Here’s your prompt. Looks like there’s already a story underway, doesn’t it? But what if this isn’t a scene? What if it’s a poster or a leaf from a book or a picture drawn from memory? Aha! Now what story might you tell?
As usual, share with us your story in exactly 100 words, in the comments please or at your own web place with a link right back here. Last week was a fallow week for me, but I think I might have a little something for you today.
Come and share your story with us!
UPDATE: We got a couple of cool stories from H.M. Braverman, who cranked the difficulty by telling us her tale in verse, and Colleen Cotalessa, whose character definitely needs tome flesh on his bones. My story, “Death Comes for Seth”, broke the rule but is still pretty cool.
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- Fiction Friday 100-Word Challenge: An Elf, Maybe? - December 13, 2019
The boy Nathaniel had loved reading “The Warriors of Sparta”. But, the man Nathaniel tore the illustration free of the binding anyway, muttering apologies. He needed the visual cue more urgently than “The Awakening of Leonidas” might. His eyes devoured the placement of the bones, his mouth reciting Latin. He folded to a square and it fit perfectly in his breast pocket, a primer for the anatomy lesson later that night. He steeled himself to stand apart, be knowledgeable, erudite, but most critically, no fainting on sight of the fetid corpse like poor Jones, already back with his washerwoman mother.
The end is neigh, this now I know, though I would have it not.
For as a writer, flush with prose, I wish to never stop.
But deadlines have crept up on me, without a single peep,
Be it for my books, my bills, and now that everlasting sleep.
For life’s great end, that Editor, is knocking on my door,
He’ll pound on it relentlessly, until I am no more.
I fear my works unfinished, will be forgotten the next night,
As this skeleton, this deathly grim, holds his spear “Finis” alight.
Desperately I scribble all I need to write.
I am nameless. I have my bones, they are solid and strong. Creator whispers ideas I cannot hear.
I wait.
I gain flesh, armor on my shoulders, a spear in my hand. A warrior. I reach out to grasp my name, not caring to wait for Creator to write it. My flesh dissolves to bones. Creator scratches out words.
No!
I turn to Creator, fading memories as a warrior spark anger.
I will fight for my bones to remain, for my flesh to return.
My spear is still in my hand. It has not been crossed out. I take aim.