What Pegman Saw – Informal Introduction

“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 the Aosta Valley, Italy.

Image by Claudio Romeo from Pixabay

Informal Introduction

“Oskar, no! Out!”

The huge Alsatian barged into the gondola of the ski-lift, tail wagging happily. The door of the gondola slid shut.

I face-palmed.

Oskar licked the hand of the girl opposite. She was tall and slender, and long, dark-brown hair cascaded from under her casquette. Her amber eyes were merry and she was smiling.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “He’s not mine – he’s my landlady’s. He follows me everywhere!”

She laughed.

“I don’t mind,” she replied. “I like dogs.”

It took twenty minutes to take Oskar back to base and return.

To my surprise, the girl was waiting at the upper station. “Why don’t we ski down together?” she suggested.

We paused at the mountain restaurant halfway down.

“Can I buy you lunch?” I asked.

“Yes, please. This is my favourite restaurant!”

We ate. We drank. We talked. We had dinner that evening.

We’ve been married twenty years now.

 

Friday Fictioneers – La Serenissima

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 © Fatima Fakier Deria

La Serenissima

Venice, my home, is stone, stone on wood, wood in water. I live in a half-world of aqueous reflections, stone in water, water on stone, a confusion of images.

Nowadays I only dare walk its streets in daylight.

As I cross the square, a boatman sings of sunlight on tranquil water.

The canal smells cold as an open grave.

I take a deep breath and immerse myself in the shadows of the street. My heels clatter, my heart races.

Here, two years ago, masked and cloaked in midnight’s blackness he snatched me, and in five frantic minutes stole my serenity.

What Pegman Saw – The First Sunny Day

“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 Terni in Italy, the birthplace of St Valentine.

The first sunny day

Italy in August is supposed to be hot and sunny, but for the first week of my holiday it had been cold and rainy. I might just as well have been in Wales. Mind you, the weather hadn’t deterred the mosquitos. Worse, one bite on my ankle had become infected and swollen, and I’d had to pay for treatment.

When the sun eventually came out, the heat was sultry, heavy, enervating. I was strolling up the street, wondering half-heartedly if I could allow myself a beer, when I heard a peculiar sound.

“Huffa-huffa-huffa…” I looked right and left. Nothing.

“Huffa-huffa-huffa…”

And there, in the porch of a house, I saw him, a dog mounted on a bitch.

“Huffa-huffa-huffa…”

He looked at me with world-weary eyes, as though to say, “A gentleman must pass the time somehow.”

“Huffa-huffa-huffa…”

I gave him a grin, and strolled on to buy myself that beer.