Afternoon lay, humid and heavy, on the harbour. Dogs slept in the quayside shadows, and even the air seemed to pant moistly.  

I wanted to escape and, suddenly, buying a boat seemed like a good idea. I dialled the number on the “For Sale” sign.

“Oui?”

“Je voudrais.” I began fluently, “um … vendre”. No, that was sell, not buy. Already, events had taken the wrong path.

Cutting the line, I collapsed into the wobbly metal chair.

 “Café, s’il vous plait,” I instructed the waiter, one of the few fluent phrases I commanded.

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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

“It’s in the wrong place,” he screamed.

Seaweed draped the foreshore like a bad comb-over. I could see this wasn’t pretty, but it skewered Anton’s brain.  Once, when we’d taken up kitchen floor, and he glimpsed the terrible truth of soil beneath the house, he’d bawled that way.

“Just storm waves,” I explained.

But we had to labour all morning, returning every strand to its home in the water before he’d calm.

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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 kiss was overpowering in its intensity, its delicious wrongness. That much she remembers. She lifts her fingers to swollen lips, feeling the bruise left by the urgency.

Her husband continues to read his newspaper. Will he notice the wound? Does he at already know?

What happened after the kiss, she’s not sure. There were drinks, many drinks. Perhaps the story playing in her head is only something she’d read.

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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 you have caught your bear, let her be sequestered in a cave. It is important she see no sunlight. Also, that she eat only garlic and mugwort. After twenty one days and nights, the bear will transform into a woman.

Take heed—she will be sad and lonely as the sole human. You will likely have to take her to wife, and, in this way, you will father a people.  The tending of nations is a topic beyond the scope of this spell.

This story is based on a Korean creation myth. 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

As you can imagine, I was outraged. Finger pointing at the pile of trash dumped on the sidewalk, I tried to summon words: “Who? Who? Who?”

Henry, who liked to think of himself as something of a wit, jibed “What are you? An owl?”

I tried again. “What? What kind,” my lip curled, “… of person  … does this?”

“Pretty ugly,” he agreed. “A real eyesore.”

And then it came to me, a chance to out-Henry Henry. “Help keep America beautiful. Throw away something lovely today.”

We strolled on, laughing.

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

Everything about the place was just slightly wrong. It strove for gentility and a sense of timelessness—etched glass and dark wood, old casks and dim lighting. But the scent of madeira and cigar smoke had been sprayed from a bottle or applied with a cloth. The waiters’ cravats weren’t tied quite right, and the mournful music was recorded. You can’t really have a fado salon anywhere but Portugal. And, behind the bar, a sign that read “Please do not ask for credit as a punch in the mouth often offends.”

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

Beyond the edge of the world, did you create anything? Here, the illusion is perfect, even hyperreal. The colour is unusually sharp, the light pellucid as the laughter that gurgles from happy children and thronging crowds. And your gifts keep coming. Here, nothing could make me want to ever leave.

But, if I dash round the corner fast enough, will I find the street ends on a yawning chasm? Or will you fill-in detail faster than my eye can catch your making?

Once, I thought I spotted empty grid lines before the flats zoomed skywards. And I was terrified.

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

Sparks arc, zigzagging up between the conductors. Mr. Henderson thinks he’s demonstrating properties of electricity. In fact, he has opened a door.

I peer closer. But I’m not learning about short circuits. The air crackles with brimstone and I see tiny angels ascending the ladder to heaven. For a moment, the heavenly kingdom becomes visible.

The seraphim, in high voices that only I and dogs can hear, chant “holy, holy, holy.”

Their Lord is angry. They issue my instructions and, with grim determination, I steel myself for the task.

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 old house was leaking light. We tried to staunch the flow, bandaging our home with drapes and then with shutters. But that prevented us keeping watch.

Ma pulled her shawl tight and said every family was allotted a ration of brightness—when it ran out, it was gone. Dad would grunt and carry on whittling.

We never found out what he was carving, maybe a house-deity to protect us.

Neighbourhood children danced and played in the dwindling fountain.  Other shapes too moved faintly among them. Inside, we dwelt finally in eternal darkness.

 

 

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