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 © Fatima Fakier Deria
La Serenissima
Venice, my home, is stone, stone on wood, wood in water. I live in a half-world of aqueous reflections, stone in water, water on stone, a confusion of images.
Nowadays I only dare walk its streets in daylight.
As I cross the square, a boatman sings of sunlight on tranquil water.
The canal smells cold as an open grave.
I take a deep breath and immerse myself in the shadows of the street. My heels clatter, my heart races.
Here, two years ago, masked and cloaked in midnight’s blackness he snatched me, and in five frantic minutes stole my serenity.
Nice imagery, so realistic
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Dear Larry
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you liked the imagery.
With best wishes
Penny
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Grim, but beautifully written, Penny
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Dear Neil
Thank you for reading and commenting. You’ve made my day with that approving comment!
With best wishes
Penny
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There may be no way of restoring her serenity, but I hope he was at least caught and punished.
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Dear James
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m afraid there’s little chance he was caught; after all, he was “masked and cloaked in midnight’s blackness”.
With best wishes
Penny
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What a terrible moment, the dark side to Venice’s magic. Well written.
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Dear Iain
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you thought it was well written.
I’ve only been to Venice once. I felt it was a most sinister place; really spooked me.
With very best wishes
Penny
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So much going on here. The transition of density from stone to wood to water. The sunlight on tranquil water bringing an image of joy then shadows and clattering heels transferring us to fear. Excellent piece.
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Dear Alicia
Thank you for reading and for your very thoughtful comments. You’re right that there’s a lot going on; I have reservations about that myself. It might be a time when “Less is more” applies!
With very best wishes
Penny
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oh how clever. I like your beginning and end, your wordplay with Venice, Serenissima and serenity … and inbetween this opposite feeling caused by a bad experience … it shows how much worth our emotions have.
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Dear anie
Thank you for reading and for your helpful comments. You have pinpointed the heart of the story when you say ‘it shows how much worth our emotions have.’ The narrator’s traumatic experience has changed her emotional state. The city that she used to find beautiful is still beautiful, but also a half-world full of terror.
With best wishes
Penny
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This is very sad! On one hand I tend to say, It is not bad to be careful in our world and to also see the dark sides but then again I say no. Traumatic and fear must be treated and try to overcome, because I think that this fear is attracting situations which belongs to this fear….
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Echoing the comments above about your beautiful imagery.
That Venice is called “the serene one” I did not know, but ironically your character now seems far from serene. The city itself, with its confusion of surfaces, seems to have stolen her serenity from her.
You bring in,of course, the Masks that venice is famous for, in the party days before lent. Your assailant–rapist?–kidnapper?–stealer of innocence?–makes me think of the phantom of the opera and his onsession with possessing a young woman against her will, and to her utter revulsion. Great job!
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Dear Andi
Thank you very much for reading and for commenting so comprehensively and carefully. The comment that “The city itself, with its confusion of surfaces, seems to have stolen her serenity from her” is particularly helpful because I was dimly aware that something about that wasn’t quite right. It was the assault that robbed her of her serenity not the city. The city is still beautiful, but her emotional state means it seems to her to be a half-world full of terror. I’m glad you picked up on the mask. As you say, it’s a Venetian custom, and it’s associated with all sorts of licentious behaviour. I think there would be a particular horror in being attacked by a man masked in that fashion.
So, thank you once again for your constructive criticism. It’s extremely valuable and I really appreciate it.
With very best wishes
Penny
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Love the language and the imagery. Such an elegant presentation of a terrible event in her life.
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Dear EagleAye
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you loved the language and imagery.
With best wishes
Penny
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A chilling event which has changed her home and her life forever. Nicely done.
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Dear Ali
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.
With best wishes
Penny
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That was so well written. Intense and chilling.
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Dear Anurag
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m delighted that you felt it was intense.
With best wishes
Penny
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Your first sentence was wonderfully descriptive, like the start of a travelogue, but from then on the tale became sinister indeed. Excellent.
Click to read my FriFic tale
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Dear Keith
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.
With best wishes
Penny
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Excellente! Bravissimo! Loved the vividness of this story!
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Dear Jelli
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you thought the story was vivid.
With best wishes
Penny
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As everyone has said, Penny, this is a splendidly wonderfully descriptive piece. No way one could still see their beloved city in the same light after a horrid experience. Where lightness was, darkness has now entered… probably never noticed before her experience.
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Dear Dale
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you liked the descriptions. Yes, you’re right; she will be much more aware of the shadows now.
