Friday Fictioneers – The Dare

Every week, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields (thank you, Rochelle!) hosts a flash fiction challenge, to write a complete story, based on a photoprompt, with a beginning, middle and end, in 100 words or less. Post it on your blog, and include the Photoprompt and Inlinkz (the blue frog) on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!

FF - factory - The Dare 170927

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

The Dare

It was dark. The dog barked furiously, straining at its chain. Robbie danced past it, staying just out of reach.

“I dare you to climb the chimney.”

Robbie looked at the vertical ladder. ‘Easy peasy,’ he thought.

Twenty metres up, he changed his mind. A rusty bolt holding ladder to brickwork crumbled, and the ladder lurched. Robbie scraped the knuckles of both hands as he clung on.

“I dare you…”

He climbed to the top and took a photograph. He could smell smoke.

Back at the bottom, “Done it!”  he gloated – just as the dog broke its chain.

 

61 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – The Dare”

    • Dear Lavanya
      Thank you for reading and for your lovely comment. I found this prompt very stimulating, because my work used to take me into all sorts of factories – and some of them were as grim as this one looks! I think it often helps when you’re familiar with the background to a story.
      With best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

  24. I read it as though there were two people there, but re-reading it, I think the ‘dare’ was something said by someone else at another time and place – hence the photo. Yes, Robbie is definitely in a pickle now.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Sandra
      Thank you for reading my story so carefully. It’s a real pleasure to me that you did.
      You’re perfectly right. The dare was made by someone else who isn’t present. And, yes, I included the photo partly to confirm that.
      The photo can also suggest how Robbie escapes. What do kids use for photos? A cellphone. Help is just a phone call away – provided he doesn’t panic and try to outrun the dog!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Like

  25. I have actually done exactly this.. climbing up a rusty ladder on a long chimney… I have forgotten how it ended, but I remember the sense of some bolts almost coming loose… I must have climbed down and had climbed high enough to doing the dare. No dogs that time.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi Bjorn
      Thank you for reading and commenting. It was fun to read that you’d actually done this dare.
      I bet it was a big thrill – once you’d climbed safely down!
      All the best
      Penny

      Like

  26. I would have climbed right back up right till the chimney! 😀 I did wonder for a moment who dared Robbie – perhaps if you had mentioned a name? But then word constraints are an issue. Btw I loved the twist and the twisted humor at the end – cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Dear Dahlia
    Thank you for reading and commenting.
    Who dared Robbie? Oh, Dahlia, you are a bad person! Now I have thoughts for at least one more story about the photoprompt, which is about how Robbie came to be dared to climb the chimney. It’s like an itch – sooner or later I’m going to scratch it!
    With very best wishes
    Penny

    Like

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