Title: Fifteen-Minute Road Trip
Source: Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers
Word count: 170 words
This week’s photo prompt is provided by Yarnspinnerr. Thank you Yarnspinnerr!
It was a game, a stupid childish game that saved my life. My earliest memory is of me, my three sisters and Dad playing Red Light, Green Light. We always played games. The year I turned six, Dad introduced a new game. He called it “Fifteen-Minute Road Trip”. My sisters and I listened to the rules. Dad would set a timer and we had fifteen minutes to pack a bag with everything we needed for a weekend road trip. Our first attempts caused peals of laughter when we discovered missing clothes, or shoes or toothpaste. Gradually our packing improved, and one day Dad told us to get in the car. We left for the weekend and had to live with only what we packed.
Yesterday, the evacuation team knocked at the door saying the winds had shifted, and the wildfires were upon us. They gave us fifteen minutes to gather the lifetime of possessions from our homes, pack our cars and leave. Today I live with only what I packed.
__________________________________________
Keep on writing.
Jo Hawk The Writer
Jo Hawk 
The training paid off in an unexpected way. Topical take Jo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I found this prompt a little more challenging than others. 😲
LikeLiked by 1 person
How fortuitous that you had practice, but how awful that your home is in danger!
LikeLike
I couldn’t let her loose everything. Having your house destroyed in any natural disaster is unfathomable,
LikeLiked by 1 person
His dad was teaching him a lesson that would come in handy one day! Great story!
LikeLike
Thanks for the kind words. This prompt was a bit of a challenge.
LikeLike
Yes, it was a challenge!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was wondering how you came up with this story, the photo prompt wasn’t very inspiring to me but you took it a whole different way, using the obvious to later explain a challenging turn of events. very well done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL The first line is my cleaned up response to the prompt. From there I turned off my brain and wrote.
LikeLiked by 1 person