Frost

                                                                            © Photo prompt Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

‘Kid, come here; it’s amazing……unbelievable,’ the grandfather shouted.

The grandson didn’t respond; he was watching a movie.

‘You are now such an unruly boy…...always watching those violent movies,’ the old man grumbled.

He looked at the window; he felt queasy about the kid. The boy had changed.

‘What’s it grandpa?’

‘The moon…..it’s just outside the window,’ the old man pointed an exited finger towards the window.

‘Let me clean your specs,’ the boy had outgrown the little silly games they once loved to play. ‘It’s the frost on the glass.’

‘I know……but I thought,’ he wished the boy would act silly.

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a photo prompt and for Three Word Wednesday.

Word count 101

Lottery Ticket

‘Very few people come to the library nowadays and no one reads such a book. It was last borrowed by someone in 1980,’ the aged librarian gave him the book.

‘That was my elder brother.’ He said and began riffling through the pages of book.

A piece of paper lying in the book attracted his attention. He picked it up, almost casually. He looked at the paper and was stunned.

He had saved every penny that he could save; and, to be honest, he had even pilfered a few pennies from her mother’s purse. He wanted to buy a lottery ticket.

He had won a prize of one hundred thousand. But he was scared to tell anyone about it; not even his elder brother with whom he had shared every secret.  His brother, who was eight years senior to him, suspected that he was up to some mischief.

‘Why would I be hiding anything,’ his face was taut. Lotteries were a taboo in the family.

But he had the bad habit of forgetting things; he forgot where he had hidden the lottery ticket. He had desperately searched every conceivable place but his dreams lay tattered. He could not find it.

He found it, almost forty years, later in a book that his brother had borrowed from the library.  

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A post for Three WordWednesday and Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers on a picture prompt

One Hour

                                                                                         Photo prompt © Rich Voza

She wanted to surprise him.

It was third month of her pregnancy. They had waited for their first child for five years. But he hadn’t noticed. She was disappointed.

*

Today he would fulfil his life’s purpose. His only regret was that he would die childless. He wanted a son. Perhaps the Almighty had wished it that way.

*

She had prepared a sumptuous dinner; today she would tell him.  

He called from the airport; apologised, ‘In one hour I would have done what the Almighty wants me to do. The sinners will pay with their blood. ’

A searing pain rose in her womb and she collapsed.

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A post for Friday Fictioneers on a photo prompt.

Word count 106

His Wife’s Murder

‘You never do anything half, do you?’ she almost shouted, a dark shadow shimmering through her eyes. They were jogging in the park well before the sun rise. It was a routine that they had followed for some years but not religiously.

He looked askance at her. She was a riddle that he had failed to solve even after seven years of their marriage.

‘Who is that wench who keeps flitting in and out of your cabin?’  He was stunned. He had suspected that she had been spying on him; but he could not imagine that she could go to such lengths to keep a watch on him. He felt a ripple of anger; he was not inclined to suppress it.

He did not utter a word; it would have been fruitless. She would start parroting her litany of allegations and threats. He could sense something boiling deep inside her. But he was scared of his own fury; it could erupt anytime.

He stopped abruptly; he thought a dollop of black paint was lying on the track. Suddenly a furious crow attacked him; he was unnerved. He realized that the black thing lying on the track was in fact a dead crow. She laughed derisively.

As they neared the last bend, he looked at the tree; the beehive had become too massive. It was surprisingly on a branch that was quite low.

He looked around. There was no one close by. He stumbled; even if someone had been there he could not have noticed that he had stumbled intentionally. While trying to regain his balance he pushed her. She fell on the ground, almost directly under the beehive.

With one swift sweep of his hand, which he had cleverly wrapped with a thick cloth, he tore the hive into pieces. Some of the hive pieces fell on her.

Before the swarm of bees could attack him, he ran as he had never run.

He did not dare to look back. He had guessed that that hive would have at least twenty thousand bees. He had read somewhere that fifteen hundred bee stings could kill a grown up.

‘You never do anything half.’  He thought he heard these words again.

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A post for Sunday Whirl and Flash Fiction for The Purposeful Practitioner

Word count 368 

The Mask

The mask was weird. He looked loathsome. But I thought he loved his mask and it appeared that the canker was eating into his soul.

