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!
PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
A room upstairs
Hank ran his boxing gym with tight discipline. His coach had been a successful professional. His volunteers were all trained in safeguarding; he wanted no scandal. The club was a happy place, “an asset to our town, and a great place for our kids to learn values,” as the mayor put it.
Few people knew, and nobody cared, that Hank kept a room upstairs where he occasionally entertained a young woman. She was never one of the townsfolk. After a while, nobody even noticed the comings and goings.
Nobody cared.
Until the police came.
It was too late by then.
Uh oh. Foul play.
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The foulest of foul play, James! Thank you for reading and commenting.
With best wishes
Penny
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Scandal. I guess things got out of hand.
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Dear Josh
I think perhaps it was worse than that…but I’ve left it for the reader to make up their own mind!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
With best wishes
Penny
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Nicely done, Penny! The tension builds with all the things you say–and don’t say. Every word is couched with careful meaning.
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Dear Karen
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you felt the tension build.
I found this a very difficult prompt. I hate boxing, and it’s hard to avoid it with this photo! I wrote another story before lunch, left it for a couple of hours then decided I needed a second attempt. Even then, I nearly decided not to post, and just miss out FF this week.
With best wishes
Penny
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I never would have guessed. Sometimes we are our own worst critics.
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Thank you for your kind words, Karen!
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You’re right, Karen. We’re way too hard on ourselves.
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Oh, chilling. Not telling us what happened leaves us to imagine horrors.
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Dear Sarah
Thank you for reading and commenting. Sometimes it’s good to leave the conclusion up to the reader!
With best wishes
Penny
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Dear Penny,
You set this up so well and said just enough. The ending sent shivers all the way through me. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle
Thank you for your encouraging comments. I’m so glad the story produced shivers!
With best wishes
Penny
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Oh, I got chills the minute a girl was mentioned. Good suspense.
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Dear Linda
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment. You were right to have chills; Hank was not a nice man at all…
With best wishes
Penny
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That seems to fit so chillingly with our age of sex scandals. An untarnished reputation until he’s caught. Just one thought – if you said “girl” rather than “young woman” it might be even more chilling
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Dear Neil
Thank you for reading and commenting so thoughtfully.
You’re right that I’m concerned about how reputation blinds us to possible wickedness.
I take your point about “girl” instead of “young woman”. However, I deliberately chose “young woman” – I wanted to show clearly that he was not a paedophile. Indeed, he makes sure that the safeguarding in his gym is done properly.
“She was never one of the townsfolk” is a key sentence; as they weren’t from this town, who were they? How did they get there? What happened to them?
With very best wishes
Penny
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“a great place for our kids to learn values”
I like how you threw that line in to show how the opposite of that was happening. An evil twisted man who had everyone fooled. Nicely done.
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Dear Subroto
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you picked up on the line “a great place for our kids to learn values”.
With best wishes
Penny
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This was very well done, Penny and so creepy and sinister, especially as a Mum with young teens who are just starting to venture out, and I know too many stories of the youth leader, the scout leader, someone at Church, a teacher, a priest. You have to trust, but you still need to have your eyes open. Fortunately, I still go along with them to many things at this stage and and am in the background somewhere.
When I’m been to writing seminars about writing character, they’ve talked about having good in your villain to make them more believable and you’ve done that really well.
Please lock him up and I hope he wasn’t the muscly hunk in the previous take.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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Dear Rowena
Thank you for reading, and for such a thoughtful comment. I’m glad you found my villain believable. I’m sure you’re very careful with your children, which will protect them from almost everything. They certainly wouldn’t have been vulnerable to Hank; he only took people with no past, no-one to care – no-one to notice.
With best wishes
Penny
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Yes, one can only hope as a parent that sticking your nose in now and then can ward off trouble. I think the teenage years require us to have our antennae really switched on yet at the same time keep our distance and hopefully get on with some more of our own stuff.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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Oh Hank, what a let down. He seemed like such a decent guy.
