You must never go there. Come on, you know where—to the castle. Oh yes? Well, you’ll need to get across the river first, and you can’t swim. No, you can’t have swimming lessons.

There’s no reason you can’t be happy here—don’t we provide everything you need? Over there, they’re strange and cruel.

Let’s just turn your chair around so the nasty castle searchlights don’t shine in your dear eyes. Out of sight, out of mind, eh? Stay with your ain folk. See Spot, see how he runs. Oh please, darling, don’t leave us.

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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

Hey! Only you can see this. Everyone else sees a cute story about an elopement. This message is just for you. I’m trapped between dimensions. Never mind how it happened, that’s not important. The point is, only you can save me. Remember our café? Be there at precisely noon on Valentine’s day. Follow the man who joins you at the table. Please.

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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

Are ye there, Rabbie? Could ye be? Inside this great white phallus o’ a mausoleum? I dinnae think so. It’s no the phallic symbolism I find improbable, ye ken? Aye, that would suit ye fine. Nor even the grandiloquent size (ye were aye a bit o’ a boaster, richt enough). It’s the whiteness, in a church yard o’ red sandstone needles. Rabbie, ye were a man o’ the people, champion o’ ye ain folk. Rise with the class, no above it, that’s the way o’ it for the likes of us.

But here’s the thing that really scunners me. They put a fu’ng big iron gate across the entrance. Best laid plans, is it? Aye, that’ll be richt. Ma plan, ye ken, was tae lay me doon on yer tomb. Ye were aye a randy bugger, and I was thinking wee Tam could tak me as I sprawled athwart yer deid body. That would hae been strong magic, so it would—a guaranteed pregnancy. Would that no hae tickled ye, Rabbie? Aye, course it would. Whit am I goin’ tae do wi’ wee Tam the noo?

Ach, buggrit, Tam, let’s just get a haggis supper and watch the telly.

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Written for the Min Min challenge. The prompt is Robert Burns’ “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”. You can find other contributions here

So many years. Lost for so long, buried really. Standing before the shell of what had been our home, memory floods back. Here, we were happy. So why am I seized with dread? Why do the empty eyes of blank windows fix me with an accusing stare? Wind, that has stripped the gaunt trees of clothing, chills me. Something terrible happened here.

I remember. And I remember why I forgot. Will I be able to forget 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

She is my life. She gives me life. It’s us against the world. They hate her. Just like they hated mummy. But they won’t drive her to her death like they did mummy, because now I’m big enough to protect her. Fiercely. They took mummy, but they won’t take her. And, oddly, their threat makes me the man my father couldn’t be.

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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

Lights in the sky,

Teeth in the smile,

Teacakes on the plate.

Of all these,

the teacakes may be the scariest.

Of course, the lights are scary, but I don’t believe they’re really there.

Smiles are not normally frightening, but when you declare love, your teeth bare when pronouncing the word.

But the teacakes, oh, the teacakes!  

The pink and yellow icing are colours nobody should dare eat.

And, most of all, they just appeared out of nothing.

Something is happening,

A terrible annunciation.

I fear those teacakes. Because I don’t dare fear you.

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I was invited to join the Min Min challenge by the much-missed C E Ayr. The prompt is “Strange Lights in the Sky”. You can find other contributions here

When the door in the sky opened, I wasn’t scared. Awestruck, yes, wondering if hosts of angels prepared to descend. Perhaps there were even trumpets; or that may have been the sound of engines of uncanny power reversing as beguiling visitors arrived.

“Why are you pulling over?” Mabel asked.

“Don’t you see it? Can’t you feel the rapture?”

“Shall I take over the driving?”

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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

Sometimes, I think the Almighty has a weird sense of humour. Take gateways, for example. Not the entrances to fancy buildings, but the wrinkles where worlds meet. Don’t deny you know what I mean. Everyone has encountered at least one, but we blank them because the altered geometry offends. We look but we unsee them.

I recognised this stairwell as a gateway by the impossible Escher steps with two dimensions folded into one. But did it have to reek so strongly of impatience? Humour, you see. I swung my leg over the railing and picked my way gingerly 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’ve been making memories all my life. Videos of my first steps, the family holiday in Israel, my role as Gratiano in the school play. Then came my graduation, our wedding, that incredible boozy fortnight in Magaluf. And on and on. They told us the memories would live forever, digital ghosts on distant servers that our descendants could watch.

Over and over, I parse the e-mail from the Home Office. “Storage maximum has been reached globally. All citizens are required to delete 50% of their data.”

What to amputate?

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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 know this fire thing you’ve invented? Good for tenderising food, sure. But great for lighting up the dark. Tak and I used flame to explore the deep earth. The tunnel goes a long way back, a long way. Maybe forever. Maybe into the other world. It got too narrow to squeeze through. Listen, here’s the big thing. There’s a body at the end, a dead badger. And it hasn’t decomposed. If we bring our dead to the shaft, they can live on in the other world.

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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