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

Her life compressed down until it fitted into ten square feet—eighteen storage boxes. How could someone so vibrant and alive have become so small? Was that party there? The one where she had walked a wire between buildings. That smile and infectious laugh wasn’t there, the way a whole room wanted to crowd around her. Ten square miles insufficient to hold her.

Perhaps the enormous pressure had squeezed her into a new dense form of matter which warped space and time. I closed the door om the storage room but remained unable to escape her event horizon.

 .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

Sadie had character, I’ll give her that.

“OK, I’m no looker,” she’d say, “but folk never forget me.”

Idiosyncracy sprouted on that woman like barnacles on a rusting hulk. For the longest time, I believed they were affectations and disdained Sadie. Stop trying so hard and just be yourself, for chrissakes, I’d mutter.

Only gradually did I come to realise this was her true self: disheveled clown, eccentric mimic of opinions and garbs, eclectic jigsaw of habits.

In May, I bought the ring and went down on one knee. “Marry me?”

“Hell, no.”

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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 asked whether I liked the piece. I sensed a trap.

“Very modern,” I temporised.

With a creasing of brows, he asked again, more insistently. Which was rude.

“Well, let’s see. May I touch?”

Of course, he wanted to know why.

“If it’s a pile of wood shavings glued together, then no. If it’s blown glass, yes, I’d admire the skill.”

With huge disappointment, he insisted the artifice didn’t matter, only the essence of the thing. My guess—he was looking for an argument.

The door closed behind me and I was never invited back.

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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

“Cooking,” he says, arranging utensils and ingredients on the counter, “is pretty much applied chemistry.”

Should I correct him? Things rarely go well when I do. Not that he’s violent, you understand. No, no, I’m not saying that, but he gets crotchety, and then other things unravel. Besides, is he so wrong? True, he’s forgotten how much of it is heart and discovery and flair. And also, a fair amount is physics, come to that. But, if his belief provides an illusion of mastery in a world of chaos and chance, he’ll approach the task with more confidence.

“Yes, dear.”

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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