimension?)

Here are the JusJoJan Rules:

1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.

3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.

4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.

5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!

6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.

7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

8. Have fun!

(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 5 of the story. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here and Part 4 is here.)

It took Lavender two days to brew the right potion to correct Trigger’s eyesight. In that time, she’d discovered that his real name was Tehtholonli Smith, and that his mates had nicknamed him Trigger because of his proficiency with a gun. That certainly wouldn’t do.

So she began calling him Smithy. He didn’t like it. Then she tried Tehth, but he asked her why she kept spitting on him. Finally she attempted to call him Lonli, but he corrected her, pointing out that he had Grant to keep him company. All the while, Grant laughed at her, even as she rubbed a salve on his sore foot so he could walk comfortably. Ungrateful beast.

At a loss for anything to address him by other than “hey you,” she added a little something to the potion.

Finally, after two full days of picking up broken vases that had fallen from tables her visitor had stumbled into and one awkward moment when he’d changed into Lavender’s britches, thinking they were his own, she sat Tehtholoni Smith down at her kitchen table and handed him a steaming cup of potion.

“Drink this,” she said.

“Are you quite sure it will work?” the man previously known as Trigger asked.

“I am,” Lavender replied.

So he did. He drunk it all the way down and sat with his eyes clamped shut. When Lavender asked him why he didn’t open them, he said, “Because I’m deathly afraid of disappointment.”

“But if you don’t open your eyes, you’ll never know that it worked and that you can see perfectly.”

“Perfectly? Do you really think …”

He opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times, and shouted “Eureka!”

And then he saw Lavender’s face and his jaw dropped. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve even seen!” he cried.

“Well then,” she said with a smile, “being that you’re the best shot in the land, maybe you should take my picture, Sh—Sh—Shutter.” Yes, that will do for a name, she thought as she handed him a camera.

And lo and behold, he was and excellent photographer. He took crisp, focused, unblurry photos of Lavender, and pictures of Grant, and the trees, and the rich, lush mountainside.

And Lavender and Shutter the sharpshooter and Grant lived happily ever after in their quiet, cozy cabin.

THE END

(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago.  She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious.  Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase.  She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around.  With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul.  Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”

This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I turned the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)

Here are the JusJoJan Rules:

1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.

3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.

4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.

5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!

6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.

7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

8. Have fun!

(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 3 of the story. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here .)

On the way back to Lavender’s cabin, Grant the horse explained to her that Trigger (not Mr. Trigger) normally wore eyeglasses, and thus, he couldn’t see where he was going. Since the man was carrying the horse (much to Grant’s delight), Lavender devised a way for Grant to guide Trigger, using his back leg to nudge the man when he wandered too far to the left, and his front leg to nudge him when he strayed to the right of the path. In this way, they made good time. Trigger himself didn’t speak—he was likely too winded from carrying a horse across his shoulders.

By the time they arrived at the cabin, night was beginning to fall. Lavender left horse and man outside and went in to tidy up a bit while Trigger caught his breath. She made coffee and brought a cup out for the man and a bucket of water for the horse.

“Are you badly injured,” she asked Trigger.

“No, not really. I have a bit of a bad back—”

At that, Grant rolled his eyes.

“—but the only thing that’s actually wrong with me is that I can’t see. I seem to have broken my spectacles in the fall.” He pulled a pair of bent and cracked eyeglasses from his pocket. They were, indeed, broken badly. “I don’t suppose you can fix them, young lady?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “But I might have a potion that can fix your eyesight, so you won’t need them.”

“Jolly good!” Trigger cried. “Then I shall be able to go back to my work!”

“And what is that?” Lavender asked.

“Why, I’m a sharpshooter.”

Lavender stared, her heart suddenly in the pit of her stomach. A sharpshooter. “That means … you kill people?”

“Well of course!”

Rather than say what she was thinking—that killing people, or animals, or insects was against everything she believed in–she clamped her mouth shut and went back into the cabin to think about what she was going to do.

(To be continued.)

(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago.  She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious.  Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase.  She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around.  With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul.  Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”

This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I plan to turn the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)

Here are the JusJoJan Rules:

1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.

3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.

4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.

5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!

6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.

7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

8. Have fun!