Harvey was appalled. The street below pullulated with people, jostling and pushing noisily through each other.

“Mum,” he said, “Those folk are idiots. No social distancing. Don’t they know they’re going to die?”

Taking him by the shoulders, she gave him that look, the one that said she had something important to teach him.

“Those folk don’t have the option of staying home. If they don’t go out and earn money, they’ll certainly die.”

Harvey asked why.

Because they’re poor, she explained. But this only led the lad to ask why they were poor. Her answers ran out then. And that set the course of his life.

 

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 never stops. The long segmented worm trundles round the tormented globe, zipping it back together. We patch the rips from which poison oozes and make the world whole again. That’s what this machine is for.

 I was born on the train and I will die on it. Behind our clanking passage, land heals, seed stirs. In my dreams, I slip from the footplate and tread the mulch, weed the crop, harvest food. But we have a job to do. The train never stops.

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 always a backdoor—you just need to know how to find it. In Roxy’s case, the way-in was animals. She adored them, specially dolphins and whales.

I’d never have got through the iron gates and security cameras at the front, where her fans and the paps waited. But tomorrow, when I take her to the aquarium, I’ll go down on one knee and she’ll be mine.

The snap of Rover’s leg in my hands still haunts me. But he’ll be running around soon. The break was clean and Roxy ensured he had the best vets money could buy.

 

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 felt daring. And noble. This was a grand thing I was doing, an act that would render me immortal.

Yet my face flushed as I reached the plinth and let the flimsy robe slither off. It made a silken hiss as it fell like a shed skin. Through the forest of easels, the zephyr of a collective sigh. Cool air caressed my bare flesh.

The gentlemen peered, squinted, grunted, as they began my slow transformation into art.

The movement behind the easels grew more frenetic, and the grunts louder.

 

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

Up to the edge of my hedge, I am safe. I stare out into the empty road—no cars, no people, only increasingly bold foxes.

Then there, at the bottom of the lane, a figure silhouetted by the early morning sun. It walks towards me, as if out of a dream. Another person. Tentatively, I raise my hand.

“How do,” it says, stopping at my gate.

Stranger danger! Who knows what the creature carries?

I run inside and bolt my door.

 

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

If I told him once, I told him a thousand times–cups go on the left, plates and pans on the right, cutlery underneath. I cook, clean, and mend. It really shouldn’t have been hard for him to manage the washing-up.

There has to be a system for everything. Left-overs go to the hogs. No need for acid baths or body parts in freezers.

 

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

“Go! Go! Go!” he captained us.

The cry was imperative, and we were trained. Legs strode, hearts pumped. Rifles in hand, we dashed. He was dashing too, in his starched uniform with the yellow braid. So captainly.

“Go! Go! Go!” Again.

“Yes, Sir.” I snapped off a salute. “But go where exactly?”

 

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 set my ear against the curve of the giant shell. This is a ritual every time we come to the palace. The police guards stiffen to attention because it’s odd. Harve looks panicked because it’s his friend who’s being odd. But it’s a thing I have to do.

“You know they’re not real eggs, right?” Harve always asks. “Those are decorative barriers against truck bombs.”

Nobody knows except me. Inside these eggs, dragons are sleeping. And when the country’s in peril, they’ll scream forth into an angry sky. Inside the shell, I hear a tapping.

 

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.

Mary woke to find a man crawling in through her bedroom window. She lay absolutely still as he wriggled through and plopped onto her bed.

“Oh, bugger,” the stranger said.

“Just what I needed,” Mary said, wrapping him in a bear hug. “Do exactly what ask, and I won’t call the cops.”

Bernard, who had come to plunder, was ravished. He remained ravished for the next four months until Mary tired of him.

 

Lest you think this is a male fantasy, it’s based on a real event. 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

“You’re Charcoal Charlie,” he said.

The name’s Fred, but I guessed they gave everyone a name in the ballooning club. Perhaps the moniker was a slur, on account of my skin colour.

“Get under the envelope and flap the edges open,” he said.

“Sure thing, massa.” I hoped he’d understand the irony.

Holding the edges of the balloon and flapping like a rooster, I felt ridiculous, but the bag began to inflate.

Then, a wall of flame jetted past me.

“WTF? You almost burned me to a crisp,” I yelled.

“Why do you think the job’s called Charcoal Charlie?”

 

 

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