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.

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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.

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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.”

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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 changed. Three months ago, this land was peaceful, sustaining us from our goats, courgettes, and olive grove. My grandfather planted the olive trees, back in the days before the catastrophe.

Two months ago, they came. Just one caravan. What is one caravan, you may say? We have lived here for a thousand years.

Six weeks later, one caravan has become two prefab houses, a barn, and sheep. Then they came at night, tore up our courgettes, killed my dog.

May God curse them. God willing, we will drive them from our land.

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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 are some games it is unwise to play. Especially with those you love. Probably best I don’t name the game we played, all seven of us. Suffice it to say that the rules involve a lot of backstabbing.

Tom and Angie fell out in a big way. We had tears and raised voices. Ruthie preserved an icy calm until all our guests were gone. Then, when the last car departed, she got into her runabout.

“Goodbye,” she said. “I’m going to Mum’s and I may be some time.”

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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 are engines under the floor. They thrum in constant labour, heating my house, cooling it, transporting us remorselessly into tomorrow. The floorboards vibrate with a subtlety I’ve stopped noticing.

Below the machines, I saw once, terrifying earth, as if we were just a thin cultivated film on the crust of the planet.

But below the soil, great furnaces burn, stirring molten rock into magnetic force. Beneath the machines are older engines. All the way down.

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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

I fell in love. Not so strange, you may say—people fall in love all the time. But my lover and I are separated by all the vastness of space and time.

From an ancient book, he reached out and spoke to me, and I was captivated. These were the words he spoke: “I am only the house of your beloved, not the beloved herself: true love is for the treasure, not for the coffer that contains it.”

Now I stretch out, strain back, all the way to him. Truly, to be in love is a terrible thing.

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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 is another world beyond our own. I know, for I’ve seen it—wriggling animacules, tiny armoured beasts, a multitude of hairy legs.

What? You doubt this? Only gaze through my micro-seer and verify the facts for yourself.

Yes, the glasses are curved. What of it? Distortions, you say? Fantasies of bending light? Just look. Why would I endeavour to trick a noble and esteemed patron?

Please, won’t you just look?

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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 can tell a lot about a man from his library, they say. Well, let me tell you, there’s a damn sight more to learn from a person’s leavings. You can live off those. Once, I found a diamond ring. See what I mean? The garbage tells a story if you know how to read it.  

So, was the ring just lost or tossed out in rage? There were other things which suggested anger—a shredded dress, for one. After that, the contents of the bin changed at this house. Lots of ready meal wrappers. She’d left him!  

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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

Every hour, on the hour, the door opens and a host troop out—knights, saints, bishops, kings. The thing is a marvel. All around me, folk great and small in the cobbled square, crane up, waiting.

The hands of the clock move slow towards midday. I know it’s midday because both hands point straight up.

The first bong reverberates and the door grinds open. What’s this? A gnarled gnome and a dusky maiden? She bends; he … oh, but I can’t tell you. Disgraceful! I conceal my smile. Those damn prentice boys have been up to their tricks again.

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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