100 Words: Life from Death

The first time I walked to the shop instead of using the car I saw a squirrel standing on the top of a fence taking seeds from the centre of a sunflower and eating them from its tiny hands.

I stood transfixed, watching this intimate and tiny wonder all alone.  Just me on Church Landway amazed by what I was witnessing.

I never looked back, I never fixed the car.  

Now it has bloomed into life, just as I have by walking and taking public transport: meeting people and seeing things that would not be possible while driving the car.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Fleur Lind

100 Words: Grow vines to bypass the walls

Traditions that became ever more iron clad built walls throughout the town keeping its communities apart.  Separation bred hatred and hatred threw stones that injured, maimed and killed indiscriminately.

And so it went on until a watercan, left accidentally on a wall, periodically filled with water and seeds before spilling them onto the ground.

Great vines grew over the walls and curious youngsters began to climb.  Children began to play together, share sweets and be welcomed in for lunch where more and more similarities were found.

New traditions began to grow and word began to spread.

And the walls fell.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

100 Words: Not just another yarn

Hands old and young knitting and clicking, the rhythms making long scarves take shape.  Over the top laughter provides the melody to the erratic beat.

Suddenly, the oldest clears her throat to silence the group before announcing:

Listen and never forget.

When the fascists came we all fought.  I was just 13, but I did my part.  I knew in my heart what my needles could do and what must be done.

She picks up her knitting again, leaving everyone to think.

Slowly the beat begins again, now more rhythmic and in line.  And no one speaks for some time.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

100 Words: The Sad Cardboard Box Jellyfish

Floating across the wall: a picture of a cardboard box upset at being dumped into the ocean and becoming a jellyfish.  It hadn’t asked to become sentient or a living warning of dumping rubbish in the ocean.  It was sad for the ocean and for itself, doomed to forever drift the seas of the earth, with no hope of the end it had always desired: of being recycled.

Until.

A school of fish arrived, broke up into a shoal, and started to feed.  The sad cardboard box jellyfish slowly began to disappear.

It didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

100 Words: An Analogy for the Empire

They never really taught us about empire and no one ever talked about the effects still being felt.  Growing up I only ever heard good things.  The things that were only good for colonists.

While in a rickshaw, I looked forward and watched the man pulling me forward.  Those old, golden days were much like this, I thought - if I’d had a rifle pointed at his head.

Until that moment I had been walking around full of satisfaction, of pride.  It turned to sickness before I stopped the ride, had a brief chat with my driver, and started to learn.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Amanda Forestwood

100 Words: In The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas

Inside the Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas I found a book.  A book with a purple cover within which was a collection of photographs for story prompts.  A scattering of joker cards, ancient ruins, a ferry headed for harbour, a strange looking forest - there were so many to see and choose from.  

And each page folded out to reveal stories created from that prompt.  Each concertina with an empty panel ready for more.

They say the book updates itself every week: a new picture, new fictions, from fictioneers, both old and new.

And the name of the book?

Friday Fictioneers.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

My Original The Haberdashery of Thoughts and Ideas: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

100 Words: Don't Wait. Do.

Sometimes it felt as if I had been dealt nothing but Jokers.  No cards of use had ever fallen into my lap.  I waited.  And waited.  But waiting won’t do.  Something the naive and privileged don’t realise.  They expect.  I checked myself, I don’t expect kudos, I learned and I did.  I stood and I built and I grew.  I struggled and came through as most people have to do.  But once, and sometimes I think about this and it makes me feel sick, I just thought things would happen.  That life was a simple game to play.  It’s not.

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

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Initial Idea: Trumps was our game.  7 cards in the first hand, then working down to 1.  One suit the trump, the leading card next most powerful, highest card put down wins.  So many rainy days passed this way.

Four of us then, siblings growing together finding ways through the long holidays and weekends.  Monopoly was another favourite.  And Cluedo, Buccaneer, other card games.  Sometimes a board games olympics.  

Now it is Solitaire all the way.  And mostly on my phone.  Can’t quite bear to get out the physical cards anymore.