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

Don’t bother yourself with all that book-learning nonsense, lad. I left school at fifteen and never done me any harm. Straight into the Works and learned a proper trade.

I mean, what’s this supposed to be? Makes no sense. Oh, Greek, is it? I’ll give you Greek, filthy foreign tongue rasping under your dentures like a raspberry pip.

Get a trade, that’s the thing. Electrician maybe—you’re clever,. Not that I hold with it. Mum always said when she changed the gas stove for electric, you could taste the electric. But it’s all going to be electric now, they say.

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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. If you want to read my original April 2016 story for this prompt, it’s here

There was nothing remarkable about the settlement—a handful of cottages and a duckpond. Not even a station. The place flashed past outside the train window and then was gone.

Unremarkable except for one thing. One corner of the pond had reflected a sky that appeared to be—I can only say—elsewhere. It seems nobody else in the carriage saw it, though I made a nuisance of myself asking.

No sooner had I arrived at my destination than I offered my excuses and took the return train. For twenty years, I have tried unsuccessfully to find that settlement 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

Sliding behind the bar, my fingers caressed the bottles. His mouth gaped like a slot machine—you know, one of those old-time ones where you put a coin in its hand and it swallows.

“What’re you doing?” his voice emerged in a strangled rasp.

“Name your poison, big boy.”

“You can’t drink that. Château Margaux, 2018. £536 a bottle.”

“Whisky, then. Water of life.” I reached across.

Mouth working soundlessly, finally he gasped, “Laphroaig, 27-year-old. £6,500.”

Well, what can you do with a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing? He never forgave 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

The sea pours endlessly, bean green over blue. Must go down to the sea again. Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, and a stately Spanish galleon to prize.

In truth, I don’t walk with a seaman’s roll, nor stump on a peg leg. My hair is mousy brown and my eyes a watery blue, but dear Jeanie finds me comely enough.

Dreams diverge ever from the map, and I rage against the dying of the light. Yet, when the lobster pots are mended, I can only trudge out once more on the Spanish main.

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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

Their road is smooth. And elevated. Ours is pitted and low, separated forever by the barrier. They travel in comfort by limousine under warm light, while we trudge stolid in the half-dark. Oh, to be one of them, at ease and pampered.

But still, and this is a terrifying thought, we both travel the same turning wheel. Maybe it turns only because we travel. Could it be there is a world we can both reach beyond the wheel? Walking is just eternally pitching forward and catching yourself before you fall. What if we tried going sideways?  

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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 had seemed such a good idea. A bottle of wine, a group of friends, a drive in the snow to the hot springs—what could go wrong? Skinny dipping—that’s what. Rob’s body’s better than mine, if you like the buff, chiseled look.

Everyone says I’m lucky. That means Lisa’s way out of my league. There’s going to be drinking, and horseplay, and then fooling around. And Lisa will rejoin her league.

“Hey, guys. I’ll go search for some wood and build a fire. It’ll be cold when we get out.”

Leadership. Yes, that’s the thing. Lisa respects initiative.

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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 glow. Call it a radiance, if you like. Whatever the description of choice, this spot’s different. Elsa insists this is where the fae folk meet, but Hank scoffs and explains space-time anomaly.

I just sense this as the place where you live. Yes, I know ours is a forbidden love, and yes, I know they’ll call me crazy. But I feel you slide in to take possession of my body. A haunting, perhaps, but one I’ve come to crave.

To yield control is such pleasure. Less so, maybe, for Elsa as my hands close round her throat.  

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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 blame Mum. Mum was glum (see what I did there?). So, when Hettie rebelled, as all kids do, she became an irrepressible optimist. “Thank you, God, for breaking my leg, so I’d have the time to stay home and finish these books.” That kind of Pollyanna thing.

So, when the sea wall broke, and the town flooded, Hettie exclaimed, “It’s just like Venice” and bought a gondola.

Under those circumstances, nobody can blame me for strangling my sister, right?

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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 snows came early that terrible winter, blanketing the moors in formlessness. On the high crags, the Seat of the Kings disappeared under a great drift. And so the land passed into a deep sleep that lasted a thousand years.

I tell you, my boy, it’s said the old kings will come again, when our peril is greatest. Somerled, Angus Og, and Malcolm. They will wake, shake their shaggy heads and stride forth with swords of fire to cleanse the world.

But, consider this—maybe we longer have need of kings.

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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