I must be in a story. The narrative drive is obvious—the call to adventure, the first plot point, and the second. Who’s writing me? Do I have any say in it? I mean, for instance, couldn’t we make this a romance instead of an actioner? Begone, wizards and elves! Bring on the girls.

It’s lovely to be the hero, though. Thanks, I appreciate that. Not a bit player.

Oi! What’s this? Losing my job wasn’t very heroic. Do your scriptwriters even know what they’re doing?

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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

“Esteemed colleagues, we have a problem: data centres consume vast quantities of energy. allow me to demonstrate the answer.”

A hush fell like snow on the room.

He continued, “I give you Cerebronic.”

A bank of lights flicked on behind him.

“Cerebronic is biological. We built it of nerve cells instead of energy-hungry microchips. The thing runs on thirty watts—our contribution to solving the climate crisis.”

The lights flashed on and off in a seemingly patterned way.

One audience member shouted. “That’s Morse code. I think it read, ‘Welcome to the next crisis’.”

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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

Powdered light sleets through the drab garden, each photon fluorescing on my retina. Rough brick blocks the path, and the rubble of all my yesterdays litters the flowerbed. Some have taken root, slick tendrils already clutching for the sky, dragging themselves upwards to sprout monstrous fruit.

I must pass through. I cannot. The gateway will not yield without a key. The gate is the answer. But answers are useless without the matching question.  

Slumping, I pick one of the bloated fruits and gnaw.

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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

Mustard, Plum or White? Which of them entered and left a locked room? Mustard is not who he claims—no Colonel he. But a murderer? Likewise, White is trying to conceal her liaison with Plum, but perhaps only out of delicacy.

Let’s consider our assumptions, mes amis . Well, since the murderer could not have got out, they did not do so. They were still in the room when the body was discovered, escaping when the chambermaid set up the hue and cry. And that means the killer is Mustard, because Plum and White were seen together at the time.

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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’s a guy at the next table live-streaming his dinner. WTF? You’re supposed to eat it, you moron, not film it. I’m going to go over and call him out. Whaddyamean what for? For being an grade-A idiot, of course. Nothing’s real anymore, nothing is simple pleasure. Everything has to be shared now before they know they’re having fun.

No! Get your hands off me. I’m going to ram one of those skewers where the sun don’t shine.

Now more idiots are filming the fight, making memories. And here come the cops.

Bet I make the ten o’clock news.   

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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 had to put them beyond use, these keys. Surely you understand? Once that door is opened again, nobody would be safe. Paint? No, it’s not paint—it’s acid. The keys are warping and melting just as what lies beyond the gate is warped.

There’s always someone curious enough or with the swaggering bravado to want to take a little peek. I couldn’t risk that.

The tagged one? Why, the key to our house, We can never return.—our age is done. The Earth belongs to the young ones now.

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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

Is it now, now? No, it was now, then. When am I? Who am I? Is this a dagger I see before me?

Metal shaped with a thin, sharp edge. Could be a dagger, yes. So, imagining the past formation from a hot ingot, I glimpse its future plunge into the body of the old king.

Past and future, I shape both in my swirling now. If I imagine differently, I create different pasts, different futures. I invent the world.

But this is terror. What stops everything collapsing into moosh?

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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 sea hisses; the boom yanks against my grip, but I stay sheeted-in; the board rises, planning over the water. Exhilaration!

I sheet-in harder to carve-gybe as Rags taught us. The speed’s crazy. I hear Rags’ Scottish lilt, “At this point yer brain’ll be screaming, ‘No, no, I’m going tae die. But don’t listen to yer brain. Listen to meee.’”

Panic.

I finish in the water under the sail. Gripping the boom, I push up.

The wind catches the sail, pulling me back onto the board. Ecstasy! I may not have mastered carve-gybing, but I’ve discovered how to water-start.

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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

For forty years it sat atop the chestnut wardrobe. She forbade us to look inside.

“My crown’s in there,” she always said. “The only thing I saved when we fled Russia,”

Now she’s gone. My brother and I open the hatbox. No crown. Just a brittle, folded paper. One line only, in her looping script. “Ha! Fooled you.”

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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

“You knitted that?”

“I did. Lovely, no?”

“A spiderweb. From wool?”

“Of course. Only the finest cashmere.”

“But why? What do you hope to catch?”

“Caught you, didn’t 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