I am still working on my Flash Fiction Anthology. I am cleaning up and editing some of the stories intensively before I send them to my editor, just in case you see any repeats. The snippet below is one I am editing before sending it to my editor.
For your information, we switched to Standard Time here in Europe on Sunday, October 26, 2025, and this kid was happy.
Wishing all of you a lovely rest of the week.
Shalom Shalom
CAGED BIRDS DON’T SING BY PAT GARCIA, OCTOBER 28, 2025
The clock ticked away the minutes, and Kathie Mae’s heartbeat quickened with every passing beat. Soon, Caesar would be home. Her musing would have to stop in an hour, and she would have to drag her wandering mind from her past and concentrate on where she was in the present. She would have never thought that having everything money could buy meant her joy would be buried in the graveyard of depression. Louisa, their maid, knocked softly on the living room door. “Come in.” “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I’ll be leaving soon. Is there anything else you want me to do?” “No,” Kathie Mae said, giving her a hollow smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “What are you going to do this Sunday?” “I’m going to do what I do here every Sunday,” Louisa said. “Clean my house.” Kathie Mae grunted. She’d talked to Cesare about reducing Louisa’s days to three times a week. They didn’t need her. In fact, they didn’t need her two times a week, but he’d demanded she come every day except Sunday. He’d looked at her like she was a child and explained to her that when he returned home, he wanted to see an orderly, well-kept house without any clutter. That was when she’d begun to notice that well-kept meant everything, including her.
Please visit the other blog participants. You will find them engaging and our writing covers different aspects of Romance. Thank you.
Hello Everyone, I returned from my sudden vacation with the necessity to work through the trauma of experiencing four deaths in three months. It’s something that I don’t wish on anyone. I’m back to what I love to do, now, and that is writing.
Continuing with my unreleased Flash Fiction Anthology, here is my first snippet from A STRANGE ENCOUNTER CHANGES TWO PEOPLE FOREVER. Have a lovely day,
Shalom shalom
Giuseppe’s right ear moved upward. Robust laughter almost shattered his eardrum.
Could Christmas Eve bring him such a massive sweet gift?
The laughter vibrated through his entire body, making him tremble. Putting down his pool stick, he walked to the dining area to see who had released the wavelength of the full-bodied laugh that caused his ear to move.
Giuseppe, (Sep), walked to the door that led out into the dining area. He noticed the table across the floor opposite him clothed in candlelight. There he saw her. Three women were sitting at a table listening intently to a dark, brown-skinned woman, caught up in whatever she was saying. Sep zoned in on her with his eyes. With his photographic memory, he took pictures, marking the small, chiseled nose and thick lips that stood out on her face. Seized by the vocal vibrations of her voice, he wondered how the chubby-sized woman would react if he covered her lips with his mouth. Would she stare at him with fright in her eyes, thinking that he was some kind of monster or a freak whose face had been put together crookedly?
This is another snippet from my flash anthology that will be released in Winter 2026.
The Garden
After many years of not being there, she’d returned and discovered how quickly things deteriorate when not lovingly taken care of.
As she stood looking at the poverty that had befallen the once so beautiful, proud garden, she wanted to cry.
She regarded the rundown house; no longer the centerpiece of roses, carnations, lilies, and yellow daisies.
Oh, how noble houses fall.
“What are you thinking, Linda?”
“You see that tree?” she answered, not quite knowing where to begin. “I used to climb it.”
Jordan laughed, “And you’re still climbing trees.”
Chuckling along with him, she said, “Yes, at my age, I’m still climbing trees. So, we’re here. What do you expect from me?”
Jordan was the one who had encouraged them to return here. He was her husband, lover, and friend for the last seven years. Even though much younger than she was, he was concerned about her well-being than she was. Her nightmares had forced him to convince her to come back and face the demons that terrorize me.
“I hope you’ll appreciate your wealthy upbringing and let go,” Jordan said.
She regarded the garden surrounding the house in which she was born. They were so different, Jordan and her, yet in many ways they were like homogenous barks linked together.
