I ached with tiredness and the desperation of being lost. A stone in my left shoe rubbed my heel painfully. The stone was the sun—a whole solar system in my trainer. Vladimir Putin appeared in my reverie, riding in a big black limousine and he stopped to give me a lift. The sun was green and thrashed the car’s tin roof with death-white trailing roots.

Should I have killed Putin when I had the chance? Maybe. But I mean, you know, he showed me kindness.

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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

Never let your dog eat dragon meat. The reason is the high phosphorous content. Dogs can receive up to 22.25 mg of phosphorous per kilogram of body weight per day. Exceed this, and spontaneous combustion may ensue. Though dragon is intensively-farmed in the lowland plains and, consequently, is cheap at your local butchers, it is much safer to stick to standard cuts of basilisk or gorgon. To enhance energy and playfulness, nine vets out of ten recommend a supplement of powdered mandrake.

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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

Hah! Think I’m trapped in this labyrinth, just waiting to be hunted-down by a bloke with a ball of thread and a stabby thing? Nah, I’ve got tricks, me. How do you escape a maze? Simply turn left at every choice point (or right if that’s your political inclination).

It would work, except this puzzle isn’t two-dimensional. There’s up-and-down as well, stairs ending blind, and abyssal falls.

And that’s not all. The walls move around—the place operates in four dimensions, changing over time. The nifty wheeze will be ensuring that when Theseus is, I am not. 

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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 probe took 148,000 years to reach the star, and the return signals need over 4 years. You might think, in all that time, we’d master quicker space travel. Wormholes, maybe; but no—we’re saddled with the ancient probe’s capabilities. 

My avatar can roam anywhere around planet Proxima B: almost as good as being there, though without sensuous contact. And that is a big problem. The specific issue is Kr’Kara. First contact turned to scientific collaboration, and collaboration to intimacy. I love Kr’Kara, and they love me. Or did. Turns out they dumped me two years ago.

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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

Josh was always a joker. “Shall I tell you the tale of how the guitar got its stripes?”

But I wasn’t listening—rapt in another tale as the instrument called to me. I had been born for this.

“For a thousand years,” I breathed, “This instrument slumbered in the stone. Champions have come and tried to draw it. And they failed, because I am the rightful king.”

 Stretching out a shaking hand, I grasped the hilt.

“What stone?” Josh asked. “It’s on a rack, dummy.”

“Excalibur,” I intoned as the thing drew loose and heavy in my grip.

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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

Aromatic tobacco smoke circled his head—a cloud of knowing. The Great Detective regarded me with amusement. “You know my methods. All the clues are there. What do you see?”

He could be an annoying git. “Two rickshaws,” I muttered,

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly. Two rickshaws, sans drivers and passengers. And a river sans sampans. Where did they all go? The young ladies have disappeared down-river with the drivers in the sampan.” He puffed smugly on his calabash pipe. “The drivers were, in fact, lovers. This is a double elopement.”

Git! “Umm, very clever. But shouldn’t we check whether they’ve just drowned?”

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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 left, you took my certainty. You accuse me of betrayal, and I can see why, on consideration. But I dare not contemplate this. To do that would erode the precarious ledge of footing, risking a catastrophic plummet.

So, I must blame you, and counter this betrayal to mine. I should have known—your eyes were always too close together.

The truth is, I don’t know what to believe, or who. Trusting has become so hard, including in the story I imagined was mine—I am no longer made of whole cloth.

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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

An object has been found. A citizen riding a horse encountered the aforementioned in the forest. This has rendered it impossible for your government to continue in its previous of policy of not noticing the object’s existence. A committee has been formed to officially notice and classify the thing. Experts will be called. We shall be making no comment on theories in social media about what the object is and whence it came. Citizens are advised that there is no danger.

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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 special spots around this world. If you know how to look, you can find them—places where the barrier’s worn thin between here and afar. One lies at the confluence of the White and Blue Nile, Others are set into quite ordinary streets.

Don’t frown at me that way, mate—I’m not funning you. Buy me another beer and I’ll tell you. Oh, you’re a gent, that’s better. How do you recognize them? Perspective. The perspective’s off, like, foreshortened.

What can you do there? Why, walk through, of course. But there’s always two doors. Don’t choose the wrong one.

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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

OK, I’m lazy. But why put in the work when a machine can do it for you?

It’s not like I don’t know how. I span golden webs of emotional prose for two decades, ever since the online world matured. Believe me, I understand how to craft a tale to tug at the heartstrings and evoke exactly the response I want.

Now, I only have to slip-in the right query. “Write me a series of letters that will get a rich widow to part with her savings.” And then I pop it into the mailer. 

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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