The setting was perfect. Candlelight sparked on the elegant wine glasses and smugly heavy cutlery. Waiters in long aprons glided effortlessly between the tables with impossible numbers of plates balanced on their arms, as if they were walking some unseen tightrope.

My waiter placed a bowl in the centre of the exquisitely geometric place setting. Inside the bowl, a crust of ginger fur respired slowly, rising and falling.

I can take a joke as well as the next man. Crouching low, I bit into the succulence  of the waiter’s leg.

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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

The sun hid behind a cloud, casting the gorge into deep shadow. The rushing river laughed because it was now invisible. Ansna could no longer see the bull thundering towards her, but her ears spoke to her, and her legs knew when to begin the run. She’d trained her feet well.

“Alright, great bull,” her voice called. “Let’s dance.”

She raced towards the booming hooves, calculating closeness, dug her pole into the ground and took off.

As she sailed over the beast’s back, the sun sidled back into the valley. The hillsides hooted back the hunters cry. “Ansna, Bull Leaper.”

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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’ve had a brilliant idea! To write music with words as notes. This will be the making of me. Yes, scales—seven notes and then a repeat at higher pitch—chords, transpositions.

“The cat lightly on the mat sat.”

They’ll shower me with awards and offers.

“On the mat, deviously skulked the panther.”

Hmm, I’m not sure this is quite working yet.

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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

Something with tiny legs crawls over my sprawled hand, a thrush chitters, and water chuckles nearby. I know myself connected by a thousand tiny threads to this place, a part of its rich loam, a piece of the tracery of roots and branches. Somewhere a woodpecker jackhammers and the roots pulse with alarm. The water and my heart confess to one another in the same ancient tongue.

I am content. Here, there will be rest, and I will become something else. The good earth suckles at my wound, and the sounds of the battle dim. Today is a good day to die.

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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

We are so very tired. Half a world we’ve walked, through snow, rain, and baking sun. And everywhere they say, go back. The unwanted—that’s what we are.

The border post looms ahead. There are men there with dogs—hard men with grim faces. Even at this time of year, when they’re celebrating the birth of a baby to a refugee couple. Bells toll and sirens blare.

Am I not a person too? But of course I am not. I am just a problem, without face or history. And there is nobody to part the Red Sea for us.

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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

There are mirrors bouncing light back and forth. Some reflect doors, or what seem to be doors, though they may just be other mirrors.

Space expands explosive to infinity. Time slows to treacle as I turn and turn. A chorus of selves, perfectly synchronised, pirouette with me.

After a time that may have been aeons, I make to leave. Approaching the door, another me steps up to bar my way. Trapped! But I know how to get round myself.

“Would you be so kind as to step aside?” I ask meekly.

“Sorry, not a chance,” replies the mirror self.

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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

The waves rushed in as the Thames Barrier was breached. Water laps around Buckingham Palace, and Greenwich Hill has become an island. The King has moved to Scotland, and rowing boats ply the Chelsea road.

It’s not like we weren’t warned. But there was always something more important. And the hotter  things got, the less we listened. When throngs of desperate people began to bang on our door, we turned them away. Full up, we said.

Is it too late now? For London, yes. But not for you. Yet.

Can we come to yours?

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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

The walls are closing in, and there is hardly enough space now for me to transit the room. The table and chairs have become strangely elongated, affording me length and height but a shrinking breadth. All around me, hordes are panicking, wailing and rushing hither and thither as the world becomes two-dimensional.

I am calm. This just cannot be happening—therefore, it’s an illusion, something I ate, no doubt, and I can quell it by my will.

Odd. Now the ceiling is coming in. I wonder how I will fare in lineworld.

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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

What do you mean, ambience? Do I not make a perfect Imam Bayildi? Do you even know what that means? The Holy Man Fainted: that’s the English translation. A dish so delicious the imam fainted when he sampled it. Aubergine stuffed with tomato and onion, slow-braised in olive oil. Delicate and beautiful—a taste of home. One mouthful and you are back among the olive groves on a cedar-scented evening, bright stars pricking the cloth of night. Now this, my love, is ambience you can’t buy. I tell you, the guests will come without any fancy decor.

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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

The face she wears is not her only face. Though she performs the role well, smiling and agreeable, every now and again the skin coruscates for a moment and I glimpse an altogether different creature beneath. This thing has teeth.

She will come for me one day—I know it.

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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