“You’re fantasizing again. You’re not old enough to request that I appreciate my upbringing. You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t, but I love you. That alone gives me the right to help you reconcile with your past and let go.”
“Look who’s talking? The babe among us.”
“Yes, the babe by ten years and yet your husband.”
Hello Everyone, I am presenting the third story in my Flash Fiction anthology, which is written as a trilogy within a series. This is story one in the trilogy where I introduce Beno and Zelda. I hope you enjoy meeting them. Have a lovely day and take care. Shalom shalom
GOODBYE UNTIL
Storms raged within Zelda. Even though seven years had passed, her dichotomous relationship with Beno still reverberated in her gut. In contrast to what she had once thought, the young man who had overwhelmed her with his confessions of love was still with her, woven like yarn not around her heart but inside of it. The intensity of their love grew stronger with each passing year.
True, she’d always been a joyful, adventurous, youthful person, a hopeless optimist who loved unconditionally, but when she’d turn fifty-five, she had hidden these characteristics. Her friends had told her such traits didn’t become a woman of her age. Meeting Beno changed that. He unlocked the door to those traits and threw away the key. Now, they bubbled over everywhere.
Zelda contemplated as she sat at the table in the back corner, facing the street. That’s what lovers do at Café Terrace, Beno had once told her. They order coffee, or a latte, sweetened with a shot of whiskey or Cognac, and wait for their loved ones.
Zelda sipped her coffee and closed her eyes. “Delicious,” she murmured and opened her eyes to look at the crowd and see if she could pick Beno out. She would know him anywhere.
Today, I continue working on the Flash Fiction Anthology, which is scheduled for release in winter 2026. I have been privileged to participate in Flash Fiction contests over the years. I love Flash Fiction. I have learned a great deal about the Flash Fiction and short stories Genre from reading the works of Eudora Welty, Joyce Carol Oates, and the late Canadian writer Alice Munro.
This is a snippet I wrote for The WEP, a writing organization founded by Denise Covey. I learned a lot from all the writers who participated in the contests. I hope you enjoy the snippet.
Shalom shalom
Pat Garcia
EXCERPT:
Netta scrutinized the red wheelbarrow placed before the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room.
That wheelbarrow isn’t just attractive, but it’s a downright elixir for the soul.
She stood between the doorframe of the door, across the hall from the living room, admiring and examining the object of her curiosity. It stood so majestically before the window, in its bright red color, as if it were giving a queenly audience. She could have sworn the thing was smiling at her.
Her husband, Jonathan, had turned it into a flower bed. He had chosen the living room to place it in, stating that he could admire his handy work when he returned home every evening.
Netta shook her head. In the sunlight, the red wheelbarrow seemed to wink, but a wheelbarrow couldn’t wink, or could it?
She’d met Jonathan at her favorite Italian restaurant. She’d been sitting at a corner table with a big plate of spaghetti and a mozzarella and tomato salad. She’d just happened to look toward the entrance door of the restaurant and had gazed directly into the saddest but prettiest green eyes she’d ever seen. He’d stared back at her and then walked to her table and asked if she minded him sitting with her. Her mouth had been full of spaghetti, and the only way she could answer him without spilling the food out of her mouth had been to nod in acceptance.
Jonathan had ordered his meal after introducing himself and then began asking her questions, which made her hesitant to answer. When he’d asked her about her marital status, her eyebrows had furrowed, and her heartbeat had quickened. She’d not been so sure that it had been a good idea to let him sit at her table. Then, Jonathan assured her that he posed no danger to her. He was looking for someone to share his home with. He’d said he wanted the comfort of knowing that a trustworthy person was living with him. He needed a wife but not one to share his bed. Just a faithful wife to be there. He’d insisted on putting that clausal in their marriage agreement.
At first, Netta didn’t believe or trust him. She thought he was some ax murderer or a cannibal who wanted to kill and eat her. Her vivid imagination had her packed away in plastic freezer bags in small portions in his freezer. With her chubby size thighs, big arms, and breasts, she was pretty sure Jonathan would have had enough meat for a year.
Netta didn’t understand why a man from out of nowhere was asking her, a stranger, to marry him. What she did know was that she said yes.
