The tower was intended to awe, beaming its light over the land. In a low town that clung like slime to the earth, this edifice rose, assertively vertical.

“Glory be,” the dominie declared.

Indeed. But whose glory?

It should have been no surprise when the McNabs rowed round the coast carrying torches, smooth John McNab, with thighs like hewn oaks, in the lead.  

“If he has been smooth afore, he’ll be rough the nicht,” Smooth John bellowed.

They burned the building to the ground, with the dominie in it.

Of course—the thing was a provocation, a giant finger raised.

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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’m pretty sure it’s not a black hole. In the first place, it’s square and I can imagine no way gravitational forces might assume such a shape. In the second place, what would a black hole be doing in my greenhouse?

But something is soaking up all the light, which probably isn’t great for my grapes. I’ll ask Betty. She knows everything.

“Oh that,” she says. “That’s my slough of despond.”

A pretty price she negotiates for its disappearance. Still, how bad can a fortnight in the Caribbean be?

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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 all have one—a treasured toy retained from childhood. In some, it’s cute—on display together with the fairground goldfish bowl and the kiss-me-quick hat. But not for me. Mr. Bumps is shameful, hidden deep in a drawer.

I could warn you, I suppose, that if you touch Mr. Bumps, I would have to kill you. From as early as I can remember, my dream was to be a hit-man. Sadly, it turned out I wasn’t very good at violence. Accountancy suited better.

Another solution to the problem beckoned. Nobody is allowed to cross my threshold, ever.

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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

Mr. Tankerness owned a tree. The tree had a tiny door at the base. The tiny door was a trap. Of course, my parents warned me against men like Mr. Tankerness. The cute hobbit tree drew children in to capture them.  

I considered chopping the tree down, but that would take hours and he’d hear me and come running. Only one answer worked.

So why was everyone so upset at me for burning Mr. Tankerness’ house down? They should have given me a medal.

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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 lurk behind a tall stand of ostrich feathers.

You may wonder why. Perhaps I’m a secret agent waiting for my handler, so I can pass on the microfilm. Perhaps I’m a lovelorn stalker, unable to approach my target and sniffing her scent from the other side of the stand.

The truth, as always, is less dramatic. Actually, I’m trying to avoid the inevitable conversation with Stanley, should he see me, about the unpaid dues for the bowls club.

Still, a guy can dream, 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

There were books everywhere—teetering stacks on tables, and dense undergrowth carpeting the floors. The first tendrils already tentatively explored the stair treads to the upper floor. This man was a scholar, for sure. But where could he be?

“Hello?” I called, hacking a path.

Paragraphs and treatises fell to my machete. And then I noticed a bizarre thing—at the dense bottom of the stacks, compaction had occurred, driving the tomes into each other, melding and creating new meaning.

Writing appeared on the wall. “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.”

Now I understood where the scholar had gone.

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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

Where the two worlds meet, there is a line—almost imperceptible and thin as a fly’s whisker. Our world is softly rounded; their world is sharp and angular, but they have colour, where ours has none.

Maybe, and I believe this, if you achieve an immaculate slimness and then jump, you can enter, not the sharp world, but the line. Hurl yourself forward at the exact moment of crossing, and you travel that line forever. That is what I believe.

After months of fasting, I am ready. I step off the bridge.

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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 vivid muralling at the entrance, invoking tropical sunshine and hibiscus flowers. But strait is the crude gate and narrow the way. This house promises rapture. This house threatens destruction. Look! Sinister nozzles in the ceiling.

Enter? Run away? Are these the Pearly Gates or the Maw of Hell? Maybe, those are one and the same.

I turn my back and trudge on down the grey streets of Purgatory. Perhaps I have denied myself love; but at least I’ve forestalled eternal torment.

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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

“Third floor, west wing, second window from the right.”

I sighted, zoomed in. “Locked on.”

“You’re authorized to take the shot once you have acquisition.”

The view was grainy. My hands were clammy. Odd, because I never get involved. Perhaps the world-changing magnitude of the target made some nervousness acceptable: the first hit on a target three centuries in the past.

A shape at the window. Smaller than he appeared in his pictures. I squeezed the trigger. Everything changed.

The tau-beam gun hands vanished. The birdsong vanished. The command voice in my earpiece vanished. What had I done?

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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

Where are we supposed to go now?

They came in vast ships, and we said, “Welcome—you must be tired.” We offered food and sweet water. Then they asked for land, only a little bit.

They built and sowed and reaped and showed us map-making. “This bit is yours,” they said, ”and that bit ours.”

“Very good, little brother,” we said.

When they multiplied and demanded more land, we refused, and they rolled a great war machine over us. Our homes burned.

Here, at the edge of the world, we huddle on the sand. Where should we go 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