100 Words: Broken Head

Stumbling around after the ride I felt like something in my head had broken.  It had round and round so fast it felt like my skull had changed shape and was ready to burst like a shook-up coke can.

And then it was the 50s all of a sudden.  A bequiffed man bumped into me and the strong smell of his cigarette brought me round quickly.  People started noticing me when I swore loudly and I started to panic, wondering how to get back.

But nothing worked.  I waited and here I am hoping I can stop myself from riding.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories):

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

I can't shake the feeling that I have written something very similar before.  Maybe just because I initially write something similar to this before realising and giving up (at 141! Words):

On a roundabout one evening way in my past/sometime in the 90s an older child spun me round and round so many times and I got so dizzy that I have not been able to go round and round or spin in a circle without feeling horribly sick since.  One time I even tried a spinning helicopter ride at Dreamland but was sick during and after the ride.  I can’t spin on the spot or even tolerate someone else spinning on the spot or walking round and round in circles.  I have to frequently ask my son to stop doing so.  Something in my head just broke that day.  Before then I loved the Galloping Horses, as I called the Carousel, now I can barely stand to look at them and stand well back when my son goes on board.  

100 Words: The Two Kettle Chorus

Together they would bubble and steam, the sounds emitting from the room like a chorus calling us in for elevenses and afternoon tea.  Or so we called our tea breaks in those days.  A quick cuppa and a biscuit.

And, after someone remarked that they were like siren calls, the singing began.  Pop songs and folk songs, hymns from our schooldays, even a national anthem or two, got sung as we sat about enjoying our tea, often too wired to have “proper” conversations.

We met there - our eyes meeting, smiles exchanged, as we sung the first line of Autumn Days.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories):

PHOTO PROMPT © Jen Pendergast

100 Words: Welcome to the War

It gave me the heebie jeebies.

From the landing craft we could see smoke blocking the sky.  “Thank God the beaches have been won,” I thought.

Then, as the ramp dropped into the surf, I saw Vesuvius fully for the first time and it looked angry as heck, spewing red hot lava down its flanks and it hit us all in the stomach, made us think of the fire waiting for us.  

For now, though, we hopped to it, marched neatly away.  “Just follow orders, do as you are told, avoid the lava,” I thought.  Right up to VE Day.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Ken Arnopole

100 Words: Sea Fog

It was twisting, rolling up the beach like a live beast.  At the castle it blew across the lawns and over hedges like a ghost horse.  We came for Easter, spring sunshine, lambs and so on.  Instead we got cold and a creepy fog following us around.

It felt like we were stuck in a Victorian period drama, like a seaside Jack the Ripper was waiting at the end of the pier, hiding within the fog, waiting for victims to enter his trap.  We stayed away from the pier.

All in all you could say it was a disappointing trip.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

100 Words: Searching for the Exit

Everything was glass.  Rooms that went on so far that whatever was outside was just a distant blur.  Its existence was only an idea, though, as all I could see was through and that there was no way to leave.

I walked one way, feeling out ahead, met a wall, followed it one direction, then another, and another going on and on and nowhere.  Never travelling far enough to unblur the distant blur.

It was some time before I saw the light.  A flash from an old film.  I screamed as high as I could, shattered everything and woke up.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Nancy Richy

100 Words: The Chips Cupboard

Our classroom was next to the cafeteria so we were nearly fooled.  For that’s how Miss always passed it off.  “It’s the chips, they’re frying the chips for lunch,” she would say when we asked about the bubbling sounds and smells.

Then one day we saw her.  We held back just enough on the way to lunch, and we looked through the window in the classroom door to see her open a cupboard, remove a fryer basket of chips and pour them onto a plate.  

Away we walked.  Astonished, but not surprised.

That’s when I decided to become a teacher.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

100 Words: The Strange Beings

I woke up with strange beings standing over me.  Long bendy arms came from the top of long slender trunks, eyes wide and bright with curiosity and concern; and shocks of hair in wispy bursts.  Nothing more could I make out as the sun hovered right over, clothing them in shadow.  I saw only shapes in that brief time.  

After I awoke in the hospital no one believed me: “Just the trees you were found under.”  Yet no one could explain how I got from the burning train to the top of an almost vertical embankment.  

Or the other survivors.

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Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook