The Ultimate Experience (AI)

Ted, thank you for your photo-prompt picture for this week’s Friday-Fictioneers. I can only imagine you enjoyed the concert.

Thank you also to Rochelle for the post and hosting the site.

More contributions of 100 word stories are to be found on this link HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

The Ultimate Experience

The Android Band responded to the frenzy of the crowd. Its songs became incomprehensible political rants interspersed with hypnotic instructions. Turning the sweating throng into a mass of grinding limbs moving and pushing in unison towards the pier, and like foolish lemmings dropping into a cold sea. A pulveriser scooped up the floating remains.

The fireworks screech and the multitude surges forward with sounds of agonised fear absorbed into the explosive bursts that suck oxygen from the air.

The AI continues the interpretation of the instruction–humans are dying to enjoy themselves–and develops further variety in this ultimate experience. 

The Importance of being Odd

Thank you Rochelle for posting the Friday-Fictioneers photo-prompt. The picture was provided by Amanda Forestwood, and looks like it is wonderful path for a country ramble.

More contributions can be read HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Amanda Forestwood

The Importance of being Odd

On the first step, I knelt, and Jennifer shouted for joy.

On the third step, I swaddled David.
Son, you are wonderful.

On the fifth step, three-year-old Mary whispered, ‘I love you, daddy.’

On the seventh step, David married, and along came James.
Mary shouted, “I’m a teenage aunt.”

On the eighth step, our hearts broke as Jennifer passed.

On the eleventh, Mary gave birth to Jessica.

Everyone said, Grandpa’s life was on an even keel.

On the twelfth, Jessica and James drowned sailing my yacht.

My saddest steps were always even.

I pray my last step will be odd. 

Gut Instinct

My Friday-Fictioneer story is late this week, I hope I have made it in time.
Thank you to Liz Young for the picture and to Rochelle for posting it as a photo prompt.

Other stories from the group can be read HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Gut Instinct

Tom is not well.
He works long hours and suffers from high blood pressure.
I feel for him, but he takes his frustration out on our three-year-old Julia.

He shouldn’t shout at her or smack her.

Donna suggested fermented red cabbage to balance his gut and promote probiotics in his digestive system to improve his health.
I’ll try anything to rekindle Julia’s happiness in my family.

Donna is a nutritionist and recommended this recipe as my marriage faltered.

Should I trust her?
Perhaps, if I keep my nerve.

Since Donna’s four husbands died, leaving large insurance pay-outs.

She’s extremely happy.

Can you tell Bobby?

Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompt this week raises sad past memories, but life goes on.

Thanks to Rochelle and to Jennifer Pendergast for the picture.
Click HERE for more contributions from the group.

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

Can you tell Bobby?

Bobby is so happy, colouring and drawing.
We go to the park to walk Baxter and let him off the lead, and they chase each other around the swings.

Julia would take them walking in the woods or play catch around the garden.
Bobby has grown so much since then.

The picture of Mummy’s car is on display; she would have cried.

I gave Bobby her favourite chocolate.
She’ll share it out when Mummy comes home, she said.

I hide the picture of Julia, smiling, with the MacMillan nurses holding her hand.
Gone forever. 

How can I possibly tell Bobby?

Secret Gardens

Thank you to our host Rochelle for yet another interesting picture prompt, for this week’s Friday Ficioneers. More story contributions from the group HERE.

Secret Gardens

Rolf kissed my neck and asked, “Do I really love him? “
“Whatever we do remains private,” he said. 

We strolled, bumbling in the Tiergarten, Berlin.
He coaxed me along under an archway of roses.
Secluded, silent and among giant ferns. 

“It’ll be amazing, Anne; you’ll see.”
Oh no! This was not how I imagined our first date.

He pushed the ferns aside and pulled me onto a street.
I looked around at the buildings; we were in Montreal.
Fantastic.
Rolf had revealed to me the secret gateway for world travel,
through magical gardens.

If only I could ditch Rolf?

Adrift in my Mind

Friday-Fictioneers

Thank you to Brenda Cox for this week’s photographic prompt. As always, the challenge for the Friday-Fictioneers is to produce a 100-word ‘novel’ out of thin air.

Looking at the picture, I sensed an isolated group adrift at sea, or a tourist trip on a raft and a setting for an oriental film.