Here is a new snippet from my Anthology of Flash Fiction Stories that will be released in winter.
Wishing all of you a lovely day.
EXCERPT:
The man worked hard. He and his three sons hammered and pitched each wooden plank together. Sure, people thought he was crazy, but that didn’t disturb him. He closed his ears to what others said. If he were honest, and he was, he didn’t give a hoot. He hadn’t made it so far in life by seeking the approval of others.
The other day, his sons had informed him that the neighbors thought he was insane. He had laughed and told his sons to get to work before he fired them. After all, he was not only their father but their employer. No one would give them the amount of money for the work they did for him. They had no choice. The father gazed down at the oldest son. The son looked up at the sun. The old man thought about the discussion they had had the night before. His sons thought he was a daydreamer and had invited a lawyer to his house without his permission. Their excuse for not telling him had him laughing. They wanted to rattle his brain.
After talking with him, the lawyer said that declaring their father insane wouldn’t work. Besides, the majority of the judges knew him too well as that no-nonsense man who spoke what he thought. The sons’ wives were outraged, shouting they had become the laughingstock of the whole town, maybe the whole world. They were sick and tired of people pointing fingers at them. So, what, the old man said. They had tried to explain what it meant to them not to be among the popular crowd. They considered these people their friends.
Come to my house for tea; my wife would enjoy your company, he’d answered back.
The Stars and Stripes Forever’s first impatient blast sounded. Boteè jumped off her sofa. She got her jacket and grabbed her tiny case. Then she departed her third-floor apartment. She left a note for her best girlfriend, Peggy,
On the road with my friend.
Don’t know how long, but I’ll be back whenever my friend brings me back to earth.
Boteè called him the Strain Man. His shiny metallic skin tone, high cheekbones, and pointed fingers had drawn her to him. He was different from the people on earth, and she liked that about him. She danced down the steps of her apartment building, not wanting to keep him waiting. He promised to take her beyond the clouds to see another part of the universe.
Excited at the opportunity to see him again, Boteè stepped outside. She closed her eyes and hit the Deep C with her contralto voice. It was two octaves down from Middle C of the primary scale. She sang Amen note by note while holding her breath. As she slid up the scale, she accented the rise in a syncopated rhythm until she reached Middle C. She stopped, took a deep breath, and waited for his response.
At their secret spot, Strain Man was surrounded by trees hiding the white, invisible lights of his futuristic jet. He raised the trumpet to his lips and blew the first notes of The Stars and Stripes Forever. He felt the tug of his notes lifting her off the ground to bring her to him. He smiled.
Here is another snippet from LABEL. ME. MAN, a work in progress that will be available for pre-order in June 2025.
Cover by 4WILLS
Blurb:
Born a savant with Autism Spectrum Disorders and labeled as unusually bright, Gioacchino Tarinni lacked any social, emotional, or spiritual graces. The scientific world labeled him a Robot. Peddled between medical offices and laboratories, doctors and scientists examined whether he could be considered human. He has failed in every experiment except for his friendship with his manservant and chauffeur, Ferro. But no one knows how it happened. Sitting in a cafe with Ferro, Gioacchino’s eyes are drawn to a woman working on her tablet. She has a head full of braids, and he attempts to count them. But the woman keeps moving her head, foiling his efforts to get an accurate count. Annoyed, he approaches her table, intending to ask her to be still. However, in a moment of impulsive audacity, he proposes marriage instead.
EXCERPT
Gioacchino took the stairs slowly to their bedroom as he pondered why she’d gone to his office. He entered their bedroom quietly. Even though he’d agreed to her returning home, he didn’t understand why. Her early morning escape from their home had cost him his ability to concentrate on his negotiations. After receiving the text message from Ferro that Jediah had disappeared somewhere in the house, he rescheduled the talks for the next day and gave Ferro strict instructions to keep his eyes open.
The door that led out to the spacious balcony adjoining their bedroom stood open. The venetian blinds were hanging loosely down, with the panels slightly opened, letting through rays of sunlight.
