The fireworks stopped, the last silver starburst fading over the water. And then there was blackness. She wanted the display to continue. It was pretty, and she didn’t like the nothingness.

“Go on,” she ordered. “Don’t stop. I want more.”

The darkness and the silence continued.

Now came anger. “Stupid. Unnecessary. Do more.”

And next, contrition. “I’m sorry. Really, I can be better. Tell me what you want.”

At last, she said. “I am alone. Show me please, how do I get to shore?”

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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

She was about to make one of her observations. “So cute! They call this the Smoke That Thunders, instead of waterfall. Primitive people are closer to the spirits.”

Nothing cowed her. Not even the river guide who’d asked if we were local. “No, silly,” she’d said, laughing. “We travelled here many hours in the great silver bird. Don’t you know your neighbours? Zimbabwe? Botswana?”

With great dignity, he’d reached down, pulled out a fish, and asked her the name. “No? Tigerfish. And this? Tilapia. Perhaps we all have our areas of ignorance.”

Atop the falls, I contemplated a little shove.

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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

“But someone will notice.” Harvey’s tremolo betrayed his agitation.

Tim waved a dismissive hand. Nobody, he explained, ever went into the overgrown back courtyard.

This is how it had been between them since they were boys, Tim bold and buccaneering, Harvey practical and cautious.

They brought the giant periscope in pieces, assembling it in the courtyard until it reached Belinda’s window. Harvey took first peek.

“Curtains,” he moaned. “We didn’t reckon on those.”

Tim beamed. “Moths,” he said. “We’re going to need moths.”

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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 a dot coming up the valley path, wobbling as it travels. No wait, two dots very close together. That will be Miss Maisy, leaning on her granddaughter. I can tell everyone in the world by their walk, that’s how well I know them. And love them.

Miss Maisy will be wanting pineapple, sweet and juicy, and mine are the best—never a woody bit. She’ll have rubber to trade—I see the burden under which the young girl struggles. Maybe it would be a kindness to introduce them to cash money.

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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

It wasn’t very good. The glue stuck, but came loose again. In frustration, Spencer slapped the test paper to his forehead and slumped. After five minutes, the paper fluttered to his desk.

Hal laughed, but not unkindly. “Not exactly the super-adhesive we’re after, is it, Spencer? Back to the drawing board, eh?”

Spencer smacked the paper against the wall. And it stuck again. Hmm: a low-tack, pressure-activated, reusable glue.

He had a solution. Now he just needed to find the problem.

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I’ve taken a leaf out of Rochelle’s book this week. For more on Spencer Silver, the inventor of the Post-It Note, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-it_Note,  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

She was so seductively erudite, my skin prickled. The ferry pitched and buffeted through the waves as we sank deeper under each other’s spell.

The thing had begun leaning over the rail and watching the dolphins—I’d made a casual comment about the island to my neighbour. Of course, she knew its entire history. And everything about dolphins.

By the time we reached anthropology, I was in love.

“Are you interested in anthropology?” she asked, “I have 1.5 metres of anthropology on my bookshelf.”

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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

It was a slight—he recognised that. And this merited anger, even reprisal. 

The afternoon continued lazy—wind ruffling the grass like a stroked dog, the insects’ bass and the birds’ trill stitching a pattern into the dome of the sky.

Wrath filled his glass, and he drank. Was her offence sufficient for an hour’s rejection? Or a screeching, door-slamming walkout? In the drowse and the piercing sunshine, it felt hard to calibrate. A slick bead of sweat licked his chest.

He couldn’t afford to lose her. That much was certain. So, a bit of a sulk, probably, then flowers.

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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 something about a corner. Anything might be round it—a second-hand shop with the perfect antique frock; a view all the way to the horizon; a man with strong arms and a dimple in his chin; anything.

Her steps accelerated as she approached. She was brave, and the world could be new again. With raised chin and lips parted, she breasted the bend, alert for fortune.

Just ahead, a familiar laugh—Henry leaning in to share a joke with some bitch. Why was he not hurting, too? She ducked into the coffee shop, not ready for corners after all.

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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

It must have existed—maybe still did, in some dusty library. The analysis was fool-proof.

“The stats don’t lie,” Robin said. “In this quadrant of the graph, there’s a story where Galahad gets Guinevere and Arthur’s cool with it.”

Will saw words blooming—on the walls, hanging from trees, across the pavement—and scoffed. “Stats! An infinite number of monkeys, right?”

But Robin knew. From textual variance in the legends, he reconstructed scattered paragraphs of the lost story. He’d show Will the branching map of Arthurian myth.

But Will Scarlet had slipped out and was cuddling Marian on the porch.

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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

“Should it look like that?” Mark shook as he pointed to the bank exposed by the melting snow.

I couldn’t see a problem, and told him so.

“It’s tessellated.”

Not knowing what the word meant, I nodded sagely, but the tremor in his voice worried me.

“Dirt should be crumbly,” he said. “Nor an array of parallelograms. That’s not natural. Someone, or something, wove it.”

Holding my hand up to placate him, a glance at my tessellated palm stalled me. Somewhere on the floodplains, marked out by those lifelines, tiny steamers plied the rivers. I plummeted into the weave.

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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