I watch my sons playing, adventuring identities. A spyglass and cutlass make them explorers and corsairs. Finding the scimitar, they bicker scrupulously over which should be Salahadin and which the infidel crusader.

For a child, it’s so easy. For my husband, less so—the gentle ophthalmologist recalled from London to fill his father’s bloody shoes. The Presidential identity fastened on him, like a terrible mask, with fear and reluctance. We dreamed of bringing change, hope, modernity. Some denied our vision. Traitors cannot be allowed to block progress. So I told my beloved.

Me? I am becoming Lady Macbeth.

.

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

A corvid cawed boisterously. And that was fine. But a flight of ducks went over, oddly calling “toc-a-toc”. I knew I couldn’t be in Kansas anymore. There was a man, naked but for a loincloth and a feathered headdress. He said something in a language I did not understand, though I sensed the question to be gentle.

So, I shrugged, not knowing the words in his language for “I don’t speak your language.” But I felt I’d landed somewhere safe.

He repeated the question, with more insistence, and I shrugged again. That was when he clubbed 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

It was the last day, the very last. And my heart was breaking. Tomorrow, I’d be off for a new life. Today, was for Carol. Down by the riverside we followed our favourite walk.

“I’ll never forget you,” she said.

The idea of being forgotten slashed my stomach with fine surgical strokes.

“Come with.”

Down on one knee in the park I went. A shard of glass cut my knee, but the pain seemed a relief.

Carol’s face assumed a mask of grief. “I can’t. I’m promised to another.

A tearful embrace as goodbye.

Such things hurt when you’re eight.

.

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

Swirls of pipe smoke hung low in the air, occasionally stirred by gusts of boisterous laughter. The barmaid eased between the tables, lithely avoiding over-friendly hands. The fleet was in. Ale flowed easy and copious, and the hubbub rose, so folk had to lean in to hear each other’s quips and insults.

A chair scraped back. A flash of steel. An angry shout. “Oi! You be trying to scry my cards.”

The accused shook his head, vigorous and aggrieved, but drew his knife too.

The innkeep sighed and started towards them. Sailors were good drinkers, but terrible brawlers.

.

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 realm is not the only one. So says old Fergus. “Is this supposed to be news?” I ask derisively. “Have I not trekked over high mountains and through raging rivers to the land of the Karmon?” But Fergus explains, with a patient laugh, that he wasn’t referring to journeys across the earth, but rather meant journeys up and down. When I seem confused, he adds, “Into the heavens and down to the underworld.”

“Do the spirits in the sky also dream of travelling?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says. “They crave the substance of meat and the mirth of beer.”

Of the realm of the dead, we spoke not.

.

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

Was it my fault? Honestly? When I search my conscience, everything was by the book—the examination, the prescription, everything. Should I have seen the signs? No, nothing said she’d jump in front of that bus.

But they’re gunning for me. Somebody has to take the blame, and it’s not going to be them. Or is this paranoia? Maybe they only wanted to make sure I’m OK.

Fuck, a whisky would be good. Just one won’t matter. A mistake, though a minor one. But can I afford mistakes right now?

.

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 no need to ever be yourself here. That’s why he liked the place. Brash, garish, and full of performative affection, Rebounders offered endless second chances to make a first impression.

The girl had smoky eyes and purple hair which matched the bar’s décor. “What’s a nice place like this doing in a girl like you?” he quipped. This made no sense—it didn’t have to, so long as it sounded engaging.

She replied something that sounded like “Pastermoolies.” Good enough, he decided. The main thing was to avoid having to sleep alone tonight.

.

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

Snow fell—a lacerating chill of knives. After a season, the sun returned—a shrivelled peach rehydrating into the Spring sky. Down in the thawing loam, we awake again, and slither insistently towards the light. This time, it will be different. 

We are legion and we are solitary. Both are true—a swarm of spores crafted by uncertainty over the unique position of our oneness. Flowing, rising, rising into the heavens on the slenderest of stalks, a fruiting body that contains the universe. We are the seed and we are the field. calling to our own selves in the deep.

.

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 story may benefit from an explanation. This year is the centenary of quantum physics. Hence the reference to uncertainty and the title—Einstein famously derided quantum “entanglement” as spooky action at a distance. The one/many theme reflets slime moulds—creatures which spend much of their lives as isolated single cells but which, under the right circumstances, flow together to form a multicellular organism with a fruiting body on a narrow stalk.

Anything might lurk in this fog. I call and my voice rebounds, as if baffled by solid cliffs. Should I be scared or, perhaps, awed by the austere serenity? All colour has bled from the world. Maybe I’m adrift in some old newsreel as the boys march soundlessly off.

A voice, not my own, cries back as the ghost of a fishing smack manifests momentarily. The words are muffled and unintelligible. “Ho,” I shout.

Someone from the boat waves. Or I believe they waved—it may have just been a trick of eddying air.

“Godspeed,” I whisper. And it’s enough.

 .

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

It’s when the ringing stops you need to worry. Or the drums in the night. Or the fire beacons that flare from hilltop to hilltop against the chill and moonless sky. Have you betrayed a vital trust to keep the message travelling onwards? If you don’t answer, will the invaders storm unthwarted up the beach? If you don’t answer, will you wonder and regret for the rest of your miserable life?

You pick up the phone, but are unable to summon an answer.

A voice. Female. Angry. “Tell Benji he’s dead to 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