We could never forget that only a few years back he was such a sweet, innocent and precocious person who was in love with everything beautiful. Life for him was a beautiful bouquet of roses; and he was too nice to mind the thorns.

But we could not sense when and why his burgeoning innocence was nipped in the bud. He now moved like a thief, face covered by a fearsome mask, his sins stuck to him like dried mud.

We had met after a long time. The mask unnerved me, I was afraid to even look at his face. But then something in his eyes disturbed me. There a mute plea in those eyes.

‘You think I am wearing a mask?’ the voice was full of pain and agony. ‘No one is willing to understand the pathetic fate that befell me.  I am not wearing any mask; it’s me as I am.’

I was stunned. I could feel the pain dripping from his eyes.  I felt ashamed; like everyone else I too had condemned him without giving him even a semblance of opportunity to tell his story.

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A post for Sunday Whirligig and Sunday Photo Fiction.

Word count 213

Midnight Knock

It was past midnight. I woke up with a start. I thought someone was knocking at the door.

Our house is a bit isolated, surrounded on three sides by paddy fields and by an orchard in the backyard. The nearest house is at least half a kilometer away. But I was not normally scared by such midnight knocks; I had a couple of German shepherds to keep a watch on all intruders. But surprisingly they were silent and that was unusual of them.

I opened the door and was shocked to see an alien. Far away in the paddy field I could see the unblinking lights of a spacecraft.

I felt nervous and was unable to say anything.

‘You are a doctor? I need your help. I got an eye problem,’ the alien said in an extremely pleasant voice. Of course, he himself was ugly looking.

‘But I can’t treat you; I am not an eye surgeon. In fact………’

But the alien was in too much of a hurry. He muttered some unintelligible words and pressed some buttons on his left arm. In a flash both of us were inside the space craft. He led me to a brightly lit futuristic operation theater and said, ‘You must help me. I have to go back to my universe but I can’t travel till my eyesight is restored.’

‘But I am a veterinary doctor…….’

‘I never said I am a human being…..’

That left me speechless. I looked at his left eye; something in it frightened me.

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A post for Sunday PhotoFiction and for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers on picture prompts

The Inventor

                                                                                     Photo prompt  © John Nixon

He liked to fiddle with everything, from toy-train to tri-cycle.

“Tell him not to touch my things,” his brother shouted at the mother when he had inserted a nail in the toy-scooter.

“Don’t be harsh on him; he is just curious kid. He only fiddles with things that you discard.”

The brother had hardly cooled down when he found his video game missing.

“What has he done with my video game?” he shouted.

The mother rushed, anticipating a crisis. The little kid was nowhere to be seen.

He was in the bathroom, washing the video game.

“What’s that?” she shouted.

“Dartee…waash…..’

The kid was smiling brightly.

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A post for Friday Fictioneers on a photo prompt

Word count 106

Nightmare

Three years had gone by. No one came to know; no one knocked at his door. But that was no consolation. Every day of these three years had been an uneasy and disturbing day.

He had tried to wipe out the memory of those horrifying moments; but the memory had remained stuck. The flashes of horrifying incident had hit him again and again, almost driving him mad. He had often tried to create a distorted perception of the reality but in vain.

He could vividly recall that day. He had found her talking to the boy who lived in the neighbouring house; the boy had come to meet his parents. Not a week had passed since his arrival and she was already on friendly terms with him.  

The boy murmured something and she laughed a bit loudly, unaware that he was watching her. He felt infuriated; he felt he would explode like a volcano.

He had courted her for about two years before they got married; she was extremely beautiful and innocent. He had seen her beauty but not her innocence. Not even a month had passed and he had begun to abuse her; he disliked the way she became friendly with everyone.

Her sister could clearly see that his attitude and behaviour had dramatically altered. She had seen the writing on the wall. She tried to put some sense in her sister even though she knew that she was blameless.

He decided to kill her. He contrived a plan to commit a perfect murder. He was surprised that how easily he could conceive such a plan.

But everything went wrong; it turned out to be a horrific killing. By the time he could dispose of the dead body he was physically and emotionally exhausted.

A fortnight later her sister confronted him, “I know she has not gone missing; I know you have killed her. I will find out the truth and the moment I get hold of any clue I will have you arrested.”

