Friday Fictioneers – Collateral

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 - Collateral 180926

PHOTO PROMPT © Priorhouse

Collateral

Furious, Lane seized his wife’s wineglass and hurled it out of the window of the lobby on level thirty-five.

A little wine spilled and fell, making a constellation of crimson droplets orbiting the glass. A girl walked towards the hotel entrance below.

The glass sang as it fell, the sound modulating as it tumbled in the breeze, constantly accelerating towards its rendezvous. The sunlight sparkled mesmerizingly from it. A trickle of wine dribbled around the bowl like blood.

The glass struck, shattered her skull, made a thousand scintillating diamonds in her hair even as the light faded from her eyes.

67 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – Collateral”

    • Dear Kelvin
      Thank you for reading, and for your generous comments. I wanted to write the story of the falling glass. Why was the glass falling? Well, that was easy enough. But what happens at the end? In my first draft I left it ambiguous as to whether the glass actually struck the girl, or whether it shattered just above her, showering her with fragments but leaving her unharmed. My trusted reader rejected it. “You’ve written all this description, and I can visualise the glass falling, and then the story ends and I haven’t got any picture of how it ends.” And she was absolutely right. So I tried survival and it didn’t work. Which meant a violent end to the story. I suppose what I’m saying is that although you really like the change in style, I’m not quite sure what I’ve done!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

  5. I was enjoying the singing glass, and then you introduced the girl into the story. I knew exactly what was going to happen, held my breath, hoping it wasn’t true, but alas!

    You know you’ve written a really good story when the reader gets that involved.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Dear Bjorn
      Thank you for reading and commenting. Your insight that the story is cinematic is interesting – I hadn’t really thought of it in that way, but I think you’re absolutely right. Certainly I focused on the visual much more intensely than I usually do. And it’s slow motion, because it takes longer to read about the falling glass than it would if you saw it in real life.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Jelli
      Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, it would be a very special end – unique, I should imagine. Me, I hope to pass on peacefully in my own bed surrounded by children, grandchildren and (anticipating somewhat!) great grandchildren!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Rochelle
      Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the description. That was why I wrote the story really – I wanted to describe the tumbling glass as it plummeted to earth.
      Shalom
      Penny

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    • Dear Sascha
      Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, the wine trickling like blood is foreshadowing the girl’s death. I’m glad you enjoyed the detailed description.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Subroto
      Thank you for reading and for your very kind comment. Your feeling that it’s one of my best is interesting, because I wanted quite badly to write about the falling glass – it was something that had occurred to me days before the prompt, and the wine glass in the chiller cabinet in a hotel lobby gave me the perfect excuse. But it really seems that when I write what I know, or write something that I particularly want to write about – it comes out better!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Jo
      Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re so helpful when you say you had a feeling it wasn’t going to end well, because that means the foreshadowing in the story worked. And I’m glad the story pulled you in until the bitter end.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

  32. I like the slow motion fall of the glass, all the lovely shots you described to us, the objectively beautiful but deadly trajectory in consecutive. single frames. You quickly let us know

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  33. Sorry–not quite finished–you quickly let us know that the girl was in peril, which pulled the tension taut as we watched it fall.

    Forgive the cynicism but i could not help but think that things were coming full circle, since the glass was thrown by what could well have been a lawyer from what looks like a law office, and if he gets downstairs quick, he might just pick up a wrongful death case from it! Also it occurred to me that a lot of higher floor windows just arent openable…

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