It was the last. The very last tree. Arboriculturists exerted their best efforts. Gardeners mulched. Museum directors curated with a cordon to keep woodpeckers at bay.

I knew it was special, sure. But it seemed so ordinary. The world’s final tree should look amazeballs. Arms hugging the trunk’s girth, I put my ear to the bark and listened to its soul. The creature spoke to me of age and pain. Sculpting with a chainsaw, I revealed that soul, its whorls and hieroglyphs.

“Umm, dude,” Bobby whined, “You didn’t strip the bark all the way round? Right?”

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 name is HT Smith.  The Smith, of course, is commonplace, and the H stands for Harold. The T name may never be spoken aloud. Call me Harold or Harry and I will send people after you to break your limbs. If you’re foolish enough to use the T name, older creatures will do much worse.  So just call me HT and we’ll get along fine.

We both know the T is a taunt. You will never be able to ignore the search for its secret. And you lust after the power over me you believe it will offer.

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’s a stranger in my womb, a cuckoo in my nest. I’m great with another woman’s child. I know I should feel grateful she donated her egg for me, but it seems like I’m incubating it for her.

Will I learn to love this thing spawning inside me? They say every mother does, but that’s not true. Some never bond with their child, even when it’s natural. I feel you in me, demon. The end days are here, and I have nowhere to run.

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 are what you buy, that’s what Thomas says. I tuck into my burger though it tastes like meat-flavoured polystyrene. Thom shows off his latest device.

Rachel slurps her shake, commanding silence for an aphorism.  “If nobody sees you consume it, does it really exist?” she asks. Rach is deep that way.

Contemplatively, I chew a french fry, all carbohydrate and sodium chloride. I am becoming the Happy Meal. My friends watch the transmutation occurring,

In another mall, adjacent to my universe, more burgers are coming to life.

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

With infinite tenderness, you place yourself across the path of my danger, stopping the hurtling train. You are my superhero.

The whispers start. “She can’t exist on her own.” “Dependency”. Even “Stockholm Syndrome.”

People can be cruel. “Don’t listen,” you say.

I go out less and less, avoiding the voices and the stares.

You make me a nest, and my legs wither. My chest inflates only shallowly now.

Too late I realise what you are.

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

An empty scallop shell counter-poses a sprig of dried lavender. A kestrel, loving testament to the taxidermist’s art, perches vigilant on a branch. A creature, half a million years gone, turned to stone. Maybe it was a gorgon who saw her own reflection in a pool.

The hip bone connects to the ankle bone. It’s uncomfortably easy to believe there might be a space for a basilisk.

I shift my weight awkwardly, unable to tear myself away from the curator’s model  universe.

You can’t capture running water in a bucket. In a bucket it’s still.

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

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