wordcraft
“Go! Go! Go!” he captained us.
The cry was imperative, and we were trained. Legs strode, hearts pumped. Rifles in hand, we dashed. He was dashing too, in his starched uniform with the yellow braid. So captainly.
“Go! Go! Go!” Again.
“Yes, Sir.” I snapped off a salute. “But go where exactly?”
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
I set my ear against the curve of the giant shell. This is a ritual every time we come to the palace. The police guards stiffen to attention because it’s odd. Harve looks panicked because it’s his friend who’s being odd. But it’s a thing I have to do.
“You know they’re not real eggs, right?” Harve always asks. “Those are decorative barriers against truck bombs.”
Nobody knows except me. Inside these eggs, dragons are sleeping. And when the country’s in peril, they’ll scream forth into an angry sky. Inside the shell, I hear a tapping.
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here.
Mary woke to find a man crawling in through her bedroom window. She lay absolutely still as he wriggled through and plopped onto her bed.
“Oh, bugger,” the stranger said.
“Just what I needed,” Mary said, wrapping him in a bear hug. “Do exactly what ask, and I won’t call the cops.”
Bernard, who had come to plunder, was ravished. He remained ravished for the next four months until Mary tired of him.
Lest you think this is a male fantasy, it’s based on a real event. Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson locked the country down on 23 March 2020. The government communication slogan was ‘Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’. The aim of the messaging was to scare people into complying. It worked. It may have worked too well. We need to find a new way to decide on what we do and don’t do as lockdowns relax. The narrative of fear isn’t working anymore.
The fear message may have worked too well. As the country began to unlock in May, opinion surveys found that around 40% of people were scared to leave their homes. A month later, the figures had not changed much, with 41% of adults say they did not leave their home on five or more of the previous seven days
This fear narrative became problematic in later stages. In June, when some school classes and some businesses were allowed to reopen in the UK, the government tried to reassure the public that this was now safe, so long as social distancing was maintained.
There was also intense pressure from business to reduce the social distancing guideline from two metres to one. The reasons are obvious. Most restaurants and pubs cannot operate profitably at the greater distance, but might be able to reopen with the shorter distancing. The government continued to say it was following the science. But there is no science that says two metres is safe while one is unsafe. The only guidance the scientific advisers could offer was about relative risk. Two metres is safer than one (about twice as safe), but if the rate of infection is low enough, one metre may be an acceptable risk. The right social distancing is a political, not a scientific, decision
Another approach was possible, but not taken. This was to focus on giving people advice about risk. People don’t readily grasp data about risk. It’s alien to our normal way of thinking. But it’s not complicated. We take calculated risks all the time. For example, we drive cars even though we know there’s a risk of dying in a car crash. That risk in the UK is, in fact around one in 20,000 per year
Here are some rough calculations of risk for coronavirus in early June 2020, compared with other risks. Reducing social distancing to 1 metre doubles the risk of infection, while wearing a facemask reduces the risk at this distance by 14.3%. At the infection level present in the middle of 2020, the risk of infection was one in 1,666, and the average risk of dying one person in 1.66 million.
“You’re Charcoal Charlie,” he said.
The name’s Fred, but I guessed they gave everyone a name in the ballooning club. Perhaps the moniker was a slur, on account of my skin colour.
“Get under the envelope and flap the edges open,” he said.
“Sure thing, massa.” I hoped he’d understand the irony.
Holding the edges of the balloon and flapping like a rooster, I felt ridiculous, but the bag began to inflate.
Then, a wall of flame jetted past me.
“WTF? You almost burned me to a crisp,” I yelled.
“Why do you think the job’s called Charcoal Charlie?”
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
They probably think I’m a bit strange. But then they probably see only a messy picnic blanket here. That would explain why they’re trying to pull me away. If the picnic’s over, it’s time to go. But I wasn’t here to eat the chicken drumsticks and the potato salad. This mess is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
The geometry of crumbs on the checkerboard pattern describes one particular folding of space-time. Perhaps today, this will be the universe that contains you, and I can dive in and find you again.
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
Like many other events this year, the Farnham Flash Fiction Competition is going online. The awards ceremony will take place on Zoom on 23 July with a panel of local authors:
Melanie Whipman
Andy Robb
Neil MacDonald
Joanna Barnard
Helen Matthews
Sally Ann Melia
You still have 10 days to get your entry in.
Entry details: http://www.farnhamfringefestival.org/farnham_flash.html
Here are six cover concepts for my novel, The Tears of Boabdil, published this September. Can you help me choose which concept to go with? The execution is far from perfect (I’m a writer, not a graphic designer), so please comment on the concept. A real designer will execute it.
The cover needs to be arresting and to signal:
The dirt track became a cobbled street, twisting between high buildings that leant together, nodding their heads and clicking their tongues at us.
Marta began to tire, feet dragging and hand pulling in mine. “Let’s go home,” she said. “I don’t like it here.”
The street opened on an avenue, straight as marching soldiers.
At the end—a great plaza. Waters danced in fountains, and flocks of starlings hid the distant palace behind a curtain of coruscating wings.
Marta turned and turned. “Daddy, I didn’t know there was so much space in the whole world.”
I determined things must be different.
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
[In homage to Stephen Spielberg and Arkady & Boris Strugatsky]
They came in great flying ships that blotted out the sky. Like inverted pyramids with radio masts. The ships I mean, not the Overlords. We knew them as Overlords, because it was so written on the sides of the vessels.
With lutes and bagpipes we met them, hoping music might communicate. And they spared us.
But they erected a scaffold on the summer meadow, and we were afraid. They capered there with stringed devices that blasted sound.
The next day, they were gone. The meadow is covered in strange litter. Perhaps some of it has power.
Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
