MAGNET FISHING - a story in 100 words

MAGNET FISHING

All you need is a strong magnet on a rope and you can earn quite a few quid in scrap metal, or even a fortune, like that bloke who found a safe full of cash.

The rope must have got tangled and the lad fell in trying to free it, then his dad went in after him and they couldn’t get out.

The canal walls here are slimy slopes. There is a ladder but it’s round that corner – they probably never knew it was there.

Drowned, both of them, in five feet of mucky water. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

................................................................................

Thanks to Fatima Fakier Daria for this week's photo on Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/  for Friday Fictioneers.

My story is what I imagine a local might say to a visitor or a reporter about a dreadful accident in the North of England which took the lives of a father and son this week.

 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/magnet-fishing-dead-father-son-huddersfield-canal-river-calder-west-yorkshire-a8404026.html

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.

                ---------------------------------

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