Death

Friday Fictioneers – Get Well Soon

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) ROCHELLE WISOFF-FIELDS*

Get Well Soon!

The helium balloon nodded in the gentle breeze from a fan.

‘Get well soon!’

Liz Nightingale’s eyelids drifted open. She saw the garish good wishes and smiled; she and her grandson, Oliver, had always shared a taste for irony.

Her phone was ringing but Liz didn’t have the strength to answer. The nurse noticed and held the phone where Liz could see it.

There on the screen was a new born baby, protesting her first breaths.

‘We’re calling her Liz, after you,’ said Oliver.

Liz smiled. Her first great-grandchild, and so beautiful.

Gently, with no fuss, her heart stopped beating.

InLinkz – click here to join the fun!

Friday Fictioneers – The End

PHOTO PROMPT © ROGER BULTOT

The End

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

The street below my apartment is choked with police cars, blue lights strobing, sirens howling, deafening and disorientating me.

I shall not take the coward’s way out; I shall die as I have always lived, with zest. I hope, though, that someone will find these jottings I have made. I would like to feel that my actions might be understood if not condoned. Perhaps this text will be a mirror for my intentions.

In a few minutes I shall exit onto the roof and run along the terrace.

My narrative will end.

Inlinkz – click here to join in the fun!

Friday Fictioneers – The end of an era?

PHOTO PROMPT © BRENDA COX

The end of an era?

The café lay under a mighty plane tree in a marble-paved square. It was always busy, from dawn until well after midnight.

Giorgios gazed over the café he’d started. He thought of his sons and grandsons working the tables. He thought of his unmarried daughter Katerina, so shrewd. His other daughters were happily married with children. Giorgios smiled briefly.

His heart laboured as he wondered to whom he should leave the business.

That night, lightning felled the plane tree. The deafening crash woke Giorgios. His chest tightened until he couldn’t breathe. Hastily he scrawled, “The café is Katerina’s.”

And died.

InLinkz – click here to join in the fun!

Note – I’m planning to write a longer version of this story and post it on Sunday or Monday. Just sayin’!

Friday Fictioneers – The Healing Tree

PHOTO PROMPT © LIZ YOUNG

The Healing Tree

That night the pain was worse. I silenced my cowardly groans, biting hard on a willow twig.

Our shaman nodded at me next morning.

“You are sick,” he said. “You must go to the Tree of Healing.”

“What do I do there?” I asked.

“It is your presence that heals, not what you do. Go!”

I walked. On the second day there was blood in my mouth. I kept walking.

On the third day, I saw the tree; I saw a light, brighter than the sun; I heard chanting voices.

The light faded and I fell.

The pain was gone!

Inlinkz – click here to join the fun!

Friday Fictioneers – One Tide

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.

Inlinkz – click here to join in the fun!

Friday Fictioneers – Grace Notes

FF - Passing Notes 200401

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!

Friday Fictioneers – Window on the Heavens

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 link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!

FF - Window on the Heavens 190919

Photoprompt © J Hardy Carroll

Window on the Heavens

At first I was frightened.

The fall had concussed me. My hip hurt like hell, and I couldn’t stand up – couldn’t even crawl.

My children had told me I should always carry my phone, but I’ve never taken good advice.

I tried calling for help. My voice sounded strange, feeble and quavering. Nobody came.

Soon it was dark. Starshine crept in through the skylight. So did the cold. I shook.

The pain was subsiding. My mind felt strangely lucid. I was going to die, here, on my kitchen floor. I watched the glorious, terrible darkness through the window above…

What Pegman Saw – The Final Journey

“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

The final journey

It’s alright; the pain is less now as I draw near the end. I no longer need morphine, just my view of the Manikarnika Ghat from the guest house where I’m spending my last few days.

I have had a happy life. Not without hardship, of course – which of us can escape that? – but I have been fortunate. My parents chose me a good husband who provided well for me, and I obeyed him and brought him joy. We had seven children together, and five of them survived childhood. I have had the delight of nine grandchildren.

Smoke is rising from the ghat, and orange flames; another soul is destined for salvation. Soon that will be my shell, burning there.

I will know no more of this glorious world, with its sounds, and its scents; its touching and its tasting; its love.

I am content. I have had my share.

What Pegman Saw – Gratitude

“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 Everest!

WPS - Gratitude 190223

Mount Everest base camp, Nepal | mkslalove Google Maps

Gratitude

Anne’s first impression as she came out of blackness was of complete surprise. Surely it wasn’t possible to survive a fall like that? The pain in her shattered limbs rapidly convinced her otherwise; she was definitely alive.

She looked up the mountain. The slope at the bottom of the sheer drop was ice-covered and very steep, and then gradually levelled to a plateau. She had hit obliquely and slithered.

There was no way back.

She struggled, painfully, to open her parka and reach her cell-phone. She fumbled it with frost-bitten fingers. Mike! She called him.

It seemed to take an eternity for him to answer.

“You’re alive! Thank God!”

“Mike – don’t try to rescue me. It’s hopeless. I love you! Goodbye!”

She scrolled to her Mom and Dad, looking at their profile picture as her eyes dimmed.

“Thank you for letting me have my adventure,” she breathed as she died.

What Pegman Saw – Last Night Nerves

wps - last night nerves 190126

Talinn, Estonia | Daniel Pettersson, Google Maps

Last night nerves

She looked radiant. He was nervous, constantly rummaging in the pocket of his jacket. I gave them my best smile and a menu each.

He stammered while ordering, and checked repeatedly with the young woman exactly what she wanted.

“Would you like red wine with the duck, Margit? They would go well together. Or – how presumptuous of me to assume you want wine! – perhaps you would prefer something different altogether?”

“Red wine will be lovely, Andrus.”

She seemed to greatly enjoy her meal, but he picked at his, pushing it round his plate with his fork and leaving half of it.

“I’m sorry Andrus left so much,” said Margit as she paid. “He is ill – a brain tumour.”

Andrus pressed a 50 Euro note into my hand. “More use to you than me,” he said, white-faced.

They left.

The door had hardly closed behind them when two shots rang out.

Autumn Leaves