La Chasse-galerie

“Load up and let’s go,” Henri yelled.

The boys surged drunkenly for the canoe, but their packing skills suffered from all of the drinking  they’d been doing. Despite their enthusiasm, it took considerable time to sort out.

“Henri, it’s got to be two hundred and fifty miles,” Jean-Claude observed. “I miss our sweetheart’s sweet warm lips, too. We’re all crazy horny. But how are we going to get back to camp in time for work?”

“I believe I can help you boys out,” the Devil stepped out from behind a pine. “Five Enhanced Conjugal Visit contracts, sign in blood, please.”

100 words. Inspired by this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt:

And by the French-Canadian legend of La Chasse-galerie (the Flying Canoe). One translation here.

 

 

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Harbinger

I saw the kid standing in front of the mine elevator.

He was a dirty miner kid, maybe ten years old, and he was just standing there staring solemnly at me. He wore plain clothes, a coal-dust smudged shirt which was clearly too large for him, simple linen pants, and a miner’s hat with an oil-wicked lamp. That kind of mining cap disappeared from this country around 1915.

He just gravely held my gaze and slowly shook his head.

Seven hours later, an earthquake killed thirty West Virginia miners in a coalmine collapse. My crew didn’t go down there today.

100 words. Inspired by this week’s Warmup Wednesday prompt: