Mind Control

 

Read the other ‘100 word stories’ at Friday Fictioneers 

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Mind Control

People were enthralled with the street art of halo-lights, it was fun.
Over time, their interest waned and slowly their minds sunk into abject docility.
Did anyone notice their robotic behaviour, their blank stare and repetitive monotone exchanges?
Professor Katrina Mayne knew why.
The Overlords had hijacked her pioneering medical research; Egon waves to pacify disturbed patients and help them recover from mentally impaired brains.
She knew how the system worked and had to stop the Higher Council enacting their citizen control policy. The human right of free expression was being subdued.
She struggled and bit at the straight-jacket straps.

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Picture Massacre

Friday Fictioneers – Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

Picture Massacre

The whole family together; that’s what I’ll do. Put all these pictures into a leather-bound album. I need to sort them; uncles, aunts and the great-great somebodies or another? My brother’s family pictures have survived as has one of Uncle Bert in uniform.  I am not sure how old my mother was then, but the boy on the tractor, well that’s me with Baxter my collie. Oh, here’s Auntie Rose with a Derringer tucked into her fishnets. Was that real?
‘Why us?’
‘Family memories?’ said the nurse.
‘Yea, that’s all I have left.’
‘Okay, we need to change those bandages.’

Conceited Celebrity

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields – Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

Conceited Celebrity

I asked; they won’t open the doors until he arrives.
Until then, everyone must queue.

That’s the burden of being famous and popular;
People arrive extra early to be certain of a seat.

In this rain why don’t they let people in; they’ll catch a chill or worse.

Worse?

Yes, they’ll get frustrated, agitated and the atmosphere during the event will turn hostile. Such shame, making people wait in the rain when they could be warm and cosy inside.

Yet, nobody recognises me in this red cap.

I think you should.

Should?

Yes! tell them you are here.

The Honey-Trap

Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © CEAyr

The Honey-trap

Anya was naked and walked past.
I stopped reading.
(Mrs Newsome wanted Strether to rescue Chadwick from a wicked woman.)
I was dressed when Anya emerged from the bathroom.
‘Ready?’ She adjusted her blouse.
In East-Berlin, we had met in a provocative gaze across a crowded room.
‘Will he be alone?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘My flight is tonight.’
Col Kryuchkov met us at Marx’s Tomb in Highgate, and I gave him the USB memory.
‘I love you.’ I kissed Anya. ‘Goodbye.’
The encrypted files were bogus lists of double agents.
Another time, they may return to poison me.

A Wonderful World of Plants

Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Penny Gadd

A Wonderful World of Plants

A woman in green came to our school; she told us about a wonderful world where dreams came true. She believed how plants could care for us; they were special.
‘Take this moon rock,’ she said. ‘Put it in a jar and keep it in the dark overnight.’
Everyone in our street had one.
It seemed miraculous, the speed it grew, up and over the kitchen walls. No one knew what it was. The cats were first to vanish then, Bertie, our dog.
Then one day!
‘Good morning,’ the plant said, trailing a tentacle around my neck. ‘I’m so hungry.’

My Grandmother’s Bucket List

Friday Fictioneers – The Gang

PHOTO PROMPT © Linda Kreger

My Grandmother’s Bucket List

She sky-dived, and landing she broke her ankles. The family came to help.
She would race across the Sahara; a push but worth a try. Then she’d climb Kilimanjaro; her second option since her doctor suggested the cold on Everest would aggravate her arthritis.
What does he know?
Her colostomy bag will float as she swims the English Channel. A trek along the Great Wall of China, a canoe up the Amazon and visits to the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu.
Her bucket list was growing.
If only the gang could navigate the way out of the care home carpark.

Beryl my Zombie Girlfriend

Friday Fictioneers.

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Beryl my Zombie Girlfriend.

Meet me in the scary café, she had said. Her favourite place.
I was on my second, deep black death coffee, it was delicious and tasted like reconstituted tar. Where was she?
Yea, what a fun place.
Try the putrid burgers, the dried blood is to die for, she had said. Don’t mind the wiggly maggots, they taste sweet with the  sauce.
Where is she?
People are staring, I fill with a desire to hug them, and stroke their soft necks.
My new overwhelming compulsive urge.
Beryl promised to teach me.
Being alive and dead is awesome, she had said.

Free Ebooks – Short Stories Adventure and All.

An opportunity to read my short story books, they are free on Amazon this week.

Author Page Amazon.

Let me know what you think, which was the best of the bunch?

I am working on a new anthology – title undecided – I am aiming to produce 300 pages based on a  theme of lost love. It will not be a romance collection, instead it will be a series based on real life events.

Enjoy.

I received a lovely comment from a reader about my book, Missing.

She found the description of the location, setting and the farming community authentic and real. This, she believed, could only have been written by someone from within that environment.

I felt humbled by her enthusiasm.

Huntress in Suburbia

Friday Fictioneers – Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

PHOTO PROMPT © Jan Wayne Fields

Huntress in Suburbia

It always happens to me. Melissa kicked a bucket.
Ouch, it was full of sand. Had she broken her toe?
More rain to come, so the welcome BBQ was off. What will they think?
She had escaped squatting in a squalid basement flat, and after they took her baby, Ellen, away, inside she died. Her pimp, a weak drug dealing scum, had a fortune stashed beneath the floorboards. She put a mickey in his vein and left him to rot.
She bought into suburbia – clean and with a teaching job –an ambitious single woman out to trap a rich husband.

A Warning Anagram

Friday Fictioneers – inlinkz

PHOTO PROMPT © Randy Mazie

A Warning Anagram

‘Whoever created time.’ Holmes mumbled as sweat dripped from his chin. ‘Must control the universe.’
I sprinted to catch up. ‘It’s abandoned. You were wrong Holmes.’
‘No, Watson, those walls conceal the Tardis.’ He wiped his brow. ‘See, a warning; Transgression S – S for Sherlock.’
I stared at his intellectual smugness forming laughter lines by his eyes. The dust burned in my lungs, and Holmes’s grin prompted me to draw my pistol. If I shot him, I’d be free from this mad quest?
‘Yes, let’s be careful,’ Holmes said. ‘We may have overstepped the Time Lord’s patience.’