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Dear Iain
Thank you for reading and commenting. I believe psychopaths are sometimes charming people.
With best wishes
Penny
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The story developed beautifully, and evenly paced. I was quite taken in by the beginning. Good job altogether, Penny.
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Dear Sandra
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I’m glad you were taken in by the beginning!
With best wishes
Penny
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You made my heart stop with the last lines. Wonderfully told, as always.who would have guessed the man who so carefully and skilfully hid behind a mask was someone totally different? So terribly sad about these young women and all other such young women around the world.
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Dear Moon
Thank you for reading and commenting. It might only have taken one person to notice and raise their suspicions with the police to have stopped his activities. But it’s very hard to call time on a neighbour, especially one who seems to be a pillar of the community.
With very best wishes
Penny
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I was thinking, what’s the big deal that he entertains upstairs… unless the young women are TOO young… and unless they start disappearing.
Your not filling in the blanks makes it all the more interesting!
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Dear Dale
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you found the story interesting.
With best wishes
Penny
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Definitely a case of less is more. Very well-paced and very disturbing story.
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Dear Jilly
Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re right – it is a disturbing story. We should all be better about looking out for each other – but it’s tremendously difficult to know how and when to raise the alarm. I had a neighbour once, about whose safety I felt concerned – I thought she was probably being abused – but I never had any positive evidence, and she resisted attempts at friendship. I felt helpless, and I still wonder if I should have done more…(they’ve moved away now).
With best wishes
Penny
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So well done, Penny! It just simmers with hypocrisy. How people turn a blind eye toward bad situations because of a supposed asset. And you do all of this so subtly. I read your comments above and am glad you put this one in today!
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Dear Sascha
Thank you for reading (story and comments!), and for your thoughtful comment. A few people knew about the room upstairs. I think Hank could have been stopped earlier, but, as you say, people turned a blind eye…
With very best wishes
Penny
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You’re very welcome, Penny. 🙂
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He’s been framed, he’s been framed!
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Haha! Do you work in the mayor’s office?
Thanks for reading and commenting, Anurag!
With best wishes
Penny
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Poor woman. How much gets ignored in life?
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Dear James
Thank you for reading and commenting. Too much is overlooked; witness the extent of modern-day slavery, which the police and the media are just beginning to uncover in the UK.
With best wishes
Penny
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Those poor young women.
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Dear Alice
Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, I’m afraid the story is very dark.
BTW
I welcome constructive criticism if you ever feel like providing it. Often unpalatable feedback is the most useful! So never be afraid to say if you don’t like one of my pieces!
With very best wishes
Penny
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You can never tell what lurks behind the respectable facade…
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Dear Ali
Thank you for reading and commenting. It’s certainly very difficult to see through the façade.
With best wishes
Penny
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Great take! Lots of implications there.
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Dear Curt
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comment. I’m glad you felt there were lots of implications; I certainly hoped for that!
With best wishes
Penny
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Oh no. The hidden truth. Terrific tale Penny with dark secrets.
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Dear Laurie
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story!
With best wishes
Penny
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Whoa. I like how this slowly descends (or ascends) into darkness. At first, okay, he has a little something on the side, not great if he has a wife and kids but okay, and then it gets darker. I love the ambiguity of the phrase “comings and goings” that takes a more sinister tone when you wonder what or who was “going” out. Shiver!
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Dear Anne
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comments. I’m glad you felt the way the story gradually darkens until night falls…
With very best wishes
Penny
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OMG! You can never tell what people really look like unless you see the colour of their heart….which we can’t. Evil in plain sight!
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Dear Vivian
Thank you for reading and commenting. It’s true what you say; we can’t see what’s in a person’s heart.
With best wishes
Penny
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🙂
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he was keeping a skeleton in his closet (no pun intended). Too bad it was too late to figure that out.
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Dear Plaridel
Thank you for reading and commenting. Well, the police got him eventually, but it was too late for one or more young women I fear.
