In the silvered night, he steals down alleys, ferrying old books from the library to secret caches. The Pure are already calling beyond the walls. When they enter the city, they’ll root out heresy with a great bonfire and smashing of icons. Corpses will swing from the gates.

The librarian isn’t sure whether astronomical texts, and studies of verse are heretical. But he suspects they may be. He believes the invaders might find the land inventory useful. And this too he bears into hiding.

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

Organising it took ages. The same corner table in Marcel’s; the red dress; the precise day. A cloudless sky with hunter’s moon. But love finds a way.

My woman sits by the window, half illuminated by the restaurant’s discreet lamps, but already silvered by the moon outside. She is becoming one with the night. On the beach beyond, some creature cries, stitching the present to a timeless past.

“Did you bring her here?” she asks. “Your ex, Louise. Before she …”

Everything is the same. Now I will ask her the question. By her answer she will merge with Louise.

 

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

Long after his death, a digitally remastered Ol’ Green Eyes was wowing audiences again with gyrating hips and glorious guitar riffs.  Girls born decades after the original performances screamed and tried to rush the stage. The star, haloed in blue light, paid them no mind.

The tours were a sell-out nationwide. But Ol’ Green Eyes weren’t very interactive. Not until Frank Gainsborough had the idea of adding a connectome. It weren’t the original one, of course. That were long gone. But a great nephew made a reasonable match, right?

Now, when the girls scream, he leers and hauls them to his dressing room.

 

 

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 don’t even recognise the handwriting. So much has changed since I wrote those words in my journal. Can I believe them? Searching my memory offers no answers. I have no recollection of those woods, the cottage, the break-in. Did it really happen?

A story slots into place in my narrative. Comfortable.

That would explain my fear of dark tree stands. But I’m an imposter in my own life. There is now an uncertainty at the core of my life, a swampy place where the footing is unsteady. It threatens to swallow everything.

 

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 unmistakeable sound of young men behaving badly drifting across the water. Robert was drawn to investigate, and wandered round the bay.

He accepted a can of tasteless fizzy warm beer, declined a spliff, and answered questions about his trip and how he liked the island.

“What do you do?” he enquired of one man.

“I drink,” The reply came with a grin. “In my spare time I’m a policeman.”

The others, all of whom seemed to speak some English, chuckled, exposing teeth and gums stained bright red by betel nut.

 

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 sun-swept fjord has been constructed with real flair. Geirfinnur Vidarsson admires the build as only an engineer can.  Steeply sloping snow-capped walls and a firth perfectly aligned with the rising fireball, bathing the glaucous waves orange.

He steps with care through the lava field, wary of the razor-edged cinder cones lurking beneath the soft green moss.  Geirfinnur is alone in this landscape. He utters a cloud, and it drifts fluffy across the dome of the sky.

Next, he tries to forge a man and a woman, but fails. Head bowed, he turns back towards town.

 

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

Miss Maisie make a mausoleum. Weren’t that just like she? Even in death, she lord it over Miss Hester.

But Miss Hester, she smile and sweep her patio; keep her place spick and span. She look from her door through the chicken-wire fence at goat and chicken and pickney playing on the grave.

“You don’ mind that your sister still have bigger house?” I aks.

Miss Hester laugh. “She cyan chase them animal out, now. She gone. And I outlive she.”

 

 

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

“From where the Benson house used to be, take a left at the duck pond,” I explain to the county surveyors. They unpack theodolites.

Somewhere in these woods, my property stops, and Higgins’ starts. They do things differently in Higgins land. But deer tracks meander through both territories, and, come spring, the blue tits may nest in either. Underbrush obscures the lines of latitude and longitude.

I have no option but to ask Higgins to walk the boundary with me, unfurling black and yellow tape where our internal maps coincide. I gift him a stand of chestnuts. We send the surveyors home.

 

 

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 found me of course. Writing my journal by the light of the oil lamp. I fancied a wave of warmth tickled my chilled body as the leather and paper blazed-up on the fire. The flag’s crack in the Arctic wind howled despair.

Petrie’s tone was that of a disappointed father. “You know only the official record is permitted. It says so in your contract. No individual tales.”

“You think you can own the past?” I said.

“No.” He laughed. “With my account of muscular purity and heroic suffering, I will own the future.”

 

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

Hattie couldn’t remember the point when men stopped noticing her, when construction workers no longer whistled and catcalled. Bur one day, while she was out buying a newspaper, she noticed a sense of ease, a relaxation of the shoulders.

Then she discovered she could deftly extract strangers’ wallets. Nobody saw her.

She tried lifting a diamond tiara from Johnstone’s Jewellers. Nobody saw her.

Governments began to offer contracts of extraordinary delicacy. It was dangerous, of course, but paid lavishly.

One spring afternoon, her grandson walked right through her.

“Well, bugger me,” she said. “I’ve passed on and nobody told me.”

 

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