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. This week’s prompt was a beautiful photograph, but it took me to a place of sadness. No matter how hard I tried to go elsewhere, this was the story that I had to write.
PHOTO PROMPT © Marie Gail Stratford
In Memoriam – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
The gardeners worked hard. They mulched the soil, banished pests, fought diseases and pruned; pruned so gently and so carefully, shaping the rose bushes to produce beautiful and healthy flowers.
Fourteen bushes stood in an oval bed surrounded by immaculate lawn. The blooms were red, orange, pink, and yellow, teasing the eye with vibrant potential. Their sweet perfume delighted.
What was in the young man’s mind? Pain begets pain – but he knew what he was doing. He stripped those blooms, slew the gardeners, with a hail of lead.
He ended their potential.
Rest in peace, beautiful blooms and faithful gardeners.
Autumn Leaves 