With best wishes
Penny
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Right when everything was going all well… a murder to solve. You cannot trust anyone these days. I liked the pacing of the story, Penny.
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Dear Norma
Thank you for reading and commenting.
I’m glad you liked the pacing of the story.
With best wishes
Penny
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Oh no. 😦 There are always stories behind the stories, and that’s one of the best things about being a writer. Well done!
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Dear Jan
Thank you for reading and for your insightful comment.
‘There are always stories behind the stories’; yes, thank you so much for reminding me to think of this explicitly as I work out plots. I tend to use back-story for character, but of course it can drive plot as well – I had been forgetting that! Great! I must sit down and write a story using the thought!
With very best wishes
Penny
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I hate to hear that about Hank. Here he was on the verge of being elected to Congress too.
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Dear Russell
Thank you for reading and commenting. Teehee, yes, the Demopublicans will have to find another candidate!
With best wishes
Penny
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Oh dear – I guess the young women never left that room upstairs.
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Dear Liz
Thank you for reading and commenting.
You may well be right about the young women, although I rather think that any murders would have been done ‘off the premises’. Still, as the author doesn’t say, it’s the reader who decides!
With best wishes
Penny
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Penny that was a great story that left us hanging and wondering what it was exactly that Hank, the model of the community, did. I don’t think my mind can run far enough into the heinous possibilities that I know must be out there. Well done.
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Dear Irene
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Yes, probably best not to imagine Hank’s crime too clearly…
With best wishes
Penny
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Hi Penny, with just 100 words to play with these micro-fictions are all about implication, inference and interpretation. You did your bit, the rest is up to us! Well done. 🙂
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Dear jwdwrites
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.
With best wishes
Penny
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The one time she said “No”, to a man unused to hearing the word- would be my guess.
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Dear Righteousbruin
Thank you for reading and commenting. You make an excellent suggestion to account for Hank’s crime.
With best wishes
Penny
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I wonder if the police found Hank, or the young woman?
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Dear Dan
Thank you for reading and commenting. Although the story doesn’t say – so you’re free to make your own choice – my feeling is that Hank is in custody.
With best wishes
Penny
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I think Hank may have found the wrong woman this time. Nicely done
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Dear Susan
Thank you for reading and commenting. Are you suggesting it’s Hank’s corpse in the upper room? Wow, I wish I’d thought of that! That would have been a lovely twist!
With very best wishes
Penny
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Oh … the tangled tale you’re willing to tease us with. Just enough but not too much exposed in your story. Of course, I want to know more especially about those girls. Mmmm … could be creepy.
Anyway …. BRAVO !!! Loved it.
Isadora 😎
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Dear Isadora
Thank you for reading and commenting. I aimed for just enough to stimulate the imagination. In the light of the comments, I might have a go at a slightly longer piece which would give my take on the back story.
With very best wishes
Penny
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The ending was sad. Sent shivers down my spine
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Dear Akshata
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m interested that you found the ending sad; I actually agree with you, but I think most people felt more hostile towards Hank.
With best wishes
Penny
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The skilful understatement works so well – moving from Mr Pillar of the |Community to implied abuse crimes. Powerful story.
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Dear Francine
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you thought it was a powerful story.
With best wishes
Penny
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It must be serious for the police to get involved. I wonder…
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Dear Patrick
Thank you for reading and commenting. I think you’re right about the police presence; something is badly wrong.
With best wishes
Penny
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Oh, you set this up very well. Who knows what happens “upstairs” in a testosterone-driven world?
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Dear Alicia
Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, there are too many stories of men abusing positions of power, aren’t there?
With best wishes
Penny
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No wonder the gyms generally have an unsavory reputation (at least in this part of the world). Beautifully crafted.
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Dear Yarnspinnerr
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m pleased you thought my story was well crafted.
With best wishes
Penny
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Way scary and way too real.
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Dear Athling 2001
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you found the story realistic!
With best wishes
Penny
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So nonchalantly told and then the twist.
Nicely done.
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