Vigilante Street Cleaner

This week we have a very busy street scene photo-prompt, thanks to Rochelle.(click to visit).

More of our Friday-Fictioneer’s flash stories are available to read HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

Vigilante Street Cleaner 

They retired my badge last month.
The Chief thanked me for my long loyal service, and the city gave me a pitiful pension for the years I patrolled the sidewalks.
Over time, I deplored how our streets became meaner.

Well, I am a free man; rise late and drink lattes at Antonio’s café. 
I enjoy the warm, bright days. Hell! I never noticed the glass tower block before.

The shoes are my message.
See, I collect them in the dark when bedlam stalks the alleys.
Their owners sleep life off in the morgue, and tomorrow there will be another pair.

Lost Empires

Every ruin speaks volumes of history and are monopolised as tourist attractions. What other use can they be, but a reminder of how great civilisations crumbled? But why?

Thanks to Rochelle for selecting this picture prompt.

Although this picture is from somewhere in the Middle East, I have gone for a Roman Empire theme.

Read more from Friday-Fictioneers HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Lost Empires

Mary-Anne wondered what the people were like. Were they civil and kind?
Or cruel, with hordes of slaves captured during brutal Empire expansionism?

The Roman Empire split, the West in Mediolanum (Milan),
which became unwieldy and expensive to control, and the East in Constantinople.
The Visigoths and later the Vandals contributed to the fall of the Western Empire.

A blood blister had burst, and Mary-Anne took off her sandal.
The trip around the ruins was hot and laborious, and the tour guide’s descriptions were macabre. 

How thankful that such murderous savagery did not happen nowadays.

Never in our civilised world.

Charming Tatiana

Thank you Rochelle for keeping the Friday Fictioneers community inspired to write our set of flash fiction. The variety of stories presented indicates the wide imagination that prevails among us. Click HERE for more stories.

This week’s photo-prompt of a rusted grill in front of a door has sinister implications for me.

Photo Prompt by – Brenda Cox for Friday Fictioneers.

Charming Tatiana 

Tatiana is beautiful only at night, since the sunlight burns her skin.

In the Brecht Bar, her melancholy melodies inflame the passion in the minds of lustful drunks.
It is with these hypnotic charms she turns strangers into raging rampant beasts, who with a puckered invitation follow into the dark alley.
There, Tatiana embraces their aroma of sweaty testosterone and clasps her mouth on their neck, and sucks to leave a hickey.
Strangers disappear every week.

The rusted grill protects Tatiana, so she may sleep throughout the day. She does not fear the garlic breathed villagers who carry sharpened stakes.

Dream with the Stars

Thank you Rochelle for keeping the Friday Fictioneers community inspired to write our set of flash fiction. The variety of stories presented (click HERE) indicates the wide imagination that prevails among us.

This week’s photo-prompt of a stone-walled barn by Lisa Fox, indicates a certain pride by the builder.
I can imagine the rustic lifestyle and a storage barn for animals or just chopped wood.

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

Dreams with the Stars

At first it was a small dirty cowshed.
At night, we would look through the holes in the roof to find Betelgeuse.
My twin sister, Annabelle, dreamed she would be rich and live in a chateau.

This made father laugh. When he rebuilt the barn, he declared it the castle of Queen Annabelle.
Hold on to your dreams, they will come true, he declared to us.

We held hands beside the barn and remembered father’s words.
‘His spirit is the inspiration of my dreams,’ said Annabelle. Her diamond rings glittered like Orion’s belt, but this barn was still her castle.

Architects in Love

Thank you to Anne Higa for the picture of the Bell Tower in Pisa and to Rochelle for posting it to challenge us with this prompt to produce a 100-word piece of flash fiction for Friday Fictioneers.

More contributions are available to read by clicking HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Anne Higa

Architects in Love

When visiting Pisa, I fell in love with Angelina.
We held hands and debated the construction mistakes made in building the famous bell tower. 

I loved the way she flicked the Fettunta crumbs from her chin. I watched over my Chianti how she puckered her lips around the Picipasta.
She leaned against my shoulder and promised to meet every summer in Pisa. 

Each August, I sat alone by the tower. I knew why.

This year she came. She smiled and trembled as I kissed her temple.
Laughing in her wheelchair, I pushed her around the tower.

For her last time.

Papa’s Poker Addiction

This week for Friday Fictioneers Rochelle has selected a photo from Bill Reynolds of an old Ford truck that has seen better days. I can imagine it is still in use and has had many repairs, and it looks robust enough for all country jobs.

More Friday Fictioneers stories can be read by clicking on the link HERE

PHOTO PROMPT © Bill Reynolds

Papa’s Poker Addiction

Last night, we didn’t hear Papa stop the truck behind the trees.

Mama knew he had lost at poker, and she screamed his name as she ran among the cacti. 

Carlos cheated Papa with a royal flush every week, but still they played on; hopeless.

We had occasional work harvesting aloe for cents, and we survived.

Father Francisco arrived. He cupped Mama’s hands.
Papa had asked for forgiveness and blessing before his act of redemption.

Together we all shuffled with Mama crying to the church and saw Carlos’s newly formed grave.

Smiling, Papa held up a bag full of money.

Poisoned at Dawn

This week’s prompt shows a gloomy picture of dark clouds gathering, perhaps reflecting the mood of higher cost of living and possibilities of a renewed Cold War. Thanks to Na’ama Yehuda.

More exciting stories by Friday Fictioneers can be found by this link: CLICK HERE

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

Poisoned at Dawn

At dusk, Albert walked the alleys and paths around Battersea.
Although the bombing blitz of WW2 seemed a long time ago, he felt duty bound.
He wore a fedora now instead of the Warden’s helmet and had a George Medal pinned to his blazer.

He opened the Times and spluttered into his morning tea.

Everyone called him Daft Old Albert–but he was Sergey Makarov, a KGB Officer and sentenced to death.

The envoy in the newspaper photograph was his warning. 
How close were they? He must keep his nerve and maintain the cover.

Has the MI5 mole exposed him?

Adventure Beyond the Horizon

Thank you to Bradley for a lovely peaceful post-card picture of Hawaii. I can imagine the words, ‘I wish you were here’, written by him while spending a holiday break and enjoying the scene.

More Friday Fictioneers stories can be read HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Bradley Harris

Adventure Beyond the Horizon

I feel the morning peace and warmth of spring, and tranquillity of the waves lapping in the cove. Yet!–it is the horizon that torments me. I am jealous of the floating clouds flying free through the sky from over that line of no return.

My father scrambled up this beach in rehearsal for hell on earth, and I cannot imagine the exhilaration of soldiers disgorging from landing craft and speculating with death, with unwavering conviction.

My inertia wallows on this soft grass as Isabel’s ultimatum invites me to decide.

In solitude, I seek courage to cross over the line.

The Wedding of Sweet Molly McGuire

An interesting photo-prompt from Rochelle with lots of historical content to explore. I have researched the Molly McGuire as a secret society during the coal mining disputes in the US. The existence of the Molly McGuire may have been invented to try and discredit the miners. The 1970’s film of the same name stars Sean Connery and Richard Harris.

More Friday Fictioneer’s stories can be read HERE.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The Wedding of Sweet Molly McGuire

A hundred years ago, Seamus O’Leary brought a large bottle of Potcheen from Ireland, and he insisted it was drunk to celebrate his wedding. The little bottle contains the spirit of the old country, a reminder of the mists of Killarney and the warmth of the family around a smoking peat fire. Legend states the Molly McGuire blessed the bottles with a kiss. 

O’Leary disappeared in a Pennsylvanian coal mine before the Pinkertons denounced some Irishmen for defying a twenty percent pay cut.

Nowadays in our cellar, you can still hear Sweet Molly whisper, ‘Seamus, your secret’s safe with us.’

Always with You

This week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt reminds me of cosy nights by a log fire. Thanks to Dale for her picture of the log stack neatly piled around the basement windows.

More Friday Fictioneers stories HERE.

Picture prompt from Dale Rogerson

I am always with you

The flickering of the flames from the logs burning in the grate filled the room with a cosy feeling. Elroy remembered drinking rum and the comfort of the taste warming his soul as it slipped into his turkey diner. He recalled these moments of joy and smiled, watching Jay and Josey playing cards under the tinsel draped from the fir tree; happiness and peace washed through him. 

The clatter of plates drew him into the kitchen, where Mary was crying by the sink. If only his spirit could kiss and hug her to let her know he missed her, too.