A Global Warning

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

 

They said it would get warm, but they didn’t say how quickly or how relentlessly. He thought it would take decades.

He was wrong.

Trees still foliaged but most other plants withered. Same for people.

It killed the young, old, weak, and callous. The talking heads had babbled about it before TV stopped. They couldn’t justify cooling the studios when the grid struggled to air-condition hospitals. Not that the latter did much good.

He sighed and retreated from the window. Ignored his daughter’s empty bed. They were warned. By the time they deigned to listen, it was already too late.

 

 

For the Friday Fictioneers Challenge

 

Doctored

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

 

“I am not dressing up as a doctor!”

Twins or no twins, he’d had it with his sister deciding their costumes. He’d been Prince Charming, Prince Un-Charming (consort to Princess Uglyanna). He’d been Mr. Smee. He’d been a screw (guess who was the screwdriver), a nail (yep, Maya was the hammer), a flower (to her bee). And those were the less embarrassing ones.

“You could be an evil doctor imprisoned by an eviler scientist,” she enticed.

“In your dreams,” he replied.

She grinned. “Or in yours. As in, literally. Tonight.”

 

 

For The Friday Fictioneers Challenge

 

Best Foot Forward

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Mom always told him to put his best foot forward.

So he did.

He pulled it off and placed it in front of his wheelchair. It was the shorter prosthesis, the one that didn’t need straps around the hip to secure and the one he could even put a bit of weight on. Well, on good days, at least.

A sigh climbed in his chest, but he shook it off, took a deep breath, arranged the cardboard sign, and began:

“Oh say, can you see?…”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers Challenge

Meet the Beat

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 

The new piece unfolded in his head during the long flight. The chords danced to the beat of the flickering red light on the airplane’s wing and the turbulence lent base to the melody. It was perfect. He’d have written the notes right there and then had it not been for his propensity to motion sickness. Staring out the window was the only remedy. Sometimes the best inspiration.

“Let it go, let it go!” his daughter’s singing in her room welcomed him home.

And the nascent harmonies obeyed, dispersed, let gone.

 

For The Friday Fictioneers June 29 2018 Challenge

Market Day

PHOTO PROMPT © Fatima Fakier Deria

 

“Where is that boy?” Hassan demanded.

“I sent your son to your father,” Um-Ali responded from below.

Her voice was calm in the way that often enraged him. As if she’s talking to a baby, he fumed.

“What were you thinking?!” he exploded. “You know I need him on market day!”

“I know you need help on market day,” she stated. “I called Mustafa.”

Her brother. Lord of bossy annoyance. Hassan glowered at his wife.

She chuckled. “You look exactly as Ali had this morning when he thought he’d have to go with you.”

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers June-22-2018

Sentry Lesson

PHOTO PROMPT © Jean L. Hays

 

“It isn’t armor that makes one a good kitchen-window sentry,” he instructed the younglings during a quick peck break.

“Is it the blade?” piped Pepper and stretched a leg to critically eye a very immature spur.

The bird clucked fondly at the chick. Always the feisty one, Pepper was. Last to emerge from the egg but first in every yard-race since.

“No, Son,” the quail stretched tall. “It is all in the plume. Once it grows, hold it high, bob it well.”

 

 

To join Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers prompt, click here.

 

Waiting for Sam

Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompt © Roger Bultot

 

He’ll meet her at the exhibition at Noon, he’d promised.

“You’ll see. Twelve on the dot.”

“Like Cinderella?” she had joked.

“Sort of.”

She scanned the crowds, the balconies, the empty domes that rose above like marble skies.

Laughter echoed. People milled around.

She checked her watch again.

It had inched, traitorous, well past twelve o’clock.

Like Cinderella with no fairy godmother, she thought.

Never should have eaten that pumpkin Sam had bought.

 

 

 

To join Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers prompt, click here.

Digging to China

Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompt © Connie Gayer

 

He didn’t want to hear a word against the possibility.

“It is a round world, Meg,” he said,

And listened not to facts nor feasibility.

“China is there at the bottom, you will see.”

He said and spread the shovels all around for company.

It’s been a long first year of him retired

And the days stretched on.

“Go ahead, dear,” Meg agreed,

For China may let her keep her sanity indeed.

 

 

To join Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers prompt, click here.