Whaddaya mean I can’t be here? Whodyathink you are? Oh, you’re the doorman? Well, whoopiedoo, I’m a street-sweeper! You ain’t no better than me. Whodyathink keeps the pavement clean for the lovely ladies ‘n’ genelmen?

What? Of course I’m dirty, you eejit. Muck does that to a bloke. I’m good enough to keep your customers from stepping in poop, but not good enough to be one? Get you!

Silly hat but nice coat, by the way. We’ll see how pretty the jacket looks when you have to clean up your own crap because I ain’t gonna ever 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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

They were drawn up like an army on the heights, standing tall in silent challenge. Mist swaddled them and a pale moon shone through their ranks.

My opponent’s bishop rushed me, and the daring caused the watchers to gasp.

A shake of my head to clear it, and a hand run over tired eyes. These were only vases, a collection on my sideboard. Just ornaments.

The bishop’s mitre scythed over my head and I saw moonlight glint on keen steel.

Confronting mortal threat makes philosophical speculations about reality fade. I hefted the broadsword that formed in my 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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

“When you know how it’s done, it takes away the magic,” Petran says.

The vaulted roof soars almost all the way to heaven. Petran painted yellow stars on the high blue ceiling. And I, of course, chamfered the columns, tapering them at the top. This trompe l’oeil makes the viewer see the chamber as taller than it really is. Long flights of stairs force the petitioner to look up towards the majesty of the dais and throne. Together, we artisans manufactured awe.

Truly, it don’t destroy the magic. Ordinary folk made this with brains and hands. That’s awe too.

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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

Tom has halted beside the woodcutter’s cottage, a stand of burly oaks patrolling the fence line. He can’t make his feet go on.

You picture dread and think of a sudden shape in the underbrush, a howl in the night. If only it were so simple. How little separates us from what we fear!

To count as brave you must first be afraid of death. Tom’s fear runs much deeper. He can see the weave that connects the worlds. The fools tried to make us go away, but what use is that when we’re always a part of him?

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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

Nothing. Whiteness. And the hum of a motor. I can see and hear, but when I try to move, nothing. Not restrained, just no muscles. Not even to call out. Without larynx and tongue, the shout remains trapped within me. Am I dead?

Shadows move across the ceiling. People in the room.

Helen’s voice. “How is he doctor?”

“A vegetative state. He may come out of it, he may not.”

The scream inside me has nowhere to go. It may live in me for ever.

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

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view

“My eyes, something’s happened to my eyes.”

The other passengers shrank back, in case my illness proved catching. If I could see that action, my sight was okay. So, it wasn’t me, it was the world. Something had happened to the world.

I felt the ferry’s engine as a bass vibration in my legs. But we weren’t receding from land. The moon hung motionless in the sky and the reflections from the old customs house on the wharf didn’t shimmer on the stilled waves.

A figure wrapped in a shawl bent close. “You needn’t leave. Go back to her.”

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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

This photo stumped me. So I’m going to repost a story I wrote a year and a half ago, also in response to a similar picture by Joshua.

Grandpa scratched his thin beard, the turkey wattle flapping on his neck.  “Dammit, we used to make things, we were somebody.”

I didn’t know why he’d brought me to this derelict building, or what he wanted to teach me. Grandpa was just an old man, to be humoured.

“Can’t see how you’re ever going to amount to anything, Josh.” A sad shake of his head. “You can’t make a world out of selling each other insurance policies and burgers.”

Now, fifteen years on, with the DNA price crashing, Grandpa’s message makes sense.  I stare bleakly at my own wasteland.

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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on reveals.

You reckoned I’d spin you a sob-story with these shoes, didn’t you? Like Hemingway’s “baby shoes, brand new, never worn”.  Or like the boy got his feet blown off in the war and never wore them again. I’d have thrashed him if he’d been that careless.

Liked to walk, my lad did, and he were a good strong walker. One day, he walked and walked, and walked right out of these shoes. Where did he go? Dunno. This story’s a mystery, not the tragedy you was expecting. The shoes live under his bed still, but the boy never came back.

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.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on reveals.