The city dreams, respiring slowly—the outbreath no longer poison, but blossom-perfume. I sniff the reveries, and they’re heady. My head swims, and lips curl in a smile.

From window to window we call and birds swoop from among the towers carrying our cry like pollen. Buds break on spires and pinnacles. Basements put out roots and taste the earth.

Newness is being born.

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 air holds a limpid clarity. A goat, nibbling my hedge, looks in the window at me looking out. Birdsong resounds over empty streets. I skype my neighbours, even those I don’t like. In the highway’s asphalt, a crack widens and a seed takes root. There will be no going back to “normal” after this is over.

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

All that remained were his last photographs. Surely, they held a message? Some final trace of him to quiet my anguish; a response to everything I should have said.

If only I’d…. But, no. It is what it is. He’d have known I hadn’t meant to leave, that I’d be back.

There it was! A sparrow looking-in through the window. A reprimand? Or forgiveness? Was I the bird, or he?

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 aghast. “It’s monstrous,” I say.

He seems faintly amused by my outrage and turns from the keyboard with a shake of his silver head. “It’s necessary,” he says. “The way we stop this disease is to isolate the vulnerable and let the healthy catch it. Most will recover and when they do we’ll have a shield of herd immunity.”

“You can’t know that,” I say. “You’re running a terrible experiment with millions of lives.”

His mane tosses like a lion’s. “The peak will be sharp, but it’ll be short.”

Somewhere, faintly, a phone is ringing.

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

They promised me cheap and plentiful power, Dick Tracy watches, moon bases, freedom to make the life I wanted. They promised me flying cars.

I guess I got the watch. The internet was unexpected, and that’s wonderful. The nastiness, less so.

Where’s my flying car?

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 cannot be so terrible, so decisive. Look! The sparrows continue their squabbling in the branches. A thin rain is falling, like yesterday, warm and gentle. The sun continues its climb up the wall of the sky as always, and the water plays in the fountain.

Nothing decisive has happened. When the summons comes, I will open the 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

“That’s such a great idea,” Pfennig said. “A seed bank.”

And it was true. The metal shelves held hazelnuts, garlic cloves, and lumpy nodules I couldn’t identify.

We’d survive, Pfennig decided. Dig up the parks, plant the seeds, harvest our own food. When the soldiers at last removed the barriers around the city, they’d find us healthy and thriving. Then we’d walk out proudly into the sunshine of the new world.

He clapped me on the back, and I beamed with pride, unable to confess a squirrel had done the collecting. All I’d been gathering was graffiti.

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 curtain rose. She gave a gasp. The first time she’d seen live theatre, and her reaction was everything I’d hoped.

“Why isn’t it in colour?” she whispered.

I explained the play was about the old days, and things then were in black and white because colour hadn’t yet been invented.

“You know,” I said, “like in the old movies.”

As the crowd spilled out of the auditorium, she announced “I’m going to be an actor when I grow up.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was all done by avatars now.

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

Perhaps because his mother was not of this land, he was always able to dream of other things, places, possibilities.

But when the opportunity came to leave, he hesitated. It would mean parting from Bertha. If only she would bid him go with an easy heart! But she couldn’t. She cried and begged.

And his going was soured.

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

That’s what we’ve come to name it—meal by cloud. Quarantined in our own homes, we take to inviting virtual guests for dinner over Skype. We call from window to window across the city “stay strong”.

Only ambulance sirens and the rumble of military vehicles echo between buildings in the empty boulevards.

It must end soon. This cannot be forever.

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