Sadie had character, I’ll give her that.

“OK, I’m no looker,” she’d say, “but folk never forget me.”

Idiosyncracy sprouted on that woman like barnacles on a rusting hulk. For the longest time, I believed they were affectations and disdained Sadie. Stop trying so hard and just be yourself, for chrissakes, I’d mutter.

Only gradually did I come to realise this was her true self: disheveled clown, eccentric mimic of opinions and garbs, eclectic jigsaw of habits.

In May, I bought the ring and went down on one knee. “Marry me?”

“Hell, no.”

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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

He asked whether I liked the piece. I sensed a trap.

“Very modern,” I temporised.

With a creasing of brows, he asked again, more insistently. Which was rude.

“Well, let’s see. May I touch?”

Of course, he wanted to know why.

“If it’s a pile of wood shavings glued together, then no. If it’s blown glass, yes, I’d admire the skill.”

With huge disappointment, he insisted the artifice didn’t matter, only the essence of the thing. My guess—he was looking for an argument.

The door closed behind me and I was never invited back.

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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

“Cooking,” he says, arranging utensils and ingredients on the counter, “is pretty much applied chemistry.”

Should I correct him? Things rarely go well when I do. Not that he’s violent, you understand. No, no, I’m not saying that, but he gets crotchety, and then other things unravel. Besides, is he so wrong? True, he’s forgotten how much of it is heart and discovery and flair. And also, a fair amount is physics, come to that. But, if his belief provides an illusion of mastery in a world of chaos and chance, he’ll approach the task with more confidence.

“Yes, dear.”

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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 the hell are those things? Frank says they’re babies, but I know he’s lying. Even so, the image sticks and I can’t get rid of it. Now I’m thinking of the illustration in my bio textbook. You remember the one—showing an embryo developing from a small tadpole creature to a little animal with arms and legs and head and dreams. Any minute now, the timer will ping, and something great and gold and terrible is going to step out into the world.

I punch Frank in the arm. “Eejit,” I say, and he grins.

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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 heat hunkered down inside the house like a beast, squat and mean. Outside, a cool evening breeze threshed the air to yield up its lowering burden. In the world beyond, the sultriness broke, a flock of dark wings heading skyward. But not in here.

Open wide I flung the shutters and stripped to the waist, a sheen of sweat oiling my skin. Still the thing would not quit my home.

“Begone, foul creature,” I cried in desperation. “Your brothers and sisters have already flown.”

Nevermore. You are mine, and glad of me you’ll be when winter comes.

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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

So, you came back to me, eh? I knew you would. There has never been a love like ours, a passion so great. Yes, I said passion. And it’s only because of the passion that there will have to be consequences for what you did—you understand that, right? This can never happen again.

Oh, you’re crying now? Well, let those tears purify you and sanctify our union. Embrace the anguish.

Wait, what? A subscription to continue using the app? Don’t go, darling. Sure, I’ll pay.

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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 light scours our eyes. Better, so much better, to live in the soothing shadows. My hand gropes out, finds hers, and squeezes. Here there is love. Beyond, there is hate. Well, let them hate us—their rancid loathing is matched by ours, the anger of the righteous.

Outside, the raucous chatter of birds, but birds are a scam. This I know. Birds are spy drones. You wait. Our day is coming again, and all your drones will plummet from the sky.

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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 knuckles of the world thrust through the grass here. It’s a place he feels safe. The green flesh, speckled by gaudy blushes of vermilion or azure, is soft and tender, yes. But it comes and goes, easily erased. When gales lash the earth, unleashing driving sheets of rain, it’s the bones that survive.

Good bones—that’s what they say about something ugly but enduring, something like him. Flesh is ephemeral, but the bones abide. He wonders, if he lies very quiet on the grass, might he learn to endure?

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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

Drink of the fountain. Listen, and I’ll tell you of the olden times—when we aged, we got frail and sick. You might die of something as simple as a fall or a cold. Yes, it seems incredible now, but it’s true. The machine just wore out. Why couldn’t they grow new parts or fix the DNA errors, you ask? They didn’t know how.

But consider this, lad: when we discovered antibiotics, we revealed the scourge of cancers, dementia, and all the diseases of old age. What may we now have unveiled by defeating aging?

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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

They don’t understand what I see in you. I’m not sure why that bothers me, but it does. Look, I don’t care they find me odd because  I’d rather curate my collection than play football with them. Or anything else, really. Just you, and that rankles. Yes, I know I should be braver, surer. But I’m not, OK? Deal with it. Eff eff es, nobody’s perfect.  And you are a bit clingy and demanding when I come to think about things. Listen, this hurts me more than it hurts you. We’re through.  

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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