Gioacchino grinned to himself. Jediah’s clothing lay scattered in a pattern on the floor. He picked them up as he reached them, piece by piece, and headed to the closet to hang them up.
Your disorderliness coincides very well with my need to organise and order things.
He looked at the motionless figure lying on her stomach in their bed, and his eyes widened in shock.
He blinked to ensure he was seeing correctly. A series of numbers shaped into a curvaceous body lay on their bed. Until today, he’d seen Jediah as scrap pieces of brown, velvety cloth he couldn’t put together. It astounded him that the outer layer of her skin was comprised of integers.
He stared at the bed, expecting the numbers to disappear; instead, two large, marbled threes looked back at him and laughed silently.
Discombobulated, Gioacchino turned to the closet to dispose of her clothing, shaken by what he saw. He had long calculated the function of picking her clothes up every day, and getting to the closet, variable a, to getting to variable b, which was landing in their bed at night to create order among the velvety brown pieces he assumed were who she was.
“You’re home. No one told me you’d be home early,” Jediah said, not moving.
“I couldn’t think in the office,” he answered, putting her dress on a hanger.
“Why not? I told you I wouldn’t run away again.”
“How are you?” Gio asked, ignoring her response and asking a question of his own.
“Fine. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Just okay?”
“At the moment, just okay,” he repeated, turning toward her, frowning, hoping the numbers hadn’t disappeared.
“Something happened after you brought me home and returned to work.”
“What?” She was still a cluster of numbers but had now transformed into a curvaceous one stretched out on the bed, and that stirred his libido.
“I went to write in your office and didn’t think to tell Ferro. I was so happy to find a hiding place where I could write without people watching me that I didn’t think about telling him or anyone else where I was,” Jediah said, gazing at him. “I didn’t mean to upset you after what I experienced with you in the car on the way home this morning. Does that make sense to you?”
“So it wasn’t intentional?”
“No, although I’m sure Ferro thinks it was.”
The frown on Gioacchino’s face faded. The harshness in his voice vanished, and he addressed her softly in a soft, deep whisper.
“Stop worrying. Ferro told me he didn’t think you meant to cause a furore. But he was concerned because no one knew where you were.”
This is another snippet from LABEL. ME. MAN., which will be available for preorder on June 1, 2025.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, revealing the characters.
Blurb:
Born a savant with Autism Spectrum Disorders and labeled as unusually bright, Gioacchino Tarinni lacked any social, emotional, or spiritual graces. The scientific world labeled him a Robot. Peddled between medical offices and laboratories, doctors and scientists examined whether he could be considered human. He has failed in every experiment except for his friendship with his manservant and chauffeur, Ferro. But no one knows how it happened. Sitting in a cafe with Ferro, Gioacchino’s eyes are drawn to a woman working on her tablet. She has a head full of braids, and he attempts to count them. But the woman keeps moving her head, foiling his efforts to get an accurate count. Annoyed, he approaches her table, intending to ask her to be still. However, in a moment of impulsive audacity, he proposes marriage instead.
Excerpt:
Gioacchino waited until they had stepped outside into the morning air to look sideways at her again. Her brown lips looked like a sweet treat. He liked covering her full lips with his own and tasting them. Precious and priceless, her plump lips awakened his manhood and gave his life meaning and normalcy. Having never dated an African American woman, Gio found Jediah, with her full lips, curvy hips, and big breasts with pointed nipples, fascinating from the first time he saw her sitting in the café. Even though his mathematical intelligence and photographic memory had catapulted him to become one of the top five major players in mergers and acquisitions for hotels, it was nothing compared to his first meeting with Jediah. With her, he was human and not a robot. He felt genuine compassion, and more naturally than ever, his blood pressure sank to normal; he could interact with Kay, his secretary, and his migraines vanished. The medical specialist in charge of tracking his developmental changes was astonished. Only yesterday evening, he had wished to tell Jediah how making love to her caused his blood pressure problem to vanish and helped him to deal with the torturous beliefs that he was some spectacular idiot savant or robot that was born on the earth once in a million years, but she had fallen asleep after their lovemaking.
