Wednesday is as Wednesday Does which is basically the job to provide hope the week will eventually reach Friday. Once Wednesday is over, it is just one wake-up till Friday which we all believe we can endure. After all, what is one twenty-four hour day between the workweek and our precious weekend? Wednesday is also story day here on Fiction Favorites. Today’s story explores the concept of show time which is something we all have some concern about during the week if we plan on attending an event on the weekend. I hope you enjoy it.
Show Time by John W. Howell © 2014
“What time did you say the show starts?”
“Not sure I said, but it is eight o’clock.”
“Oh good. That gives us some time to grab a bite to eat before.”
“Well I’m not sure you should eat before.”
“Not eat before? Are you kidding? Eight o’clock is way past my dinner time.”
“Yeah I understand, but sometimes you should try to break out of your routine and do something different.”
“What do you mean routine?”
“Well you insist on eating dinner at six-thirty. I would think just this once you could wait a little longer since the show is part of the dinner hour.”
“Are you saying they will be serving dinner at the show?”
“Well not exactly serving dinner, but some dinner might be available.”
“What are you saying then?”
“Well we will be going out into the coliseum right?”
“Yeah I understand that.”
“Who else do you think will be going out into the coliseum?”
“I don’t really know.”
“You don’t? I am really surprised. Have you never been to the coliseum before?”
“No this is my first time.”
“Well you will enjoy it then. They send a bunch of humans out onto the coliseum floor with us.”
“What do they do that for?”
“Ah you are going to like this part. We get to eat them.”
“Really. Now I’m interested. You mean we just help ourselves?”
“Sometimes they have guys with swords, so the meal is a little harder to come by. Other times the people have no weapons and it is a cake walk.”
“I see now why you said not to worry about dinner. Count me into the out of routine category. What is the name of the show anyway?”
“Romans versus the Lions or is it Lions versus the Romans? I’m not sure. It’s something like that.”
Fiction Favorites 
I suddenly want to watch a short movie about two lions working in the coliseum. Maybe throw in a tiger as their crazy friend.
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LOL. Would be pretty funny. “Hey Leo you need to get some cool threads like mine so you look good on stage.”
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We’d need a female character too. I say a leopard or a panther. Maybe a Cheetah, but that’s a wee bit too Thundercats.
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Need to call Disney and get their advice. Cheetah is my choice.
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They’ll just buy Thundercats. We can go very exotic and use an ocelot.
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I really liked this! So rarely do we hear about the coliseum days from the POV of lions 😉
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Yes so very seldom. Thanks
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Ha! I didn’t even see that coming. Good one. 🙂
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Interesting POV. Being a lion in those days might have been preferable to being a person.
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At least a lion ate better.
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I started smiling when I had the ah ha moment…lions. Yes, it did happen before the last paragraph – I promise! I have always loved how you write conversations without extras. I haven’t reached that skill level. I always think of you when I’m writing dialogue and sometimes It keeps me from adding extra fluff. Still a work in progress…
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Thank you. I took a class conducted by Elmore Leonard and he kicked the crap out of dialog tags. He says or said were the only ones acceptable. I decided to write the dialog in such a way as to move the story and keep the speakers identified to the reader while eliminating the extras. Works well in flash fiction. Novels take some heavy lifting. Thanks again.
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I understand there are only 30,000 lions in the wild John. Enjoyed a totally fresh look at this topic!
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Love this twist, John!
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