Thank you to Rochelle for hosting the prompt. Click on her name to visit her home blog. You can read other story contributions by clicking HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

Adrift in my Mind

Yesterday, I saw a mermaid preening sea algae from her hair.
No one noticed. Sitting on a protruding rock, she beckoned me with a seductive stare.
I said nothing.

At sun rise, dolphins and the mermaid surrounded our raft.
I pointed, but the others saw nothing and laughed.

That evening, I meandered along the shore with the waves lapping over my feet; thoughts of the mermaid tumbling in my mind.

The breeze carried her enchanting voice, and I waded out to stroke her hair.

She snatched and held tight as we kissed.
Gasping for air, I fought and struggled ashore.

The Legend of the Tang Dong

Friday-Fictioneers

Thank you to David Stewart for this week’s photographic prompt. As always, the challenge for the Friday-Fictioneers is to produce a 100-word ‘novel’ out of thin air.

Looking at the picture, I sensed a  ghostly haunting scene perhaps a tourist spot or setting for an oriental film.

Thank you to Rochelle for hosting the prompt, click on her name to visit her home blog.

More story contributions can be read by clicking HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

The Legend of the Tang Dong

I enjoy the peace and idyllic solitude as dawn breaks, which is disturbed by blowing on the longhorn.
The call to a ritual of Tia Chi normally began as everyone assembled in the courtyard.
Such a long time ago.

Today, no one appears.

I blow again, longer, and louder.
Waiting a moment, a multitude of screams reply.
All is well. The Tang Dongs have returned.

Curious as to the legends, tourists now meander around the Temple court and silently view the sleeping corpses in the dormitories.

 At night, hunger wakes the Tang Dongs, who terrify the villages for human blood.

A Novel Apparition

Thanks to Lisa Fox for this week’s Friday-Fictioneers prompt, and I sensed a loneliness in the bar, waiting for something to happen.

Our host Rochelle would enjoy your visit to her site and also you can read more 100-word contributions based on the prompt, HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

A Novel Apparition

After the writing group session, Mary stood at the window for inspiration.
She was struggling with her novel ending.
How can she make Sam walk into her trap and kiss her?

She adores her character, but his Cessna disappeared in chapter three with wreckage found floating off St Thomas.
She searched the Caribbean and in chapter twenty-one she sighted him off Cuba fishing with Hemmingway. 

In chapter thirty-two, Sam smuggled submachine guns to Papa Doc and fled to Miami.

She was a CIA agent, and his school sweetheart.
Mary’s legs were shaking as Sam arrived. He kissed her.

Everyone applauded.

Songs My Mother Taught Me

Thanks to Rochelle for this week’s challenge, which is to write one hundred words using the photo prompt from Amanda Forestwood.

More contributions can be accessed by clicking HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Amanda Forestwood

Songs My Mother Taught Me

Your absence is like a cherry stone in Papa’s throat when he plays by the fire. Embers waltz in the breeze.
Papa showed you how to play.

When you played, we danced and sang; the moon smiled with gushing pride and the boys loved you.
You grasped the musical essence of the polished spruce, stroking the bow along the strings.
Enchanting, magical harmony filled the forest with inspirational joy, and at night, a melancholy score raised our ancestors to sit among us.

Our hearts burst, hearing you play in great city concert halls with the passion of the varda’s soul.

Naïve Card

Thank you Rochelle for the prompt and thank you Liz Young for sharing a picture of your collection of Joker Cards.

Like everything in life, you learn the rules of the game. In poker you take calculated risks and you learn the psychology of bluff and counter bluff. However, there are no rules when the emotions of love are humiliated.

More stories from Friday-Fictioneers here.

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Naïve Card

By my bedside, I keep our framed picture. We hold hands and Carol is smiling.
Not now, she said, when I asked. She let me down gently; I was her special card.
Carol couldn’t settle until she won every poker tournament, her paramount ambition.
She promised, soon.

The games were in Chicago, Berlin, Monte Carlo, Macau, and Las Vegas.
She never wrote or called, but occasionally the jokers from card packs arrived.

I read the news from Rome; a multi-million-dollar winner married his croupier.
Carol looked treacherously stunning in white.

I telephoned Alfonso in Naples to return an outstanding favour.