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How 'bout them 1940's? | 100 Word Stories

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How 'bout them 1940's? | 100 Word Stories

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Erica Drayton
May 17, 2023
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How 'bout them 1940's? | 100 Word Stories

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The 1940’s, a time of the pin-up girls, airplanes, scantily clad women in bikinis, and all of it caught on film. What undeveloped photographs are in that camera or better yet, what’s in the suitcase? Who owns those two things and what do they plan on doing with them?

Photo by Emanuela Picone on Unsplash

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How 'bout them 1940's? | 100 Word Stories

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How 'bout them 1940's? | 100 Word Stories

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Erica Drayton
May 17Author

She pulled up the storage container door, letting the smell of dust and age escape. It was a present from her eccentric mother-in-law who liked to bid on unopened storage units and give them as presents.

Using her phone’s flashlight she noticed just one suitcase and an old camera sitting on top, dead center, surrounded by mounds of ash.

Taking one step forward she was blinded by the camera’s flash. Disoriented she walked further into the storage container. It’s door lowering, unaided, behind her.

Light came on and the suitcase lay opened, revealing the last expression of other visitors faces.

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S.E. Reid
Writes Talebones 🔭
May 17Liked by Erica Drayton

This one's called "Best Picture" :)

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Early morning diner. Quiet.

“Hey, Mort,” Vinnie said, “what won Best Picture in 1940?”

Mort took a bite of pie. “Rebecca.”

Tammy shook her head over the glass she was polishing. “Nah. It was You Can’t Take It With You. Frank Capra.”

“I thought it was Boys Town,” said Clarabelle, plates stacked sky-high on her forearm.

“Goodbye, Mr. Chips!” said someone in the corner booth.

“Idiot, it was Grapes of Wrath,” said another voice from the bar.

But Mort and Vinnie were gone; empty plates, no cash. Dine and dash.

“Gone With The Wind,” Tammy said. And that ended that.

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