With very best wishes
Penny
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What came through to me is that she’ll be forever scarred. Fear has taken up permenent residence in mind and she will never be the same. Hauntingly real.
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Dear Russell
Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re right; the memory of the event will always be with her. The shock of being attacked in a place where you felt safe is very traumatic.
“Hauntingly real” is a lovely way of describing the story; thank you so much!
With best wishes
Penny
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What a horrible loss. Five minutes was too much.
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Dear Alice
Thank you for reading and commenting. Even a brief attack of this sort shatters confidence if you’ve previously felt perfectly safe.
With best wishes
Penny
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That is a truly sinister tale. Very tense, well written and such a good city to set such a story – a city of masks and dark corners and decay. Beautifully told Penny
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Dear Lynn
Thank you for reading and for your kind comments. I visited Venice for a couple of days once, and hated it. Yes, it’s beautiful, but it’s haunted; your description “a city of masks and dark corners and decay” exactly describes how I felt about it. I think that’s how the sinister nature of my tale arose.
With best wishes
Penny
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You capture all of that so well. Makes me think of the film Don’t look now which encapsulates the disorientating, decayed feel of the city. All mould and midges and mists! A great read Penny
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i guess every paradise has a dark side. we can’t be too trusting anymore. even the garden of eden has a snake.
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Dear Plaridel
Thank you for reading and commenting. It’s true there are risks all around us, but in the West these risks are mostly low. We must struggle to eliminate them but not let them make us over-fearful – a fine line to tread.
With best wishes
Penny
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This is wonderfully written Penny. The sense of loss your main character feels is heartbreaking. I feel so sorry for them. Such a powerful piece.
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Dear Lisa
Thank you for reading and for your kind comments. I’m glad her sense of loss came across powerfully.
With best wishes
Penny
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It was excellent.
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After her horrendous experience, that she can see the beauty around her is in itself a miracle and a triumph of spirit. So well captured Penny. You speak of sunlight on still water. There is hope for her.
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Dear Joyful
Thank you for reading and for your very interesting and optimistic comments. I agree that there is hope for her; the story implies that in bright sunshine she can relax. Human beings are very resilient, thank goodness!
With best wishes
Penny
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Dear Penny,
This is a grim reminder of how life can change forever in the blink of an eye. Beautifully written. Not a word wasted.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle
Thank you for reading and commenting. I fear too many women suffer this experience and are scarred emotionally. We need to keep educating men to respect women.
With best wishes
Penny
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Hi Penny,
I really liked this piece. Yet, after reading the comments and going back to it a few times, I started pulling it apart further and being more critical instead of being attracted to the words and images. Now I question whether your first paragraph conveys her horrors or sets a more general scene. “Venice, my home, is stone, stone on wood, wood in water. I live in a half-world of aqueous reflections, stone in water, water on stone, a confusion of images.”
I should’ve picked up on the reference to the mask, but didn’t until I read the comments.
You’ve hinted at the contrast between the happy touristy Venice and her sinister, dark Venice and I’m not sure whether that could’ve been tightened up a bit.
These are just a few ideas, but I really liked it as it is too and wonder how it would go as a longer piece where you could tease a few of these contrasts out.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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Dear Rowena
Thank you for reading so carefully and commenting so helpfully. I agree completely about the first paragraph. I have muddled the factual Venice, the solid Venice, with the nightmare world it’s become for her.
You’ve given me some really useful constructive criticism; thank you so much!
With very best wishes
Penny
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Great piece, though it left me with a heavy heart. It must be difficult to have such awful associations with a place that is home. Really moving story.
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Dear Ellie
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m pleased that you found the story moving. You’re right – it would be very difficult to live in a place with such awful associations, but the alternative is exile. Dreadful.
With best wishes
Penny
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This is such a sensuously descriptive piece of sights and smells, which makes the reveal at the end even more shocking and sad. Very well done.
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Dear Sarah Ann
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad the contrast between the description and the reveal enhanced the shock and sadness of the reveal.
With best wishes
Penny
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Excellent story, Penny, beautifully written. I enjoy a cool, almost detached opening which gives no clue about what is to come. Impressive, the way you confidently go from a calm description of an apparently safe place to a life-changing attack – in one hundred words. That’s skilled writing. And the contrast of the sunshine song and the odour of the canal – brilliant.
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Dear Jilly
Thank you for reading, and for your very kind comments. I’m glad you enjoyed the contrasts in the story.
With very best wishes
Penny
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An excellent piece, Penny. I share your views on Venice.
