Friday Fictioneers – Flight

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 - Flight 181017

PHOTO PROMPT © Jilly Funell

Flight

I pass beyond the bland retail complex to the harbour, where the sea has been tamed. The light shimmers. An old buccaneer of a gull, cross-billed and cross-eyed, squints at my burger. We look at each other.

“Not for you, mate,” I tell him.

The Spinnaker Tower surges skywards in clean curves. Rather than a sail straining in the wind, creaking with the effort, it looks like a sign on a garage forecourt whirling with the futile energy of consumerism.

My seagull friend soars, gliding serenely beyond the breakwater to sparkling waves. How I wish I could do the same.

69 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – Flight”

    • Dear Dale
      Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m delighted you enjoyed the story. Portsmouth has form when it comes to buildings. The Tricorn Centre, opened in 1966 was, at one time, regarded as the ugliest building in the country. It was demolished in 2004. The new student hall of residence was shortlisted for the ugliest building in the UK in 2017. And there’s the Spinnaker…I suppose it’s okay approached from the sea. At night. During a power cut. No – it’s not really that bad!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 2 people

  6. This was so well done! Thank you–I enjoyed reading it. I think that seagull must be a (better behaved) relative of a seagull from Maine, who stole MY lunch a few years ago. Forget ants, these birds can defy gravity with the weight of stuff they lift! (I do like them, all told, even included one as sort-of-a-character in one of my novels: “Emilia”) 🙂 Na’ama

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    • Dear Rochelle
      Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re very kind to say that my story took wing. I like seagulls – I just watch them carefully when I’m eating out of doors!
      Shalom
      Penny

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  12. Enjoyed your take. I also liked how well you have portrayed, ‘the grass is greener’. the gull wishes for the burger while the human wishes to fly.
    So much you have packed in 100 words. I liked the line “whirling with the futile energy of consumerism.”

    Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Priya
      Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed my take, and felt that it had plenty of substance; it’s kind of you to take the trouble to comment in detail. Feedback is so important for improvement, I think.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Abhijit
      Thank you for reading and commenting. We can certainly fly in our imagination; indeed, as writers, it’s essential!
      Good luck as you soar in your imagination!
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Stuart
      Thank you for reading and commenting. One word in front of the other in my case at the moment! I’m trying to finish planning my novel ready for NaNoWriMo next month.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Yvette
      Thank you for reading and commenting. Thank you especially for pointing out the alliteration. Although it works here, I wasn’t really conscious of using it, and – once upon a time – I considerably overused it! Gull and seagull was intentional, though.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

      • I love when we accidental throw things into our writing – comes from essence – and I think it happens way more with those who write a lot.
        and in my recent FF, I used sidelined because the word came to mind at the time and later I saw it was a football term and my piece had mentioned a football team owner – and just fun when things happen on their own —
        and I smiled when you say that at one point you overused alliteration… ahhhh we all grow eh?

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    • Dear Anurag
      Thank you for reading and commenting. You’re right, of course. It’s easy to be where the sea sparkles; if you’re young and fit as well as rich you can even soar in a microlight aircraft above the sparkling waves.
      It’s rather more difficult to escape the all-pervasive consumerism of our world, though.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Liked by 1 person

    • Dear Anshu
      Thank you for reading and commenting. We all need something spiritual to leaven our lives. Sometimes that can be found in nature’s beauty, but it’s never found in a shopping mall!
      With best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Jilly
      Thank you for reading and for saying such nice things about my story. I’m glad you liked my seagull friend! Cross-billed and cross-eyed, he’s a survivor; I like survivors.
      With very best wishes
      Penny

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    • Dear Michael
      Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comment. I like your take on my story very much. Perhaps we build too often for profit rather than for joy?
      With very best wishes
      Penny

      Like

  29. Great use of contrast: the tamed sea vs. the buccaneer seagull, and the tower’s rigidity vs. the flexibility of a ship’s sail. While the narrator wishes to fly like the seagull, the bird wishes for a nice meal like the burger in the narrator’s hands. A lovely, thought provoking piece.

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  33. I was sighing with longing at the end. I feel that the tower meant to depict a sail, which sometimes is a symbol of freedom, exploration and moving on to better things, is somehow stuck on that commercial island. And only the seagull took flight. I fail to put it to words exactly, but I liked how it suggested that man attempts to achieve what nature does so effortlessly.

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