My take on TIW Challenge 88 :-)

Finished 'Alice on the Outside-In' and sent it in. I'll know whether it was accepted into the Alice anthology by mid-December.
Another anthology is coming up, the "Desert Bus"...I have a nice little story in there...if it's accepted...
Here's my take on TIW Challenge 88 (the normal take...I also did an 'experimental'...in DS4)

(A bouquet of flowers in a trash can, Draw inspiration from “The Pretender” by Jackson Browne, A critically important secret military message, Encroaching storm clouds)

88 - (Richard Russell Challenge) – The Mission

Years of careful planning, manipulating my contacts, creating double agents, spending well over the budget, living on handouts and favours, and getting my arse kicked from here to Timbuctoo, all for nothing. I had set up the last piece of the puzzle, the last part of a long, suffering mission, to send a message of utmost importance and find out once and for all who was in charge of the Stargate Project. Although publicly thought to have been terminated back in ’95, it had been kept alive by a few fanatics and Head Office wanted answers fast. Though it hadn’t been that fast, heads would roll, namely mine. And what did I have to show for it all? Nothing, absolutely nothing. A critically important military secret message destroyed by some dork who, after breaking up with a girl in the park, threw his soggy wet bouquet of flowers in a trash can! Go figure! I had placed the newspaper around the message in the trash can in the stipulated area of the park as instructed and knew that it would be safe even with the encroaching storm clouds threatening to pour down. But that guy with the flowers! Soaked, completely socked, his bunch of chrysanthemums saturating everything. Ruined. If anyone did pick it up, they wouldn’t be able to read it and send the message on! I watched for hours but no one came. Not even a sighting of some menial player. One broken relationship and my career was down the tubes.

So now what? I couldn’t go back to Head Office empty-handed after all this time. They would deny all knowledge of myself and the mission. They might even try to get rid of me. Best to creep away, go rent myself a house in the shade of the freeway, like the old Jackson Browne song, and go and lay in the sun ’til my days are done, find myself a girl…

"Don’t turn around."

There was a gun in my back. An old trick, observe the observers.

"Tell me the message."

"I don’t know what you’re going on about. Please, take my money and let me go." Never break your cover. I slowly took out my wallet, containing not only my money and cards but also a smoke bomb.

"No, don’t tell me…I…I already know. And don’t open your wallet."

What was this? Was this guy psychic or something?

"Yes. Now. Put your wallet back into your pocket and walk away. Slowly. Don’t turn around."

  "Okay, okay." I did as he asked and started to walk away. Hearing rushed footsteps move away, I turned to catch a glimpse of my assailant. It was the man with the flowers! I ran after him but without looking back he seemed to know I was chasing. I saw him turn a familiar corner and I took a shortcut to cut him off, but he was gone. Disappeared into thin air. My only hope was that my message would get through…but how?