Friday Fictioneers – Good Food

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 © DALE ROGERSON

Good Food

“I hate meat that’s half gristle,” said Jeremy, pulling yet another piece out of his mouth.

“I hate under-cooked food,” replied David, stabbing ineffectually at a boiled potato. “Why don’t we give College Hall a miss tomorrow and eat out?”

Next day there was snow, unseasonably early. An east wind gnawed at them as they trudged to the restaurant.

“Here we are,” said Jeremy.

The napkins were starched and the wine glasses were crystal. The food was delicious. It is perhaps unkind to note the unmanly moistness of their eyes as they devoured their first good meal in a month.

Inlinkz – click here to join the fun!

What Pegman Saw – Climate Change

“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the 360 degree view of the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page,  from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s location is Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

Climate Change

The rice in Salimu’s field glowed emerald. Salimu leaned on his hoe and mopped his face. He frowned. There was only just enough water in the field to prevent the plants drying out. The concrete tank he’d built to catch rain was only half full. Would there be enough for two crops in the year?

When he’d started farming, it had been easy. Meltwater running from the icefields of Kilimanjaro fed a brawling river. He’d taken all the water he needed without thought, with plenty left for his neighbours. Now the river was muddy and sluggish, and Salimu was careful to take no more than he needed.

He sighed. His neighbours had suggested trickle irrigation, but it cost so much to lay the pipes. Besides, he had heard that the water shortage was going to become worse with climate change.

Even trickle irrigation needs water.

How could he carry on?

Friday Fictioneers – Paris

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 © C E Ayr

Paris

We were unpacking in our new apartment when I found the photograph.

“Do you remember giving me this?”

“How could I forget?” Jeremy stroked the nape of my neck, and I shivered.

The panoramic shot of Paris by night was stunning, but sadly the worse for wear. It was peeling from its mounting, and it carried a smell of mud from when we’d been flooded in Somerset.

We’d fought over it during our trial separation.

“I’m glad we’re back together,” I say as I move to the window. Jeremy takes my hand, and together we gaze over Paris by night.

Inlinkz – click to join in the fun!

What Pegman Saw – Finisterre

“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page,  from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s prompt is Roscanvel, Brittany.

Roscanvel is a rocky peninsular in Finisterre. The literal translation of Finisterre is ‘The end of the world’…

Finisterre

How the wind shrieks in the rigging! The frigate tacks desperately, seeking sea-room. Surely the storm can’t get any worse?

The cannon are silent, lashed to stanchions. God help us if one of them breaks free. The portholes are tight shut, but water spurts through cracks as the vessel heels and the opening is submerged in the swell.

The gunners, too, are silent, apart from gasps of exhaustion. They pump like demons to clear the bilges. Wilkinson lies, spent. The others glance at him with contempt, even as they dread that they, too, will succumb.

It is worse on deck.

A handful of seamen struggle desperately to reduce sail.

Crack!

The main mast splinters.

The vessel yaws helplessly. She smashes into the rocks with a shock that throws many into the breakers.

A few of us cling to the rigging, from where, one by one, the raging ocean plucks us.

 

Friday Fictioneers – Third Age

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 © ROGER BULTOT

Third Age

Well!

Isn’t this exciting?

It’s such fun looking out of the train window. Look – there’s my house, high on the hill!

Hours pass. We’ll soon reach the city where I was born.

We rumble into the suburbs, between scruffy trees that half reveal lawns and colourful gardens. I used to play football with my daughter in a garden like this; she has her own children now.

Tall buildings close in, houses converted into apartments. Didn’t I have a flat in one of these as a student?

What an adventure I shall have, living here for my creative writing course!

Inlinkz – click here to join in the fun!

What Pegman Saw – Hunted

“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page,  from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s location is Polanczyk, Poland

Hunted

It has been cold since sunrise, the morning hoar never melting. Now, as the short day draws to a close, I watch sulphur yellow clouds rolling in from the west. Oh, to be snug at home with Edyth! Alas, the message to the Voevoda will not wait.

Although the blade of my knife is dull it suffices to cut larch branches, and I interweave them to make a shelter. I gather logs, picking only the driest, and search out brittle twigs as kindling.

As the sun sets, the trees catch the first snowflakes, which are delicate like the sparks from my flint. I strike harder; my life depends on fire.

At last a serpent of flame creeps across the kindling. I nurture it, as carefully as I will nurture the child Edyth carries in her belly.

Howling!

Wolves!

I draw my sword and lay the naked blade across my lap.

Friday Fictioneers – After the Deluge

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 (C) Jeff Arnold

After the deluge

The deluge had been intense but brief, hammering the earth until the road ran red with mud.

In the succeeding calm, Mary sat down at her piano. Her touch on the keys was gentle, loving even, as she played her favourite hymn. She’d learned it, oh, fifty years ago, just before her fiancé, John, had left for Vietnam. Her fingers hesitated as she remembered how he had come back.

She wouldn’t have been able to cope with that, surely?

Her eyes strayed to the window.

A rainbow glowed and her husband, Donald, smiled at her as he gathered roses.

Inlinkz – click to join in the fun!

What Pegman Saw – Extinction level event

“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page,  from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s prompt is Happy Jack, Arizona.

I found that while Happy Jack itself has few people and less history, the Lowell observatory is only twenty miles away and is one of the premier observatories in North America.

Extinction level event

Abe fiddled with his calendar. He flipped three prints of a starfield onto his desk.

“What do you make of these, Slim?” He pointed to each in turn. “29th. 30th. Last night.” The images showed the stars being obscured over a progressively larger area.

Slim looked, frowned, checked that the codes on the prints tallied with Abe’s account, and paled.

“You found this on the main instrument?” His voice was husky with apprehension. “But that’s an area of sky that I surveyed with the 0.6 metre Schmidt last week. There was nothing there then. This means…”

“That’s what I thought too. The centre of the obscured area doesn’t change.”

“It’s heading straight for us,” whispered Slim.

He straightened. “I’ll have to tell the Director.”

“How about checking on the Schmidt again? Just to be thorough.”

“Good idea.”

As Slim bustled out, Abe chuckled at his calendar.

“April Fool,” he murmured.

Friday Fictioneers – Grace Notes

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 © Douglas M. MacIlroy

Grace notes

Back and forth, back and forth went the rocking chair as Lizzie waited.

Her back twinged and she grimaced.

Early spring sunshine brightened the room. Lizzie could see the cheerful yellow daffodils in her yard.

She eyed the phone. Would it ring? No, her daughter had rung in the morning. She never rang twice in a day. Lizzie told herself not to be greedy.

A bird perched on the window-ledge. Lizzie wished she wasn’t deaf.

But she heard it!

Birdsong! A blackbird’s melodious tones. A thrush. A robin’s piping.

The notes tumbled over each other.

The light grew and grew.

Inlinkz – click here to join the fun!