“You remember that letter, Dad?”

The note told his parents he didn’t love them.  It was a harsh thing, but he was angry as only a teenage boy can be.  The storm passed in days, and he didn’t think about it again.

The guilt kicked in during his twenties. He considered confessing he hadn’t meant the rejection, but that seemed weird a decade on, and he lived with the remorse. Forty years later, at his father’s deathbed, he unburdened.

“Don’t remember that at all,” the old man said.

 

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 character and world-building.

 

The town square was placid. Bread was bought, coffee drunk, chess played.

I was never placid. Orderly routine filled me with divine rage. As a child, crossing the square, I would imagine a detonator in my pocket. Click, and Mme Albert vanished; click, and M Leroy became a puff of smoke. As I grew older, I dreamed of knives and bombs.

You probably think I’m a psychopath and came to a sticky end. Think again. I made my fortune and bought this town. Deploying the citizens on the board is much more fun than killing them.

 

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 character and world-building

My name is Rahmathon. You look hungry after your trek – I can sell you a sheep if you like. Yes, you’ve reached the Yagnobi. My people have lived here in this high valley for more than a thousand years. We tend our cattle and cultivate our wheat. Yields are poor, but without bread people are not people.

We have forgotten who we were – Sogdians. From Samarkand we once traded glass all the way east to imperial China and silk all the way west to Byzantium.

I can make you a good price for this tender little lamb.

 

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 character and likeability

 

Sophia already had everything. The only possible gift was sensation.

“How about saudade?” The little man peered over half-moon glasses. “A Portuguese emotion – the pleasure of feeling sad. Very popular. There’s even a music that goes with it: Fado”

“No,” I said. “Too much like wistfulness. Besides, I want something nobody has ever experienced before.”

The wrinkled rapturesmith retired to the dark back-shop. “I think this might suit, Sir.”

He proffered a small leather box.

“Chocfulness,” he said. “The pleasure of finishing something you really enjoyed but probably shouldn’t have done, like eating a whole box of chocolates.”

 

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 character and likeability

 

“This is me?” I asked.

He smiled and nodded.

“Two-thirds of a pizza, a half-drunk glass of wine, my watch and some condiments?”

Again, that smile.

Tom told me once he picked through the rubble of the bombed village for an hour, arranging the detritus to compose his photograph. A frayed teddy bear from one house and, from another, a tin plate with a bullet hole.

“Wasn’t that lying?” I’d asked.

He replied it was revealing the truth.

“And the truth about me is?”

Tom hugged me and whispered “Maybe that you’re alone. Or maybe you changed plans.”

 

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 character and likeability

 

When I wake, there is writing on the wall – “my thoughts abandon me with every word”. Had I written that? The script is elegant and flowing, unlike my scrawl.

Writing should be confined to notebooks – on walls it’s a transgression. At the age of eight I was punished for writing on the lounge wall, sent to bed without supper. Even after two coats of paint, the message still seeped through.

I envy those who can write on walls without guilt, but the infestation of words troubles me. I wonder how it would feel to write on human skin.

 

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 character and likeability

 

The cloud ruffled the top of Table Mountain, tendrils fraying down towards the city.

“They call that effect the tablecloth,” Thandie said.

Sitting under the shade umbrella, I sipped my mojito and gazed across the harbour. We were in her country, her city, but I felt a disconcerting familiarity. Africa should be more alien.

She seemed to read my mind. “You expected mud huts, didn’t you? Lions? Tribal dances?”

All I could do was laugh and reach across the café table to squeeze her hand.  “You’re dark and exotic enough for me. And there’s still your father’s kraal to come.”

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 character, desire, and suspense here

You prepare a bed on the drowsy veranda and carry me to it, like a bundle of sticks. With meticulous tenderness you settle my wasted limbs. But I sense you feel something missing from our love, now there’s no longer any cause for jealousy.

I was beautiful, wasn’t I? Admirers threw flowers onto the stage, and you burned in a rage of uncertainty. The doubt bound you to me. Can you cope with tranquillity? Will you stay with me to the end?

 

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 character, desire, and suspense here

 

There’s whimsy and then there’s madness. In the square, the giant escapement was cute. We sat by the fountain and savoured the play of sun through the holes. Hands big as railway signals indicated the museum and the train station. Disquieting.

We chose the museum. You learn a lot about a community through its relics. The face of a Gulliver-sized fob watch was set into the cobbles of the plaza.

“What time is it?” I asked a whiskered citizen in a top hat.

He capered. “Tea time, of course. It’s always tea-time.”

The only train out was at High Noon.

 

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 character, desire, and suspense here