Inside the dome, we have beauty and abundance, lack nothing. Imagine a thing and you need only stretch out your hand to claim it. There is no hardship, and really all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

At night, I press my cheek to the glass wall, seeking that one pinpoint of light high in the sky. I reach out a hand. But I cannot touch it.

Oh, why would you insist on staying behind?

 

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

 

Lights glimmered, undulating with the slap and slip of the waves. The early morning air was still and cool. And he saw, saw the whole thing.

“I know where it’s gone,” he shouted.

“Where? What?” she asked.

“Half the universe is missing. Dark matter–it’s there, in the mirror world.” He pointed at the reflection.

A pigeon looked up, shook its head, and took lazy flight, feathers rustling like a ladies’ fan.

“Actually,” she said, “more like 85% of the universe.”

His shoulders slumped. “Bugger! I thought I’d cracked the problem.”

“Tea?” she suggested.

 

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

What’s it like to be a bat? Or a Martian? I’ve spent my life wanting to know. I remember as a kid asking Mum what it was like to be her but she just shook her head and said it’s being Mum.

Later, the connectome of a flatworm gave me the entire wiring diagram of a brain but revealed no understanding of wormness.

Now the solution to the conundrum is within my grasp. When this upgrade installs, the Blue Horizon AI will cross the singularity into consciousness.

I wait.

I ask.

The machine speaks. “It’s being Blue Horizon.”

42, I think glumly.

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

Madame Mimi and Madame Zoe Stael have not been seen together for over twenty years. If you’d met them then, you’d have been unable to tell them apart. They’re twins, you see. Now they fight on opposite sides of our war.

I wonder how this is possible. To be born of the same place, the same season—that should make them the same person. Twins trouble me. We are each unique, except for those born together. My uncle says twins are not people but birds.

Today, after the battle, only one of the pair will survive. The victor will become a person, and we will know our path.

 

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 summer. The band played and crowds cheered as they marched off. Girls showered the boys with flowers and kisses. It was all a grand adventure. Marnie was the only young woman to enlist. I wanted to give her a flower. I wanted to kiss her, bend her back like a movie heroine. But I was ashamed.

Now it’s winter. They’ll never come back, those boys and Marnie. All gone. We’re ashamed we encouraged them so. Nobody ever visits this bandstand now.

Except me. I’m glad I didn’t enlist. I’m still alive.

 

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 can never take it back. One look at her eyes, wide as a cartoon, and her trembling hands was enough. She’d seen the anger he’d locked away and could never feel safe again.

“It’s a prophecy,” he tried. “See, like in the painting.”

He gestured at the hole his fist had made in the wall and then at the picture, the one mirroring the other. “They’re the same.”

Hoping for hidden treasure, he reached into the cavity. Silent, she shook her head. His fingers closed on nothing, and he knew the real emptiness he’d revealed was his own.

 

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’m not even a land person. Driving a bus isn’t what destiny intended. A war canoe, that’s what. Like my grandfather and all the way back to my grandfather’s grandfather. Sail bellied full, outrigger flying over the sea, drips spraying like blood from a severed neck.

The harsh cry of my men behind me, weapons ready, as we prepare to land.

Another craft slips alongside—an enemy taxi. My warrior blood sings as I pull my gun. Driver, pow! Passengers, pow! pow! pow! This route is my route, my people’s route.

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

Deep in the woods, there’s a fairy ring. As a child I found the place. From all over the valley, travellers journeyed to view it and make wishes.

Deep in the woods, there’s a fairy ring. Over the years, a road was worn smooth by thousands of pilgrim feet.

They built a café to cater for hungry travellers, and an inn to lay their heads. And a souvenir shop. And a supermarket. And a housing complex.

Deep in the city, a ring of trees is lovingly preserved. But nobody can remember why.

 

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 isn’t a story. If you’re reading this, please help. Okay, I’ll admit I was looking on your computer for dirt I could use to blackmail you. And, as you can imagine, I found plenty. That business with Mary was … well, who I am I to judge?

I’m not exactly a nice person. But I didn’t deserve this, trapped as a recurring algorithm in your desktop. Maybe my body is wandering around by itself out there, maybe it fell down dead. Just press the keys and release me. Please.

 

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

Everything about that building was wrong. Bastard amalgam of a hundred ages mixing turrets and pediments—a temple to some chimaeric deity, part saviour and part destroyer. The one terrible eye looked down on you from its riveted socket, like the porthole of a ghost ship.

And heavenly Marie Celeste it was, for I never saw its shuttered doors open to worshippers or supplicants.  Silas said god lived in the cabin perched atop the roof, winching his vittals up from street level. I disagreed, believing the tenant was a deaf hunchback, and dreamed of being sacrificed to the creature.

 

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