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 on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!
PHOTO PROMPT © DAWN MILLER
Well Done
The farmer’s son drove the tractor, and the blades of the plough turned the clods like a sexton’s shovel. The empty grain silo coursed with rain.
Winter came, harsh and unyielding. The farmer’s son stayed home, just the whisky bottle for company. Icicles like swords hung from the silo.
Milder weather came. The farmer’s son rose, sighed, and sowed the summer wheat. Day by day the land greened under the gentle sun.
Then the harvest.
The farmer’s son confronted the silo. With an effort of will, he filled it with grain.
“Well done, son,” said the memory of his father.
Autumn Leaves 
Bleak and strong, this picture of a man doing what he must
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Neil
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you thought the story was strong.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
Lyrical description, and a deep character portrait. Well done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Eugenia
Thank you for reading and for your kind and thoughtful comments.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
Every farmer’s wish is that his children will carry on farming and have good harvests. Great story, Penny.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Jade
Thank you for reading and commenting. Emotionally, you’re exactly right about farmers wanting to see their children continue to farm. But it’s becoming a mixed emotion here in the UK as it becomes more and more difficult to make an adequate income from a family farm.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
Penny, sorry to hear it about the farmers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully written.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Susan
Thank you for reading and for your very kind comment.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s nice to think they are still watching down over us, and they still appreciate us making them proud. Lovely story Penny.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Iain
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
lucky to have a son like him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Plaridel
Thank you for reading and commenting. The farmer was proud of his son, and his son responded with love and respect.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I felt the spirit of farming in the way you told this story, very well told
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Mike
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
Farming can be an arduous lifestyle, and the character seemed awful lonely. Well written as always!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Brenda
Thank you for reading and for your perceptive comment. The farmer’s son was grieving his father who had died a few months before the story starts – so, yes, he is lonely.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really get the sense of day by day, year by year unending toil. And also that maybe the farmer’s son would rather be doing something else if it weren’t for the memory of his father.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Ali
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comment. I’m very pleased that the sense of continuous hard work came across. The farmer’s son is grieving for his father who died a few months before the story starts. He loves the life – it’s what he was brought up to – but he misses his dad badly.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Penny,
A lovely and gentle depiction of the cycle of life. The last line is the touching icing on the cake.
Shalom,
Rochelle
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Rochelle
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad you liked the last line.
Shalom
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think you powerfully convey the burden of grief carried by the man, very well observed, so that every action is freighted with despair. Good writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Francine
Thank you for reading and commenting with such insight. You are absolutely right about the man’s burden of grief. In the back story, his father had died in an accident in the grain silo (they’re terribly dangerous places) just a few months before the start of the story. The last line is intended to show that the farmer’s son has started to heal emotionally as a result of faithfully discharging what he sees as his duty to his father.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
This is an excellent piece, Penny. The grief is palpable..and that last line, brings shivers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Sascha
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. Shivers are good!
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I liked the way you built the atmosphere. I could feel his depression and grief, feel the way he was only going through the motions for his late father. Clever writing!
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Susan
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. I’m glad the feeling of grief came across clearly.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
Wonderful writing, as per. I felt he was doing his duty for the sake of his father – only, there is that sense that he doesn’t enjoy it. At all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Dale
Thank you for reading and for your very kind comments. You’re right that he wasn’t enjoying that year’s farming, and certainly his dad’s memory spurred him on. In the back story, his father was killed a few months before the story opens in an accident in the silo (they’re dangerous places and people die in them every year). So he’s struggling with grief and misses his dad bitterly. But having successfully completed the year I’m hopeful that he will enjoy the work again – and perhaps he’ll meet a nice girl who will take care of the loneliness!
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. Silo accidents are horrid. And if he did love farming before, hopefully he will again. Yes, a wife is needed 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Awww…that was beautiful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Dawn
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m delighted you found the story beautiful.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your descriptions of the seasons seem to mirror his journey through loss and grief, coming out on the other side. You endear us to him in only a few words. Well done, Penny.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Mags
Thank you for reading and commenting. Yay! You’ve understood exactly what I was trying to do! Thank you for reading with such care and insight.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome, Penny!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It didn’t seem to me as if the farmer was enjoying his work, although he obviously knew what to do and how to do it. Then you wrote that last line, and it all came clear. Unique, creative response to the prompt.
LikeLike
Interesting take on the prompt!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Dee
Thank you for reading and commenting.
With best wishes
Penny
LikeLike