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.

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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 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.

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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

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?

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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 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.

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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

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