Through the glass doors I watch one, his head tipped back, just so, in companionable mirth. Like the moon, he pulls his sea of acolytes forward. They lean in with appreciation. The laughter is measured, not brash enough to disturb the serenity of Chez Raymond.

Out there in the ceremonial arena, waiters glide soundless across the marble floor. Deals are quietly made and liaisons arranged. Back here in the kitchen, we are the swan’s legs, a frantic paddling below the surface.

Chef calls “service”. I spit in the tournedos before carrying it out to the charismatic man.

 

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 was not a cloud in the sky when the rain began. Not water-rain. A single moist slap on the tarmac announced the start.

I turned. A mackerel flapped iridescent on the empty roadway. Then another. Scales brushed my cheek, like the beard scratch of a lover’s kiss. Fish began to fall in torrents.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I looked up, hoping to see spuds too, so I could open a fish and chip shop.

But miracles aren’t what they used to be. There weren’t even any bloody loaves.

 

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 was something studiedly noble about the way he drew himself to full height in the dock, hands grasping his lapels, silver head canted.

“There is no freedom, nothing more important,” he declared, “than our right to say what we think. Our liberty itself is on trial here.”

The prosecution, of course, showed the pictures of torched villages and bodies spasmed in final agony. Witnesses testified to the sudden and savage explosion of hate.

“It was just a speech,” the Minister said. “You couldn’t expect me to foresee what goes on in other people’s heads.”

 

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 has shrunk. This single window is now my television on the world.

The nurses come and go like birds. I no longer know their names. They click and hum, or maybe that’s the machines. In the heat of the day, one opens the window. As the sun transits into the west, another closes it again.

The moon rises. Lights spark on, sprinkling the bay with glitter. I am quite content to die, but oh I’d like to see one just more sunrise over the docks. There might be a ship bound for distant ports.

 

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

In the whole village, only I still remember Dan Grimes. He lived, carried to the fields the scythe he called Excalibur, drank ale, married Bess, and died, all before living memory.

The young uns don’t credit it when I say Dan would walk half way across the county for work.

“Why didn’t he get the bus?” they ask.

“Weren’t no buses then,” I say, and they ponder this in silence.

When folk say Joseph Grimes has his mother’s crabbiness, I tell ‘em the viciousness is purely Dan’s. And they respect my lore.

But Dan weren’t vicious when he were young. He were sweet. Just not sweet on me. He comes to me in my dreams.

 

 

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

“My father is late,” she says as if this would somehow explain why she hadn’t turned up for work.

“I see,” I say. But I don’t see. “Where has he gone?”

The only answer is a shrug. How can she tell? Nobody knows. Her eyes, russet flecked with gold like sunspots on two stars, are filled with sadness and with resolve.

“Perhaps he’ll come back soon,” I suggest helpfully.

But she looks like I might be a little crazy.

“He’s late,” she repeats slow, as you might to a child.

I’m still not giving her the response she clearly expects.

“Late. Dead,” she says

I am overwhelmed by embarrassment.

 

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, in the top right corner, that blur. See it? No, it’s not a smudge, it’s real. This is a special kind of camera. No holiday snaps of laughing kids here. The device strips away the flesh, to reveal … see? Your ribs, your radius, humerus and ulna. The miraculous complexity of the wrist. The radium camera reveals what you’re made of. But the blur isn’t a bone – it’s your spirit.

No, you can’t keep the image, sorry. We hold them in safe keeping. Sometimes we spread them all out on the floor and compare souls, judge who’s most worthy.

 

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 ask what I meant, and I tell you frankly that I cannot say. When it lived inside me, I knew its shape and smell. But, speaking, I expelled it for you.

I gave it legs to travel, though, inside me, it had no limbs. Wealth it carries in its pockets to pay its way. And I gave it voices to speak, though the language is one not known to me. All of this I did so you might know it. Life becomes something else when spoken.

So, instead, I ask you to tell me what I meant.

 

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 are marks on the pages, made by people long, long ago. They trigger electrical discharges in his brain. Not like a seizure, but precise tiny currents. These fluxes form things that cannot exist: a fish breathing air, a wicked witch, snow in the desert. On these little sparks, rising from the bonfire of his mind, he escapes.

Much later he watches a documentary. “They exist,” he cries, “fish with lungs”.

He sells up, and treks the scalding Sahara, searching for snow. Eventually he reaches the white-capped Atlas Mountains and stumbles on to Marrakech, sure he will find the witch.

 

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 are spitfires over my garden. Mrs Christie next door cheers.

“Hello,” I say. And then I add “Magnificent aren’t they?”

There’s a pause as she eyes me. “Kept us safe in the War. The Few.”

I sing “There’ll be blue birds over, the white cliffs of Dover.”

That seems to do it. She grudgingly invites me in for a nice cup of tea.

Spitfires don’t bother me. But when the helicopter comes over, I again see the barrel bomb falling and taste the choking gas.

“It must be hard for you people,” she says, and I feel utterly alone.

 

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