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Dear Sandra
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment. Praise from a writer as good as you is something I treasure.
With very best wishes
Penny
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A wonderfully written account of the day the world for one person changed.
I could feel the change in your very descriptive account from before to after.
We forget that even in paradise dreadful things can happen. My favorite of all the stories I’ve
read this week, Penny. Have a super weekend.
Isadora 😎
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Dear Isadora
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m delighted you enjoyed the story so much.
Have a great weekend,
Penny 🙂
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Very real. I like the last line.
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Dear Linda
Thank you for reading and commenting. I tried to make the last line as sinister as possible.
With best wishes
Penny
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Stone on water, water on stone
Love the lines in this piece Penny.
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Dear Laurie
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you liked those lines; I was trying to use a technique that Kelvin often uses where he says something then immediately turns the phrase around to give a different emotional impact.
With very best wishes
Penny
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Very well crafted Penny – I felt her fear!
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Dear Dahlia
Thank you for reading and commenting. I felt the fear too as I was writing; the thought of being attacked like that is horrible.
With very best wishes
Penny
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I didnt want to write on this topic but then i just couldnt unsee it. Thanks Penny for your support.
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It is as everyone has said a wonderfully descriptive piece but very poignant and emotive with loads to think on, well done
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Dear Michael
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m really glad you find the piece thought-provoking.
With very best wishes
Penny
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She is reeling, that wood, that stone, so haunting, anything, everything she saw while trying to ignore that horrendous deed. She is struggling, she is still in shock, but she is a survivor. The sweet music tells me so. Now all she needs do is talk to someone about how she really feels…
Loved this, Penny, your best yet?
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Dear Kelvin
Thank you for reading and commenting so thoughtfully. You’ve seen to the heart of the story; she is indeed a survivor. And I agree that she would benefit from talking to someone about how she really feels, preferably a good psychotherapist.
I’m delighted you loved the story. As to whether it’s my best yet – I’ll leave that for you and other readers to judge!
With very best wishes
Penny
BTW The opening paragraph was very much inspired by your descriptive style – many thanks!
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I am blushing profusely, Penny, but glad to inspire you with my descriptive style. Bless you.
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A beautifully sad tale. Her home now filled with shadows and confusion. The canal smells as an open tomb. The trauma she suffered changed her outlook forever. =(
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Dear Brenda
Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, she has been irreversibly changed by the assault. However, I see her as a survivor. I would hope she will still find peace, but maybe it won’t be in Venice.
With best wishes
Penny
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Excellent writing, Penny. Loved the opening lines and the closing line hit hard. I did walk those Venetian streets alone at night, and it is creepy. Totally could happen just like your story, though the locals claim it is totally safe. The goosebumps on my skin said otherwise.
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Dear Fatima
Thank you for reading and commenting – and for the photoprompt, which is great! You’re braver than me – I wouldn’t care to walk those streets alone in the dark. I’m glad you felt that the closing line hit hard.
With very best wishes
Penny
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Your story began as a poetic travelogue, but descended into a nightmare. So well done, with so few words. Have a wonderful time in Greece! I was there once and loved it. I only wish I’d done my own travelogue then to relive it over and over.
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I wish you also a beautiful vacation enjoy and have a rest… travelogue can be a very beautiful memory but just having important times in mind is also beautiful… I love for example taking pictures but in fact I enjoy directly watching ( not through the iPad or camera) more. This story will stay in my mind to ponder if this story belongs to me or not… horrible moments and beautiful moments can change life and our behaving for ever that is right. But in fact every single moment life changes and in fact our assessment is what makes us and our world around change… much more than the situations which for itself have no power… god bless you and bring you back home healthy.
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Dear anie
Thank you for reading, and for your thoughtful and loving reply. I agree that many really important changes are the result of conscious choice – we can choose happiness rather than misery, for example – but I would still say that events over which we have no control can have great power over us. An extreme example would be that we could be killed in a traffic accident where the other party was wholly to blame. And I think my story describes another such example; the narrator suffered a violent attack under terrifying circumstances. Yes I believe she can recover if she makes the right choices – but if she hadn’t been attacked she would not need to make those choices.
God bless you too, anie, and may you find happiness in your life.
Penny
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Thank you Penny
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Dear Jan
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you felt it was well done.
I love Greece, and have visited many times. I have many pictures and a few stories inspired by the place. I hope you have another chance to visit – it’s well worth it!
With very best wishes
Penny
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You create such a strong, almost dream – nightmarish atmosphere so skilfully, and convey so much in so few words. Well done Penny.
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