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

 

Mirrors glittered in the great hall, images of his opponent marching away in regiments to the ends of the world. Yet Henderson was not overawed by the infinite Vizier, for a similar legion marched at his side.

On the table between the statesmen, pleasant valleys, ripe fields and great cities. And a pen. The Vizier drew a line around a spired settlement. Henderson took a bustling port. Watching counsellors sighed like wind in the forest.

The Vizier said, “Let us sup and be at ease, Excellency. It’s going to be a long day.” He clapped his hands.

 

 

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

Ki warbles. Ki croaks at the edge of a pool, green-shaded by ki’s overhang. Kin everywhere.

The warbling hopping on the earthing seeking seedlings under the shading.

Old menning stroking beardings, separating once and for all “this is the subject, and this the object”.

Now I am he, and all you kin are its.

I gather them, name them. I have dominion. The oak falls to my axe.

Where now are kin?

 

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 piece is an experiment. It uses the suggestion of Robin Kimmerer that the division of pronouns into personal (he/she) and impersonal (it) in English reflects a worldview of dominion rather than stewardship of nature. She

Malkie weren’t bad, not really. Unlucky, you might say. He could have been somebody. At least, I can say he were good to me. Shared his bottle, when he had one, and his blanket on a winter night. I seen the TV pictures of them world war cemeteries for the boys who died afraid in the mud—shade trees and white headstones in neat rows like soldiers on parade,.

Malkie died in the mud here in our trench. But no bugger gave him a pretty grave. I did me best with a rock. Lest we forget.

 

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