Photo prompt © Dale Rogerson

“What are these things?” Kyle pointed.

“What things?” Patty barely glanced up from the tablecloth she was wrestling for the birthday party. Forecast said “mild and pleasant” but the breeze apparently hadn’t gotten the memo.

“These,” Kyle insisted.

She sighed. Looked. Frowned. The contraptions hadn’t been there last night. Some modern art nonsense?

“Hold this,” she gave Kyle control of the tablecloth’s edges.

It looked like an assembly of pipes, but the closer she got, the less she wanted to go nearer. She checked her watch. Where was everyone?

“Mama!”

She spun at his shriek. A lumbering pipe-man had Kyle.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers