That sage who said it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive, Robert thought, had never visited an airport. There comes a point where you can’t manage another sushi portion, another trip round duty free. Where it becomes problematic to stop yourself smacking the doting parent beside you who won’t control their children. Patience of Job or what?

He reached the end of his book and wondered about starting the next. Surely, they’d be boarding soon!

At last! The mannequin behind the desk tapped the microphone. Robert gathered his bag.

“We regret the delay to your flight. Plane’s gone technical.”

 

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 chandelier resonated with marching boots on the parade ground. The salon walls shook as heavy vehicles rumbled onto the quay.

The author buried his head in his hands. “I can’t create in this din.”

“How about,” the brigadier-general suggested, “we toss a corpse into the sea, pockets stuffed with secret plans for an invasion at Calais?”

“You don’t understand fiction do you?” the author said in withering tones. “The enemy will see through that in a second. We need to misdirect them from the Normandy denouement, sprinkle-in clues so readers are forced to work out the Calais conclusion themselves.”

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. This one is a belated 75th anniversary tribute, of course, to the unsung heroes of D-Day You can find other stories here

When the glass shattered, everything stood still. Dad’s greenhouse!

“Joel!” Dad sounded anxious.

Joel knew soon the tone would change to anger. “It was just a pebble, Dad. A small one.”

But Dad didn’t get angry. He put his hand to his mouth and gazed at the heavens.

“Just a small one,” he said. “A one gram microsatellite. Accelerated to a quarter the speed of light.”

He whipped out his calculator, punching the keys in panic.

“Jesus Christ! There’s no way of slowing it down. Impact of a small nuclear explosion on collision. How will the aliens understand? What have we done?”

 

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

No. I won’t.

No, I can hear you perfectly well from where I am. You may say I’m up a tree without a paddle. But you can skedaddle. Just how much use do you suppose a paddle is in a tree, eh?

I can see for miles and miles and miles. As many coconuts as I can eat. And no bear’s going to get me. Jagulars maybe. Strorny good droppers, jagulars, as Pooh remarked. But not bears. You, on the other hand, are extremely vulnerable to roving ursines.

So, which of us would you say is crazy?

 

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 at the link below

Oh, you may say it’ll never catch on. But I fear its terrible appeal. The young folk like it. They spend hours sending messages back and forth to each other.

In my day, we spoke to each other, danced, played. If there were stories to be told, we recited them. Now we are become shallow, relying on this infernal invention while our memory withers.

No, I say writing will corrupt us all. Nothing will be the same again

 

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

Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the sea loch. Never on me. The brine- and shellfish-scented wind ruffled his hair into a halo and stirred the water. Out by the headland, a vortex formed.

“Look,” he shouted, pointing, “it’s Nessie, the monster.”

A grey head broke the surface. I knew it for a selkie, because I’d seen the shed sealskin once on the beach. A selkie, here to take a comely lass’s form and carry poor Jamie away under the sea.

Turn to me, just once, I silently willed him. Only once and I’ll save you.

He didn’t. I walked.

 

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

Alex speaks a language no-one else alive understands. Well, we call him Alex, but we don’t know what he calls himself. He’s always refused to signal this.

It’s not that he has any hesitation about speaking. He will happily speak all day. Just that nobody knows what he’s saying. We detect pleasure, frustration, thoughtfulness and a range of other states. But the argument he’s advancing so passionately eludes us.

Today, though, Alex is silent. Is he angry? Sad? Or has he simply finished reciting the entire history of his race?

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

Mrs. Gant always scared me. She’d race out of the temple at us kids, waving her mop like a scimitar. The fear meant I never did get to find out who they worshipped in there. I imagined stern priests, stone slabs, and human sacrifice.

It seems fanciful now, slinking past the bland block structure. Four decades since I walked the neighbourhood. Mrs. Gant long gone.

And yet. The iron railings carry wrought shapes. And those swirling shapes pull in shadows from the temple garden, plucking with lean fingers at the shades from the street. I turn and run like hell.

 

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

Reflections were no longer perfect.  The above ceased to mirror below. Below the meniscus the granite cliffs and great purple bruise of a damaged sky were gone.  Down under, a gentle surf lapped the peaceful strand, and fishermen cast their nets on a sea pulsing with cod and bream.

“Tis the devil’s work,” Molly declared, needles clacking as they wound the soft strong wool. “Paradise be above, and below, a vale of tears.”

Nothing could convince her. Heaven below must be hell.

“The sky will clear,” she said, “and we’ll go back up. When I’ve finished my Jeb’s new jumper.”

 

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 wanted to say I’m sorry. But she wouldn’t listen. She ran. She fell and didn’t move. I was frightened. So, I never got to say sorry, and I never got to be forgiven.

Do you see? You are my second chance. That’s why I had to hurt you. So I could say sorry, and so you could forgive me.

You do forgive me, don’t you? You must.

 

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