The story passed from mouth to mouth. With each rendition, it changed subtly. The swaggering bully in the tavern became an evil baron or, sometimes, a dragon. But I remained myself, the unitary hero. The minor variations blended in as wrinkles, which faded with time.

Then my story reached the land of the river people. They are less keen on heroes. The tale branched, and now there were two of us. I met him, barring my way at the ford. How to win against myself?

Think! Truculence is my besetting sin. And his. I stepped to the side. “After 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

Nobody noticed. The swimmers splashed blithe, doggedly oscillating in laps. Nobody looked up as the breeze pulled the flags in three different directions. It made no sense. The façade of the monstrous edifice behind bubbled and peeled away like scabbed skin.

Surely, I said, some miracle is upon us. Nobody listened. The waters parted and a squad of Pharaonic chariots clove the pool. Great trumpets blew, and a murmuration of swallows wheeled above. Then everything snapped back into place with a tiny sucking plop.

I grabbed a passer-by, knocking the ice-cream from his hand. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

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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

When the birds began to drop from the sky, it was weird, even spooky, but I didn’t know this was the end of everything. They littered the lawn like drifts of autumn leaves. Fish washed up dead on the shore. And over it all, the punishing dome of stilled, sweltering heat. The forests caught and burned.

Life’s limits are very finely set, you see. At a wet-bulb temperature of 30.5 ° C, we start to die. Those of us with air conditioning lasted longer. Until the power failed.  

It’s been good.

.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

“Prove it,” he said.

“I can’t. But the Ayeye says it’s true.”

He was merciless. “If you don’t understand the machine’s reasoning, you can’t tell it’s correct.”

All I knew was this felt right, but I had no answer.

“If the Ayeye does the grunt work, has the insight, and formalises the proof, but you don’t grasp the meaning, does it even mean anything?”

“Pah! Philosophy!”

“Well, here’s a philosophical question for you: what’s the point of people?”

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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 we need the gods for now? Oh, they strut and fume as we tear down their statues and temples. Zeus releases a stream of thunderbolts which fizzle and spark before plopping spent on the carpet. A mist of angels wring their little hands before evaporating. Legba holds a weeping Inti close as they thin and dissipate.

We are the masters now. The steam from our great engines blows across a sun hiding its face in shame.  

If only the rains would come as they used to.

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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 flowers are dark, so dark they swallow all light. For weeks, I didn’t notice them, my mind skittering past what seemed misshapen leaves. Only at day’s end, when the dying sun licks them like a craven dog, can you spot them—blood red, nodulated. No insects ever visit these monstrous blooms.

The bees know. I’m certain these are relativistic explosions, slowed to a crawl in our timeframe. We’re under attack. Neither the police nor my MP will listen, not even Mrs. Sanders, who holds that Boris Johnson was the messiah. I’ll gather my evidence. If I’m right, the detonations will slowly fade away.

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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

Albert enjoyed travel. Move 3,000 miles, or ten, and you reached a different place. Well, duh, you might say, but that would be to misunderstand. The places weren’t what Albert craved—palm trees or snow huskies equally a matter of complete indifference. What mattered was the difference—new in a bar where nobody knew his name.

He slid onto the stool in the hotel bar and ordered a sidecar, because that’s what a guy like him drank. The blonde on the next stool eyed him. Tipping his fedora at a rakish angle, he smiled.

“Hiya, little lady.”

“Scram, loser.”

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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

Memories within memories. Before the war, there was dining and dancing, evenings at the Opera. No, wait—I’m getting confused. The Opera was London—our old life before we took power. But here too we once had parties, I’m sure of that.

Nowadays, there’s politics and war. War is politics conducted by other means, as Clausewitz sort of said. Turns out I’m deliciously good at politics.

Events flap and billow in the gales of history, and we struggle to hold them down.

.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

It’s hard to remember, but I think it all went tits-up when Grandad took his teeth out. The vicar’s wife shrieked, as if he’d exposed himself, or sunk the gnashers into her ample rump. Grandad, perhaps to be seen to do something, grabbed the picnic hamper and flung it over the railings into the river. The florist swung a punch. Soon, all the wrinklies were one brawling mass.

When the bizzies arrived, they’d surely blame me as the only young ‘un. A pub at the end of the walk sang siren songs of refuge (“Wasn’t there, Guv”). I legged 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

The scribe puts down his stylus and sends the clay tablet for baking. A good day’s recording of the village’s wheat yields, so he allows himself a cup of beer with his dinner.

In the tavern, villagers avoid him. He’s used to that. Scribes are never popular.

Voices at a nearby table rise as the ale flows. “Writing! What’s it good for? Spying on our harvest! And what does that get us?” “Bloody taxes.” “For the bloody king, may Ahura curse him.”

The scribe shivers at the next outburst. “We need to put a stop to all this writing business.”

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Writing seems to have been invented three distinct times. The cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt are well-known, But the third, proto-Elamite from ancient Iran, is shrouded in mystery. One fascinating feature of the Iranian invention is that they gave up writing for 800 years around 5,000 years ago. We can only speculate why. 

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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