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27.8.15

CLASS OUTING - a 100 word story

Once again it's been a whole week since I've posted on my blog, but packing and bureaucracy have taken precedence. All being well, we exchange contracts on the sale of our Tenerife apartment next week, so I may be absent for a while!

This week's photo was taken by Claire Fuller and used as a prompt for Friday Fictioneers by Rochelle
https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/
Follow the Blue Frog trail from her blog to read what other writers thought when they saw this photograph.



CLASS OUTING

“Gather round!” Miss Fletcher ordered. “Now, what have we learned today about the Elders?”
Twelve young voices recited, “They had no respect for the Environment and almost destroyed the Earth.”
Miss Fletcher nodded. “The Lowlands could not sustain civilisation but, thanks to our government’s foresight, we Highlanders have this Centre with its greenhouses and animal breeding laboratories.”
“What’s in these lockers, Miss?”
“This is the Cryonics Area where we store higher life forms for the future.” 
She spun a handle and opened a door. 
“You must go inside to see it properly. No need to push, Susie – there’s room for everyone.”



19.8.15

WHAT GOES AROUND - a 100 word story

WHAT GOES AROUND

By the time the oil ran out and Man turned to natural power it was too late – the damage was irreversible.
The atmosphere could no longer pulverise meteors and all their cities were smashed to smithereens. Both ice-caps melted and the seas rose, shrinking the land.
 The balance of power shifted.

Now whales gather to watch humans perform, applauding their tricks with enthusiastic plumes. These humans are well-cared-for, proved by the fact that they breed in captivity, but any that try to escape are swiftly dealt with.

They’ve done enough damage already, and we don’t call them Killers for nothing.
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This week's Flash Fiction was again written for Friday Fictioneers, a group of 100 or so writers from around the world who write a weekly story prompted by a photograph on this blog -
https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/
... and for those who are following my moving saga - yes, I'm still selling furniture and still, slowly, packing! We sign on September 3rd and hand over the keys to the new owners. We are still searching for somewhere to live in England, but that's another saga!

12.8.15

BURGERS & BUTTERFLIES - a 100 word story

Another 100 word story written in a rush between packing boxes. We are relocating to England from Tenerife next month and sorting out what to keep after fifteen years in one place is not easy!
This week's photo prompt comes, as always, from Rochelle
https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/
Follow the Blue Frog trail from her blog to read how other writers interpreted it.

My version is more fact than fiction this week, but it's what came first to mind!

BURGERS & BUTTERFLIES

We would eat our burgers battling along Brighton seafront against a howling gale, salt spray crusting on our faces. Over an espresso coffee later I would lick my spectacles clean – I can still recall the taste, but it was the only way to avoid smears.
Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses’ was so ingrained into my consciousness that his insistent wooing was a shock.

“Only virgins wear white,” my mother decreed, so I wasn’t even a beautiful bride.
But six months later my daughter was born, and the woman I was always meant to be emerged from her chrysalis to spread her butterfly wings.

7.8.15

MORECAMBE MOON - 100 word story

MORECAMBE MOON

“Jian – don’t go. The moon is too full and I sense danger.”
“Mother – I must work. We owe the bosses so much money.”
Jian looked at his sleeping wife – she and the baby were both feverish after the birth in the crowded lorry with his hand muffling Chyou’s cries, but they had no money for doctors.

Jian was picking on the cockle-bed hours later, thigh-deep in seawater and listening nervously for the whistle to call his team ashore.

It never sounded. The spring moon had pulled the tide too high too quickly, and the whistle-man was the first to drown.
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The moon affects all kinds of tides, in our bodies as well as in the oceans. This photo prompt brought back memories of a heart-breaking disaster in Morecambe Bay in 2004, in which 21 Chinese slaves drowned when the tide caught them unawares. Slavery is never totally eradicated, despite all the laws against it. Read all about it on Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster