It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Fire one million tonnes of moon dust at the Earth to block some sunlight and cool the planet until we learn how to remove the carbon and solve global warming. Simple. Who knew it would break up weather patterns, flooding Europe and destroying the Indian monsoon? Millions died. Who knew the dust would destroy satellites in Earth orbit, taking out the Internet and GPS services?

I hunker down in my cabin, an involuntary survivalist, assault rifle ready to protect my fields. The dust will clear, they say, in five years.

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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 could be anywhere—ocean stretching from horizon to horizon. The sun beats down in a featureless sky, shards of light dancing on little waves. Our small outrigger is lost, and I’m scared.

The old navigator points away to the left. “Guam.” And to the right, “Lizard’s Pool.”

“What’s Lizard’s Pool?” I ask.

He grins, hiding a private joke. “No such place.”

“Then how can you navigate by it?”

“Can’t see Guam either, right? The gods didn’t trouble to put an island there, so we must invent it.”

And we sail on, steering the trackless Pacific by imaginary islands.

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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

This is genuine—he feels it in his bones. The palace of a lost king in a lost city in the middle of the jungle.

“See those red brackets on the pillars,” I say. “Some set designer had an extravagent idea looking at coat hooks.”

He plays his trump card. “You think the Tourist Board secretly built an ancient settlement just so we could stumble on it? Like the Victorians who believed God hid dinosaur bones in the cliffs to fool us?”

At that moment, a warrior gives a blood-curdling cry and rushes us, sword raised.

Nice acting. I hope.

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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

A few screamed. Most were spellbound. Two in the corner had the rapture. Me, I thought, this doesn’t happen, not when you’re just on an ordinary evening out. A floorshow, sure—that was possible. But not a night sky ablaze with descending lights. I put down my burrito and stared.

In that moment, a hundred futures passed through my mind. A heavenly host come to bear us, the elect, to paradise? Descending flares of a bombardment? First contact?

Yes, first contact. Oh, brave new world! Though the voices spoke no known language, I understood. “Two hundred and ten enchiladas, please.”

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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

Beyond that door lies the future. Once through it, nothing will ever be the same again. The thought clutches at me with cold hands. They expect me to lead, but I don’t know how to be a hero. What if I pick wrong?

All that comes is images from movies. Once more unto the breach. Go, go, go. This seems to work. They follow: I play my part by playing the part. I’m even dashing. And it turns out, as we take the town for the Motherland, killing is pleasurable.

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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

One look at his violin and I knew things had turned offbeat. It was saddle-stitched leather, the neck inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I didn’t like offbeat.

“That’s a very unusual instrument, friend,” I said.

He didn’t deny it, but capered, grinned and replied, “Well, I’m a very unusual person.”

Events could have gone in myriad direction from there. Perhaps he might grant me three wishes, or maybe his playing would summon ancient heroes. Magic was available in that moment.

Instead, I asked “How much does such a violin cost?”

The moment passed.

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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

Every one of us unique, individual; and yet so recognisably alike in our individuality. Marlon Brando astride his hog. Question: What you rebelling against? Reply: What you got? They asked, “Still using that greasy stuff?” And we stopped; almost overnight.

Do I actually have an essence or am I just a mass of conditioned buying habits? These questions lead only to madness. If I continue to play my part, maybe nobody will notice. And, maybe, that will be enough.

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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

Shine a light through a lattice and you get a pattern. Rina was like that—a gorgeous tapestry made of rips. You were drawn to the brightness, but that was just the places worn so thin the sky leaked through. The real Rina was the darkness, the inverse pattern you didn’t clock.

Now you might believe this is a tale of tragic unrequited love. Perhaps, you fancy I am a creature of unspeakable ugliness, doomed to be rejected, though I’m the only one who really knows Rina. Not so—I am the pattern, only there on cloudless days.

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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

Aunt Ethel was a great one for her manifestations. And, to tell the truth, they had drama—effusive ribbons of what she said was ectoplasm, infused with an extra-dimensional glow. No cheap quackery for Ethel, no knockings, rappings, or ghostly sheets.

Those seances had just one defect—she could never tell you what they meant, and translation of the spirit world’s message is pretty essential to the craft.

“It means whatever you think it means,” she would insist.

 Uncle Robert would always sigh and insist. “It’s ectoplasm, Ethel, not modern art.”

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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

Among us, Spence was the creative genius: street corner smarts, but still a genius, so of course we called him Prof, and thought the joke original.

“Best place to pull birds,” Smiler insisted, “is the pub. You just gotta say something clever.”

“Like what?” Spence asked.

“Oh like, ‘I must be in heaven cos you look like an angel.’”

“That works, does it?”

Smiler’s smirk faltered. “Not always.”

“Not ever. Laundrette is best, mate. They’re sitting down and are bored.”

“And what’s your pick up line?”

“’Can I help you fold your sheets, love.’”

Like I said, genius.

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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