190 Words: Cursed

He stands at the centre of the labyrinth, they say, his dragonheart burning with hate. But find him you never will, no matter how hard you search.

Cursed to live forever and never be seen or heard, he screams at intruders while involuntarily moving away from them, always ensuring he is out of sight.

Stuck in a place he once loved, the frustration gnaws at him like an infected wound.  But he can only half remember that time.  Since first he found this place his life had started to change.  And though he knew there was pain to be found, he was fatefully attracted to the termite trees.  It did something to his mind, constantly twisting it.  While also planting the seed of thought that would make him return for more.

Slowly his anger grew, his heart became that of a dragon, burning inside him and stealing his mind.  He sees the body always at the edge of his vision but knows not what he did.  He remembers the cursing that bound him there but did not understand it even then.

Somewhere deep inside, a small child remembers and cries.

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include something/someone unseen) or Ice Element (include something/someone foreseen)) and had a word count limit of 180-190 words.  

Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Litchfield National Park (AU), Magnetic Termite Mounds — 2019 — 3728” / CC BY-SA 4.0

100 Words: A chimney or a person?

I don’t remember that house having a chimney.  But does it look rounded, like a head?  Or am I overthinking, like he always said I was?

Never really more than a foreboding feeling, something only ever in the furthest corners of my peripheral vision.  He always denies me, guides me away from thoughts of strange activity.  

And now this photo.  Still he dissuades, denies my memories.  I look for evidence.  Then I remember but say nothing: he said that bunker had been discovered at Number 9.  And his escaped brother still hasn’t been found.  “He was always good at hiding.”

---

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

103 Words: The Hole Searching Society

45% of holes have something in them.  I’ve crunched the numbers.  Often it’s history of some kind.  Treasures of many kinds.  So I assembled a team, began to search.

Maths geeks don’t normally do this sort of thing and it took a bit of getting used to.  Somethings, though, I’ll never get used to.

Our first body was so tiny, a baby, and so well preserved despite its ancient age.  I remember us sitting about, silently hovering over her, tears in our eyes, each imagining a different scenario that ended this way.  A life unlived until its death discovered and its story told.

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a statistician) or Ice Element (include an optimist)) and had a word count limit of 103 words exactly.  

“Sampling Pit.” Atacama Desert, Chile. Photo by NASA Ames. Read description here.

The Museum Mouse Makes a Request

It's the most inspiring place to be a mouse, especially scenes like looking down on the huge whale skeleton.  I mean, all the stuffed mammals and birds and insects are a bit weird sometimes.  The dinosaurs are cool, though. And the bit with the earthquake simulator. 

And it got us all thinking. So, beyond the skirting boards we started to make our own museum. We've a gallery of lost change featuring coins from all around the world. A giant nest made of dropped tissues. A history of cheeses selected from the cafe down the years. An exhibition of lost single gloves.  All under a roof of umbrellas in a forgotten space.

With the people gone, though, for most of the year (and far fewer when they did return), we've been stuck for ways to expand. 

So please, we are begging, for our own sanity, please send us human things. We need your weird stuff to keep us entertained.

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a non-human character) or Ice Element (include a phrase in another language (non-English))) and had a word count limit of 150-160 words.  

“Hope.” Blue Whale. Natural History Museum, London. Photo by just-pics.

Together and Apart

It seemed the perfect way to hide.  A botched robbery, ending in multiple deaths, led us there.  They seemed so genuine.

I could only ever see in one fixed direction and could do nothing else but silently think.  

They would pose us and play with us, leave us as if we were children sitting and playing.  We were completely at their mercy.  Alive and yet unalive.

As their collection grew, my hope died, my mind kept alive only by plans for revenge and by catching glimpses of her... 

But… 

eventually they died and we were scattered.  Then I fell away from this world.  

Decades wandering the rooms in my mind, memories and dreams re-lived, re-played, wound and bound together until I barely knew myself.  

Sometimes I wonder if this was the best prison.

One day I was suddenly seized, returned, carefully revived and locked away for my crimes.  

My love is still lost.  I gave a description but she was cloth, less hard wearing than me.  And I can’t go help find her.  This incarceration is better than the first, really, but sometimes I’m not entirely sure.  At least we had been together in that house of horrors. 

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a dollmaker) or Ice Element (include a fugitive) and had a word count limit under 200 (no minimum).  

Changing role patterns. Haarlem, The Netherlands. CC photo by Nationaal Archief. Find the description here. 

Untitled

The feeling of trepidation as we entered the house is the last thing I remember before it happened.  For a long time after everything was strange, more like living through distant memories half-remembered.

Until that day my father was more like a brother to me, his mind had been altered such in the war that he was more like a small child.  From his wheelchair we would delight in everything together as I ran alongside and my mother pushed him along.  

No one could ever explain it, how and why my husband suddenly returned.  If he knows, he has kept it to himself.  All I know is a light that had disappeared from his eyes returned and he saw me once more.  I think it was that place, though, somehow, those beautiful flowers.

As a child I believed in dragons that had been chased away from their home, settling and dying here, becoming pink flowers. That those flowers contained a magic that could unfog the mind and cure any ills.  

The final part of that dreamlike time I remember quite clearly.  My daughter, who I had never properly met, offered me one of those flowers.

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an unexpected joy) or Ice Element (include an unexpected sorrow)) and had a word count limit of 185-195 words exactly.  

Woman Pushes a Wheelchair. Hitsujiyama Park, Japan. CC2.0 photo by Ajari.

89 Words: 3 Museums

Wide-eyed, innocent, young, I wandered the museum’s galleries taking in the items made by people the world over.  Music always fascinated me and my eyes fell upon a group of Burmese musicians, making my mind up.  

In Burma, the museums seemed lacklustre in comparison, so little.. and I made my mind up once more.

Changing my major to science I set about reforming museums entirely.  Now so many have a time travel room, so you can go back and see treasures plundered from around the world before being returned.

---

Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a student) or Ice Element (include a roadworker)) and had a word count limit of 89 words exactly.  

“Burmese musicians performing at the Shwedagon Pagoda in 1895.” Public domain photo by Philip Adolphe Klier.  Read a description of the photo here.