Category: Friday Fictioneers

Buried Treasure

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less using the picture prompt below.

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

My grandmother kept a meticulous record of every family member in her large white bible. Each child’s birthday was recorded in her beautiful handwriting. She lived long enough to record some of their deaths.

Near her death I was sitting beside her as she remembered each one with a special story.

I noticed one entry labeled James that had the same birth and death date. I asked my grandmother about it.

“That was your uncle Jim,” she said crying.

I never knew I had an uncle. “What happened to him,” I asked.

“Your father buried him in the backyard.”

Norma Jeane

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a complete story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less. My story follows the picture prompt below.

PHOTO PROMPT -Copyright-Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Before she was an orphan she was just a normal little girl. She hated the orphanage. Every day was the same. She felt robbed, vulnerable, and utterly alone, even abandoned.

“Get up Norma Jeane,” Sister Mary said. “Breakfast is at 7 in the main dining room and your first class is at seven forty-five.”

 “Someday I’ll leave here and become a famous movie star. I’ll live in Hollywood in a big mansion with a famous husband. You just wait and see.”

“You have great dreams Norma Jeane but they will vanish just like a candle in the wind.”

Like a candle in the wind.

Edwina Justice

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers where the challenge is to write a complete story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
PHOTO PROMPT – © Jennifer Pendergast

The train whistled two long blasts, a short one and another long blast indicating it was approaching a highway intersection.

The engineer had experiences on shorter trips. Trips from Chicago to St. Louis carrying hogs, cattle, and sugar beets. On these trips there were no toilets. The men didn’t care if they missed the pot. This engineer had to sometimes wait twelve hours unless there was a stop. Air conditioning was an open window.

Along these trips she got to know hobos and some other “unauthorized passengers.” Often these homeless were surprised to see a black woman as an engineer.

 

Edwina Justus

train

RDP Homeless

 

Lend Me Your Ear

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers. 

Write a complete story with a beginning, middle and end using 100 words or less. My story begins after the photo below.

palettes
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was a warm and, thanks to the blooming bougainvillea’s, a pleasingly fragrant night in Arles France. He saw Paul sitting at their favorite table drinking his glass of absinthe. Paul’s wife was, of course, not there.

He approached the table. He was holding the bloody blade. He appeared to be in a trance. He pressed a towel to his head to staunch the gushing blood. Taking the red soaked towel from his head he turned this head toward Paul.

“What have you done?” asked Paul.

“I gave it to her as a keepsake.”

“I mean really Vincent, your ear?”

Leave It Outside The Gate

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers. 

The rules are simple: write a complete story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less. My story follows the picture prompt.

the-gate
PHOTO PROMPT © Jean L. Hays

He would make him regret firing him. He didn’t waste his degree in Chemical Engineering working for a dummer than dirt uneducated manager who made vague racial comments about him.

His weapon was perfect: a colorless, odorless liquid that even in very low concentrations would cause death to occur within one to ten minutes after inhalation.

Everything was wiped clean so there would be no finger prints to trace. He wiped the sweat from his brow and pulling his latex gloves off he smiled.

He even had the perfect delivery system. Just leave it outside the gate.

Why Can’t We Talk About This

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers.

The rules are simple. Write a COMPLETE STORY in 100 words or less with a beginning, middle and end.

anonymous-kitchen-photo
PHOTO PROMPT @ A. Noni Mouse

“I beginning to hate these people,” said Helen. “I just about lost my temper at dinner. Are we so afraid of Erick that we can’t talk about current events without the fear of offending him? How long can we talk about ocean cruises?  Neighborhood gossip? I would like to talk about the necessity of wearing masks. Vote by mail? Racial equality? Black Lives Matter? The feeling that this nation is being divided by the very one who should be uniting us? Let’s not have another Civil War!”

“So that’s why you spent the final thirty minutes doing dishes?” said Tom.

 

Quarantined

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers.

delayed-green-naama-yehuda
PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

They had been quarantined for so long they had ceased to remember it. It started out slow with the leader of their nation promising that it would magically go away once the warm season began. It didn’t. A night out on the town with a fine meal at a fancy restaurant was a distant memory. The mere fact of wearing a mask was now a polarizing political statement. Are you red or are you blue? The deaths began to rise at an alarming rate. The elderly clogged the emergency rooms. The young thought they were immune. They weren’t.

Never Make It To Market

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers.

eggcelent-from-todd-foltz
PHOTO PROMPT © Todd Foltz

Panic was starting to form a cloud of fear over the farm. The migrants that worked these fields were nowhere to be seen. The farms precious fruits were going to rot in the fields.

At first the owners were in denial. The crops would be harvested! The use of facial masks were soon required to repel the invisible invader. Once established the virus began to spread. Workers who had previously never been sick suddenly disappeared.  Co-workers soon followed.

The owners anger began to ferment. The invader did not distinguish who it infected. The owners slowly began to disappear.

Quarantined

This post is submitted to Friday Fictioneers.

the-view
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 

It wasn’t the way things were supposed to work out. The promise of having friends and family visit was one of the main selling points in moving into assisted living. The ability to maintain contacts would keep him from going insane.

Now it’s just the staff. The same old staff now wearing masks. What the hell has happened. They say the most terrible legal sentence to impose on someone was solitary confinement.

Far beyond the window, at the edge of some tall willows and behind the gate, he can see his granddaughter. Even from here he can see her crying.

 

UP Early

This post is written for Friday Fictioneers, 

ronda-pov

PHOTO PROMPT © Ronda Del Boccio

The alarm on my iPhone sounded the Sherwood Forest theme at exactly 4:30 a.m. I could not afford to hit the snooze button today.

Breakfast from the hotel buffet was going to suffice this morning.

The tour company jeep arrived precisely at 5:00 a.m. We rode silently through the desert floor to our destination. The though that we would be alone on this adventure quickly vanished as a large number of vehicles were already in the staging area.  Balloons were already being filled with liquid propane and the flames were casting their yellow flames skyward. Our fateful journey was about to begin.