The screaming girls and the boys swallowing their terror in feigned insouciance. That was me once. I remember the stolen taste of candy floss on Carol’s lips. And the accidental brush of a soft breast in the chamber of horrors.
Carol was taken a decade ago. These days, I can only sit and watch. There’s always the possibility of a spectacular crash. I’d like that.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fieldsto write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other storieshere
I sense it. I can almost grasp it. The future. Sitting just outside my window, like my first shiny new car on a festival. That time is not here yet, but anticipation brings it into the present. One day, soon, this will all be over. We’ll emerge, blinking in the sunshine, laugh and greet old friends. Now it’s clear who we really depend on. We’ll put an end to misery and want. We can build back better.
Can’t we?
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
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, published and sales of Camus’ The Plague surging, in troubled times is the line between fact and fiction becoming blurred?
Some may say that all times are troubled. And yes, there are always troubles, but not all times are troubled. Contrast, for example, the societies emerging from World War Two and the present.
In the US, in particular, people in the 1950s expected the economy to grow, consumer goods to be plentiful, and life to get better and better (the Cold War notwithstanding). In much of the colonised world, there were struggles and hope for independence.
Today, we are anxious about our future in the face of pandemic, climate change, threats real or imagined which trigger waves of populism, and a sense of economic decline in which many people expect life to get worse and worse.
Maybe that’s why it’s important to write, especially in troubled times, when it all seems hopeless and full of senseless strife. Writers help us make sense of what’s going on and what it means. They probe the big questions of our time. When everything is beautiful, it’s good to share stories. When everything seems to be going to hell, we really need stories.
“I am a writer. My writing has come to a standstill. I cannot see the value of, or think of writing about anything else except this that’s going on. But I cannot write about this, for really, we know less about it now than we did till yesterday. When we felt we were on top and saw ourselves as the force of current times. Visionaries for the future. Unchallenged. Suddenly everything is challenged and everything is changing too fast around us – new tones, new colours, new voices, new visuals. Killings go on. Other atrocities too. And fiery speeches by ‘religious’ politicians
….
I just stand, like many others, caught in the ‘moment’ which will not/cannot pass me by. I cannot wait for heart and mind to emerge clear and apart before I start writing. It is like being caught in a storm which has to be dealt with right there and then. Right here and now. An inevitability, an incumbency, an immediacy. But what sense can be made of scenes whipping around in a storm? Then leave that be, but record what you see flying around, quickly, it’s urgent, even without making sense maybe, to be able to make some sense in better, easier times maybe.”
Everything has changed—the way I fit into the world and how I move through it. In an instant, I have become old. I am invalid. Kind people offer help, and I feel anger. Inquisitive glances glide off me when I look up at them. I am a Teflon pan—nothing sticks to me.
If only I hadn’t climbed that roof. If only I’d left home five minutes later.
“We’ll remove the cast next week,” the doctor says, and I am summoned back to life.
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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 blankets hide us in warm safety. Your legs part when I put my hand on your thigh, and I feel the moist arousal. You offer me your virginity. Yet, I cannot. Or, I should not.
Three years planning and your five-thousand-mile journey stymied by a single look.
While you were already in the air, just half a day ago, I fell in love. I lack the wisdom to know what to do next.
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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
They called it the magic door. Crowds would gather outside, peering in. When Harvey pushed his way to the front and squinted at the glass, all he saw was a dim hallway beyond, with some tatty overcoats hanging from hooks.
And then. The reflection of mama crossing the street, shopping bag swinging from her hand. Mama, dead these seven years. He whirled. But the street was empty.
Perhaps, he’d find her again if he went in. Throwing his shoulder against the door, he crashed through. Black and white tiles, and a flock of coats nattering like old ravens.
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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 street is much like any other. Narrow. Scrawny dogs sleep on the sun-baked cobbles, and people cling to the cool of the shadows. History hangs heavy in the humid air. The rattle of Sennacherib’s chariots and the tramp of Caesar’s legionaries echo faintly, along with the brutal jeers of Allenby’s Tommies. The toll of ancient bells carries screams.
I cannot love you here. The blood drowns my tenderness.
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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 press launch for The Tears of Boabdil, coinciding with the opening of hearings in the Under Cover Policing Inquiry, has gone better than I could ever have expected. My publicists, Palamedes, excelled themselves in getting national news coverage in the Telegraph and the Express.
They also arranged a radio interview on BBC Scotland’s Lunchtime Live which has 850,000 listeners.
The children are hiding. Again. Perhaps they think if they can’t see us, we can’t see them.
Lily can’t crouch. Her rigid spine forbids it. And so, she will be taken first. The art of concealment is less about being invisible than about blending-in.
Kids like to stand out. But not in ways that make them different. Lily is too different to survive.
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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 stared at me for a moment in silence. Then, “Why would anyone do something that wasn’t to their advantage?”
I felt stupid, and scuffed my toes on the linoleum.
“Love?” I muttered, feigning interest in the cruet set.
He laughed. “Love is what we feel when another person satisfies our emotional needs.”
The killer move–I’d die for you. But I left it unvoiced. He’d only say I had a need to win the argument.
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 fiend other stories here.
Neil MacDonald Author 