Between the Pharaonic pillar and the insect there is a terrible connection. My heart batters its bone cage and my breath comes in gasps. Between the bug and the finial of the balustrade there is also a connection. The locust bestrides the ornate globe, moving up from Africa. Selling insurance is my trade, but even I know we’re in the presence of a portent.

A plague, a Biblical plague, is coming. I seize Seymour’s hand as the sky darkens with a million tiny wings.

“What is it, honey?” he says.

“Don’t you see them?” I say. “Don’t you hear 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, desire, and suspense here

“I’ve built us a story to live in,” he said.

“But I don’t like you much,” she replied.

The little man looked smug as If expecting this. “No matter – you will in the story.”

“In any case,” she said, “it’s impossible – I promised Albert to be in his play.”

“Pah! Bert! The boy’s plots are sound, but the characterisation is weak. You’ll end up thin and wasted.”

Arms folded, she glared, foot beating out a rhythm of unease.

“There’s a beach,” he wheedled, certain of wearing her down. “I’ve hired the summer. And you’ll never grow old.”

 

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 here

It was dark when the stars began to fall. Not a creature was stirring. Except Josh. He pressed his nose to the cold windowpane and stared as the bright nebulae and galaxies fluttered and twirled to earth.

“Ben!” he whispered to his brother.

No response.

“Ben!” More urgently. “Wake up, Ben. The sky is falling. There are stars all over the garden.”

“Yeah right, Chicken Little.”

Ben was four years older than Josh, and that made all the difference.

 

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 here

It was so unfair! The decapitated android screamed murder. But androids were appliances, not people. The only crime here was dumping garbage in a public place. Eight weeks on this case, and all they had was an empty bottle and a severed head.

When Sergeant Anderson detailed Paul and his partner to get the Al-Azms, it seemed a pathway to promotion. They were going to bring down the last Mozzies in the precinct. Garbage! Still, Paul remembered, they got Capone on tax evasion.

“Take some pictures, Paul,” Paul told his partner. “I need to go plug in for a recharge.”

 

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 here

Most guys would have sent a card and a dozen red roses. Not Herbert. He dumped two kitchen chairs into the pond, one at either end.

“Herb,” I say, “there are two chairs in the pond.”

“Yeah. Happy Valentines.”

I just look at him

He grins. “When two particles are entangled, darling, you get spooky action at a distance. Even when we’re apart.”

Herb is a quantum physicist. He doesn’t see the world like other people.  But, like most people, his socks are never entangled and he loses one member of the pair.

Entanglement is fragile and breaks down easily.

 

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 here

Thin winter sunlight flooded the apartment and there was a cheery crackle. Mikhail rose from his armchair by the fireplace and crossed to the window, with the spray bottle in his hand. With care he misted the orchid on the windowsill. The flower was so delicate, white as the snowdrift in the street far below.

Another crackle, closer, and shouts. He looked down at the street and saw running figures. A shrill whistle and then the corner of the apartment block opposite bloomed flying masonry and bodies. Mikhail misted the second orchid, all the beauty that was left to 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 character, desire and plot here.

Henry vanished and was gone two years. I no longer worried – he’d turn up full of tales with that impish grin.

“It’s alright for you,” I’d complained, “you disappear and you come back. For me, it’s just waiting.”

Henry never waited for anything and didn’t understand. He re-appeared in summer ‘49, pockets stuffed with Tudor trinkets.

“Damn thing overshot again,” he said.

“One day you’ll arrive and I won’t be here.”

“Nah, Izzy, you’d never leave me.”

“One day I’ll be dead. Please, buy a modern model that returns you where you started.”

“Time travel should be an adventure. Old machines have character.”

 

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wissoff 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 here

Eyes watering with strain Brother Eadfrith bent over the parchment, retracing in ink the silverpoint outlines. His back ached. Late afternoon light slanting low through the casement cast a shadow, and he shifted the sheet of vellum on the oak desk.

With delicate brush, he applied the ochre border and then crimson for the saint’s robes and animal’s coats.  Finally, he laid gold leaf onto the capitals. The sun touched the page, and beauty clasped the text. Lines of fire connected hidden meaning that sparked from image to sentence, from intricately scribed knot to ornate capital – earth, ladder, heaven.

 

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wissoff 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 here