What if the edge of the world is at the top? What if there’s a sheer drop?

I step onto the first moss-covered step, and the trees seem to bend in a little closer to spy. An elegant fern unbends and caresses my face, depositing dew on my cheek. The moist air carries scent of earth and stone and decay and growth. Surely, there’s magic in this place, this stairway leading to a revelation.

A peewit calls “Don’t do it, don’t do it”, and I am unable to place my next step. Is it better to remain unknowing but safe?

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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 am afraid. Not of poison—the salad, drizzled in olive oil, is delicious. But I am terrified of what the dish means. The message could not be more obvious: blood orange and red onion salad. This is a screaming scarlet warning.

“Run” this meal is saying,” and never look back.”

I had thought Jan my dear friend, but what I see on the plate tells me otherwise. Waiting for dessert would be foolish.

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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 do not remember you. Yes, I can bring an image to mind, your hair a crazy tangle in the wind, and lips sensuously curled in a smile. I remember that likeness, but I don’t remember you. There are memories of remembering you. Is it possible, I wonder, to track back from that and excavate the original? When people say “she was wonderful”, I can recall telling the story of how we first met, but the freshness of the event has vanished in the recitation. All but one picture which survives—your bottom in tight denim. .

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 took years of furtive genetic experimentation. At last, she was ready to plant out the thicket.

For a decade more, she watched it rise behind the construction palisade, until it achieved height and density and bloom. The interlaced branches and the canopy perfectly replicated the appearance of a four-storey tenement block, albeit a garishly painted one. Buds opened in the shape of windows and barked boughs simulated brickwork.

On the east side of the city, she hid her forest in plain sight and set off into its heart to find her woodsman’s cottage.

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Couldn’t resist a second bite. 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 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