Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Jill Wiscoff for this week’s prompt. My story this week is a bit dark, much like the night sky in the photograph.
Photo Credit: Jill Wiscoff
April no longer knew what to do, so she did nothing but watch the empty darkness of the Manhattan skyline from her apartment window.
How can they go on as if nothing is wrong, she thought?
Don’t they know the world is not a safe place?
Gun violence.
Gang violence.
Terrorism.
She had not always felt this way.
Once she was like them.
Bold. A free spirit.
Unaware of the dangers one faced when walking out their front door.
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Karen Rawson for this week’s prompt.
They called him Mr. Lucky, a hackneyed moniker granted Ray for wriggling out of tight spots. Ray credited the rabbit’s foot he carried for his good fortune.
Once, Ray almost stopped believing in luck. For days, he had tromped through the mucky Louisiana bayou, in search of civilization. On the verge of hopelessness, Ray discovered crude stairs leading up the hill to a house. A human silhouette stood in front of the window.
Mr. Lucky smiled. What’s another dead body when you have two life sentences hanging over your head?
He never noticed dropping his rabbit’s foot in the muck.
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Jan Wayne Fields for this week’s prompt. I was beginning to think I couldn’t come up with anything this week but then a small spark of inspiration led to exchange below.
“Remember that old TV show Fantasy Island?”
“The one with the little guy that yelled out ‘da plane, da plane when the guests arrived?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I thought we could binge watch it this weekend.”
“Nah., I think I would rather watch Twin Peaks.”
“Is that the one about the homecoming queen being murdered in a small town? I’m down for that.”
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Douglas M. MacIlroy for this week’s prompt.
Everyone in the small Texas town loved J.D. McCaskill.
J.D. was what you’d call a good-old boy. Whenever a neighbor needed a hand, J.D. was first to offer his. Once he loaned his brand-new truck to a stranger who needed to haul some hay. And if you ever crossed one of his friends; well, you’d better watch out.
J. D’s life was an open book. Married 30 years to wife Elaine, father of five fine boys. No surprises.
Yep, everyone loved J.D. Everyone except that 17-year old girl chained up in his cellar. She might have different story to tell.
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Yarnspinner for this week’s prompt.
I froze, eyes fixed on the ramshackle yellow house in front of me. Fifth-graders sniggered, calling us sissies, but fourth-graders knew the Boogeyman lived in that house. My eyes shifted downward, to the papers and books splattered on the sidewalk, dropped in my haste to race past the house. As I squatted to gather my belonging, I heard a car engine. Looking up, I saw the open garage door, brake lights flashing red as blood. Slowly, the car inched toward me.
I was never so glad to be in fourth grade. A third-grader would have peed herself.
This tale is based loosely on a an experience I had in elementary school. There was an old house that I passed on my way to-and-from school, and there was a mysterious rumor about the old man living there. One day, on my way home, I dropped my papers in front of his house (full disclosure; I was on the opposite side of the street and there were four lanes of traffic between him and me). When I saw his car backing out of the driveway, I hastily picked up my belongings and rushed home. Dry as a whistle, I might add.
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Björn Rudberg for this week’s prompt.
Looking back, all the signs were there; the last-minute cancellations and unanswered phone calls. The hint of lavender on his collar after working late.
After discovering the truth, I knew I must step carefully, and choose my path wisely.
There is an old proverb, opportunity knocks only once.
The news his car swerved off a mountain road left us in shock. How could such a good driver lose control?
At his funeral, I held his mother’s hand and cried.
Inside I smirked with the realization that I chose well when I picked auto-mechanics as an elective in high school.
The grainy photo flashed across my cellphone screen: a flat desert landscape, overgrown with scrub brush on its way to becoming a tumbleweed; dwarfed by distant mountain peaks. Intoxicated with anticipation and trepidation, I caught my breath. New Mexico: the next destination in this ruthless game of cat and mouse. A game Jasper and I played for longer than I could remember. New Mexico was home and when I caught him, I would do to Jasper what he did to my wife, God rest her soul. This time, I was the cat and he was the mouse.
Friday Fictioneer’s is a weekly challenge to write a complete story in 100 words or less based on a photo prompt. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this challenge and Danny Bowman for this week’s prompt.
Redbuds and Roserocks 