Waterfall – Friday Fictioneers

It was a long, double waterfall. Two geologists were arguing. One said it was over a hundred million years old. The other said with all that rushing water the entire formation would erode to sea level in less than ten million years.

Some bet their worldviews one way; some, the other.

I’ll admit I had an opinion, but so what, they might ask. I just hoped the waterfall would stick around until our vacation was over knowing eventually it, and quite a bit of everything else, would all wash away.

______

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo by David Stewart below as the prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart
PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

Vegetable Stand – Friday Fictioneers

No one tended the vegetable stand hidden in the hills. There was an open box where one could put coins and bills to pay for the vegetables all marked with prices. Customers made their own change from what was in the box.

Some took vegetables without paying. Some took some (and sometimes all) of the money in the box. Others put more money in the box than they were asked to. Others in repentance returned money or something as exchange for what they shouldn’t have taken.

At the end of the season enough remained to make the next year possible.

______

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below as the prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox
PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

Mother’s Day – Friday Fictioneers

Miriam selected a white tulip for her mother. Later she wanted to treat her mother, father and younger brother to lunch at the botanic garden where many flowers were in bloom.

However, eighteen years ago her mother terminated that pregnancy and two years after that her younger brother would also be viewed as an inconvenience. None of the men in her mother’s life were good enough either.

Miriam and her brother still wait for their mother to find that narrow way even a thief on a cross could find and give her a white tulip to match her white robe.

____

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo by Na’ama Yehuda below as a prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda
PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

Troubles – Friday Fictioneers

The coffee shop at the corner under the trains was open. The owner was protected and so were they. The neighborhood still looked civilized, but the troubles had begun.

One year later a quarter of the world’s population died, but it could have been more. No one knew for sure. Official truth was passed on by word of mouth and doubted as soon as it was heard. No one doubted the bodies in the streets.

An unexpected smartening raced through the population like the cleansing fire of revival as the war, the big one this time, began.


Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below by Ted Strutz for this week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz
PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

Whispers and Echoes recently published a 100-word story of mine called Spotting the Heretic. I am grateful to the editor, Sammi Cox, for selecting it. Submissions to this online journal are currently open.

Under Here – Friday Fictioneers

Armed agents secured the area. The recovery team searched the abandoned store on the old road up the mountain range both inside and out.

Someone noticed the large, white graffiti-painted letters PHERE above the entrance, threw out the P, and asked for a ladder. What they were looking for was spread thinly beneath the paint. They carefully replaced the items with fakes.

I’d like to say these were the good guys, but if they were, why were they up there? Anyway I doubt they realized that they weren’t the first to find the stuff I hid there.


Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below taken by Carole Erdman-Grant as this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt.

PHOTO PROMPT © Carole Erdman-Grant

Lost and Found – Friday Fictioneers

The snow kept piling on and on. The piles made by the snow plows went higher and higher. We thought we’d be buried in a glacier until uncovered by shocked archaeologists refusing to believe it as the evidence falsified everything they held dear.

That’s when spring came. That’s when we could credibly whine about global warming again. That’s when the snow melted.

As it did things we couldn’t find reappeared. All of this uncovered evidence falsified explanations we cherished about what happened to that missing stuff only a fool would have left outside.


Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below by Dale Rogerson as the prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson
PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Explanation Undermining Evidence – Friday Fictioneers

The tray with breakfast for two makes sense, even the laptop, but not that red phone.

This could be the interior of a nonexistent alien spaceship from some galaxy too far away to ever reach earth or an artificially unintelligent machine executing a plan to save the captured phone. I think I’ll go with the aliens. Why not? It’s either that or there’s a bug in the simulator.

If only I could get my brain out of the vat.

What’s with those wires? They’re stardust evolved from the big bang! That must be what they are otherwise nothing makes sense.


Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below by David Stewart as this week’s prompt.

Psalm 53:2, “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.” (KJV)

Friday Fictioneers Photo By © David Stewart
Friday Fictioneers Photo Prompt By © David Stewart

Splashy

Busy folk in the city paid no attention to the clouds splashing through the sky. The clouds got darker. They dropped thick, beautiful snow. The busy folk couldn’t get to work. The snow was so deep the snow plow driver didn’t see the sign to raise the plow in time. That made a mess.

People blamed the politicians who promised global warming. The politicians blamed the scientists. The scientists blamed Gaia. Since Gaia doesn’t exist, she couldn’t care less.

The clouds couldn’t care less either, because that’s not what clouds do. They splash through the sky dropping rain and snow.


Eugenia offers “splashy” for this week’s prompt. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below for her Friday Fictioneers prompt. With thanks to Oneta Hayes for reminding me of Friday Fictioneers.

I am grateful to the editor, Sammi Cox, for accepting this story for Whispers and Echoes.

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictionneers Photo Prompt by © Roger Bultot
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers Photo Prompt by © Roger Bultot

Dropped – Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © CEAyr

Clara remembered how concerned she was when she lost her hair band. She asked her father to find it. He did.

That was Clara’s earliest memory of him, and a pleasant one, but others were painful. With a rebellious daughter of her own she traded positions with her father. Clara, too, would have searched the streets for any hair band her daughter dropped, but her daughter no longer accepted assistance from her.

That may be what a memorial service is good for.  It gets regrets out in the open and breaks habits one wished had been broken long ago.


Linked to Friday Fictioneers where Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers C. E. Ayer’s photo as a prompt for stories of 100 words or less.

%d bloggers like this: