Friday Fictioneers: free time

Dammit, I’m addicted. Two weeks in a row and I just can’t help myself.  So here we go again with another flash fiction story challenge courtesy of the wonderful Rochelle Wishoff-fields (her story is fab, by the way!) and her ever-inventive story-telling band of Friday Fictioneers (going to check them out here just as soon as I’ve posted this) The challenge as always: using the picture prompt, write a 100 word story with a beginning, middle and end. Here goes:

Now the school has closed, Alice thinks back.  Remembering how each event of the day was heralded by the bell;  how even before it was a school, the cloisters had rung with its compelling voice, calling the nuns to prayer.

Her phone chimes once.  A reminder.

It chimes again, this time two short pings. Her daughter Melissa, exhorting her not to forget her appointment.

Alice sighs. It seems her life is still regulated by bells after all.

The bright flowers outside grow wild, following their own rhythm.  Dropping her phone into their blooms, she knows they won’t be listening either.

Friday Fictioneers: the colour of memory

Friday being valentine’s day, it seemed impossible not to weave the theme of romance into this week’s Friday Fictioneer challenge.

Go here to find out more about Rochelle Wishoff-fields and her Friday Fictioneers.  Read all the other entries here.  In brief, the challenge is to write a 100-word story with a beginning, middle and end inspired by a picture prompt. The restriction is strangely addictive!  Here’s my story below:

They’re celebrating my exhibition in the gallery next door, laughing as they drink Zednya’s famous fruit punch. She’s skillfully showing the collectors around, telling them about each Memory Painting. How like apparitions, they flash into my mind when I’ve forgotten everything else, even my name.  All I remember are those vivid images just before the explosion, tormenting until I finally release them onto canvas.  Then they disappear, no longer troubling me.

Except this one.

Zednya believes she’s just another ghost from that time. Girl Unknown.

I think about her crushed strawberry lips.  Wondering if she survived somehow, remembering her dress.

Friday Fictioneers – Taken Apart

Today I was in the mood for an inspiring challenge that was also fun.

And it arrived. Click here if you want to find out more about Friday Fictioneers and read all the other entries here. Briefly the challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by a picture prompt. Here’s this Friday’s prompt and my story below:

Copyright: Sean Fallon http://theequiaticbind.com/

“Jesus Miles!” his wife laughed.  “You run just like a girl!” She and Sally exchanged amused glances.  Bruce grinned.

“Well done, old boy!”

Miles, breathless and puffing, felt himself go red.

Wordlessly, he handed his wife the soft pink scarf the wind had snatched from her neck.  Philippa had shrieked and Miles had immediately raced after it – rescuing it from the wind’s grasp, bringing it back to her like a prize.

She accepted it graciously. “Thank you my precious sweet! ”  she said solemnly and patted him, smiling at Bruce.

Everyone liked Philippa. You couldn’t fault her.  She was so disarming.