Unease flickered in my belly, like … I attempted the metaphor, but couldn’t summon the proper noun. Like those ornamental fish at the bottom of a murky pond. Why did I recognize no  product in my kitchen cupboard? Was this DIY thing even mine?

A more terrifying question lurked like … a striped carnivore … at fronded border of reality. I refused to utter it. Somewhere, I knew, they were watching, making notes, graphing responses.

A cup of tea. Make a nice cup of tea and all would be right. There were no tea bags.

“Let me out,” I pleaded.  

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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’s a baker’s boy. Alfred. He’s pushing his bicycle up the steep cobbled lane. Dvorak’s New World Symphony swells. And I am transported back to a simple untroubled age of honest labourers and glittering toffs.

As the boy reaches the top of the hill, one of his loaves falls from the basket and tumbles down the lane. With a sigh, he retraces his steps. The conductor mops his brow and taps his baton as the lad collects the loaf and begins his trudge back up again.

Alfred made this Abbey wall. He burned the cakes. The Danes are coming.

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As a note of explanation to non-Brits, this lane featured in a bread advert and Alfred was King of the Anglo Saxons in the late 9^th Century. The story is a reflection on the way we create and recreate historical myths. 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

Call her Tiamat, call her Leviathan, also known as Jörmungandr or Cirein-cròin. Old as the primordial ocean, she is a creature of the roiling water—the essence of creation and chaos.

I call her Kraken, but not, of course, to her face. When she finishes swimming laps (three), she’ll expect me poolside with a soft towel and cool drink. And I will smile and caress her, though my skin crawls with revulsion at her flabby, wrinkled flesh.

Not long now. All she has to do is sign the will and then she can be one with the waves 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

There is power here, and danger, in this place where the world ends. Edges have that force. They tempt you to conjure with magi and demons, liminal creatures that belong to no realm and both.

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” I intone, not in the least self-conscious, since the beach is deserted.

The waves recoil before my majesty. My walls hold.

History, which sweeps away all, will remember me only as the mad king, but I am so much more.

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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

Flowering terrible against the dark sky, a new star that wasn’t there a moment ago, bright and keen. Perhaps it’s a wonder, or maybe an omen. All I know for sure is a profound sense of disquiet. Keep your Second Comings!—I’m not abandoning my sheep to go off in search of mangers. The world can change, yes. But not the heavens. Not in my lifetime.

I stand and howl at the night.  

 .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

The cornerstone read 1810, occupying the lintel of the Victorian facade. Through sash windows, gentlemen in frock coats could be glimpsed at their high desks. So far, so normal.

To my astonishment, the ground floor formed a colonnaded verandah continuing all the way around the chamfered corner. I leapt back as saloon doors burst open, a rambunctious brawl spilling onto the porch.

Alacrity was well-advised as, from the parapet above, armoured knights poured boiling oil through the machicolation upon the scrimmagers.

Waking from the dream, I knew with assurance my stonemasonry exam would proceed like a promenade in the park.

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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

Utnapishtim was waiting. But then, so was Enlil, and the Lord of Wind was not happy. What to do? Tell Utnapishtim I’ve found dry land and have him disembark all the animals into Enlil’s wrath? Or tell him the land has been washed away in the Flood and the Golden Age ended? Enlil would kill him, for sure.

You may wonder how, as a dove, I could speak anything. Well, this was still the Golden Age and all living things shared one spirit.

“Nope,” I said. “Only water. But look on the bright side—the terrible lizards are gone.”

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 could always tell what Abe was thinking, as if a fluffy cartoon bubble floated above his head. Probably, you read it on his face and body language. In a kinder world, such transparency would be admirable, celebrated perhaps, but in this one, it was a liability. All his life, people duped Abe and took advantage of him, even me.

That late Thursday night, I didn’t need the scent of gardenias on his shirt—the smell of guilt reeked stronger. “Who is she?”

“What do you want?”

“The house.”

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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

The tide will carry her off. In the nature of things, there should have been a line of torches. There should have been a shield wall of warriors beating their chests and women wailing. There should have been a funeral barge aflame, drifting out to the Underworld.

Drama. that’s what this needed. She was so vibrant, always larger than life. But, ah, not with a bang but a whimper, as the poet says. At least I was here to dispatch her.

I lay the club reverently on her chest and walk away.

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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

He waited. Of course, I knew the answer he wanted to the question, but I wasn’t  going to offer the satisfaction.

“Eyes,” I said.

“What?”

“All of them have eyes.”

HIs sigh gave me huge pleasure. With a mouth drawn into a tight line, he said, “That’s just a trick of the light.”

The lips, or lack thereof, were the thing you noticed first about him. Mother had always said to never trust a man without lips.

“So, what I see is an illusion, but what you see is real?” I knew this would drive him crazy.

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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