Friday Fictioneers – One Tide

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 © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

One Tide

Linda and Mark watched the waves pounding the sea-wall, hurling shingle across the promenade.

“I must go back,” sighed Linda.

Charlie, lying in his sick-bed, coughed. For a moment he was lucid. Linda could do better than Mark, he thought. Then the surging ocean carried him back sixty years to his first voyage in a three-master.

Linda looked at Charlie’s chest. Still breathing.

The sound of the surf faded. Charlie’s breathing became shallow.

Linda phoned Mark.

“I think he’s going. Will you come round?”

The couple sat hand in hand as Charlie’s tide ebbed.

“We can marry now,” said Linda.

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What Pegman Saw – The Marriage Deal

“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 Oman.

The Marriage Deal

Adhara’s mother stood silent. She held her hands behind her back, hoping that no one would see the way she twisted the fabric of her abaya between her fingers. Her face, hidden by her hijab, was calm, solemn, a mask within a mask.

“The report of the matchmaker was satisfactory. Do you confirm, Basam, that in the event of marriage between our Jumah and your Adhara, your business will pass to our family on the day of your passing (may it be long delayed)?”

Jumah smirked as he looked at Adhara. Modestly clad though she was, Jumah remembered how pretty she had been as a child. He imagined the young woman’s body, its desirability enhanced by concealment.

“Alas, I have no sons to continue my business. It shall be as you say.”

“Then we have an agreement.”

The two men shook hands.

Behind her hijab, the tears rolled down Adhara’s cheeks.

 

Friday Fictioneers – Happy Birthday

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 © RONDA DEL BOCCIO

Happy Birthday

“What are we going to give Mum for her birthday?” asked Sandra.

James shrugged.

“A brooch?”

“What good is that? She never wears a jacket.”

“I dunno. Helen’s your mum not mine.”

“We’ve got to think of something special. It’s her seventieth after all.”

“A track day in a supercar?” James ducked. “No! Only joking!”

By eight o’clock on her birthday Helen was looking down at Buckfast Abbey, all sharp-angled shadows in the sunshine. The hot air balloon carrying her drifted serenely over the Devon countryside. She sipped vintage champagne whose bubbles prickled her nose.

“What a birthday!” she murmured.

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What Pegman Saw – Gay Terror

“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 Chechnya.

Gay Terror

I can’t tell anybody. They would kill me.

Adam was a pupil from my school, older than me.

He was lovely. Sometimes I used to follow him.

He used to meet a friend in the forest, another boy. I saw them kiss each other. I was jealous. I wanted him to kiss me.

They had a special place. I would hide in a nearby bush, right out of sight, and watch them.

One day his friend came with a gang. They had pick handles and baseball bats. Adam screamed as they beat him. I stuffed my hand in my mouth so as not to cry out.

When they had finished, they dug a grave and threw him in. They hit his friend then, several times, until he sobbed.

“If you ever kiss another man we’ll kill you, too,” said one of them.

Letter received by the Guardian newspaper March 2017

Author’s note

This is entirely fiction. Unfortunately, the actual situation in Chechnya is far worse.

Friday Fictioneers – Two Hander

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 © Ted Strutz

Two Hander

“Fancy mixing up Pinter and Pirandello,” sneered Lucas.

Susan cringed.

“Look! Even the chip shop knows which of us is the intellectual!” Lucas flaunted the Times wrapping his fish dinner. Susan fumbled her Daily Mirror package, spilling chips onto the pavement. “Oh, I’m sorry. How stupid of me,” she wailed.

“An excellent newspaper the Times, with the good taste to employ me to supply them with chess puzzles!”

Susan pointed to Lucas’s parcel. “That’s the paper from March 21^st, isn’t it? Wasn’t that the issue where you made a mistake and they had to print a correction?”

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