Three years had gone by; no one came to know anything. But somehow he could not get rid of the memory of that horrifying day. It was driving him mad.

He shuddered when someone knocked on the door. He did not move from his chair, he was too scared to open the door.

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A post for Sunday’s  Whirligig

Word prompts-- flashes, moments, uneasy, recall, week, writing, altered, distorted, three, years, sister, came.

Word count 388

Terror Attack

                                                                            Photo prompt © Douglas M MacIlroy

‘They are just a bunch of ill-trained fanatics. They dare not attack us for then we will inflict on them a crippling punishment.’

But these were empty words; people in power were only concerned with their political battles. They were corrupt and complacent.

No one was prepared for the attack. People in power responded by promptly indulging in blame games; everyone was left to fend for himself

He covered his head with the first thing available; it was a poor protection from the poisonous gas. He ran in search of the kids. He found them huddled under the cushions.

He was scared to touch them.

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a picture prompt

Word count 105

Once again

They met after ten years, almost accidentally.

He thought she was as beautiful as ever. He had loved her; but he was too timid to even talk to her. Many a time he had provoked himself to express his feelings; he had even rehearsed his words. But every time his courage had failed him in her presence.

She felt attracted to him, once again. How many times she had wished that he would make some effort to approach her. But her wish had remained unfulfilled.

‘It’s a beautiful place; been a long time; I was away and travelling most of the time,’ he felt surprised at himself. Even now he found it difficult to talk to her.

‘They created it out of nowhere. Where did you finally settle? Married?’ she cursed herself for asking such a personal question.

‘Yes,’ he blurted, not knowing why he had lied.     

She looked at him; he thought she had caught his lie.

‘And you?’ he asked suppressing his anger.

‘Me too,’ she too lied.

They went on their ways; thinking of the love that they had nurtured in their hearts in those distant days when they were young and innocent.

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A post for Sunday PhotoFiction on a picture prompt.

Word count 196

Wizard of the Caves

We had lost our way. Still we refused to turn back. We again consulted the maps.

‘We would have already reached the caves if we had been on the right track.’

‘Let’s take a break; in any case we are not reaching our destination; at least not today.’

‘What about food? I’m hungry.’

‘I say move, it may not be safe to stop here; I hear someone howling, somewhere in the rear.’

We looked at one another apprehensively. We were all thinking about the warning given to us by the people, who had vainly tried to reach the caves, ‘You may not find the hidden treasure but the wizard of caves may find you.’

We decided to continue our journey. But we would have walked for less than ten minutes when we came across two huge crocodiles. Instinctively we wanted to run for cover but we stood rooted to the ground.

‘Would you please help us; we have been trapped by the wizard,’ said one crocodile in a man’s voice.

‘We aren’t crocodiles, you must help us,’ said the other crocodile in a woman’s voice.

We were too stunned to even utter a word.

‘Don’t get fooled; these crocodiles are very cunning and vicious hunters.’

It was a young man who had appeared from nowhere. He continued, ‘I have been waiting for you, how you could lose your way?’

We were scared and dumbstruck.

‘Draw your weapons if you have any or run for your own sake,’ the crocodiles shouted at us. Then they quickly split into different directions and ran away like headless chickens.

We looked at the young man fearfully; of course, till then, we were not aware that he was the wizard and that he could use his demonic powers only when he was within the precincts of the caves.

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 A post for:

Sunday Whirl; word prompts- draw, maps, howling, cover, break, food, split, still, less, lost, rear, move

Flash Fiction for thePurposeful Practitioner on a photo prompt.

The Job

He looked at the skyline wistfully. Hazel coloured clouds were floating listlessly.  For years he had tried to find a place for himself in this city where everyone and everything seemed to be made of bricks and mortar. But his efforts had only left a scar on his spirit.

His hand had, almost of its own will, touched his cheek. It hurt. The troubled hand went limp. He cursed himself for again letting his hand go free; this hand had been the cause of all his miseries.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice the little boy who was giving him furtive glances. He was shocked to see that the boy had, like him,  a small scar on his cheek.

‘He almost looks like me? Why? How he pouts at me; what insolent fellow he is; he thinks he softens my heart. But he can’t,’ he gave the boy a tight and angry look. The boy just broke into pieces and melted in thin air. He knew he had been imagining things for past few months.

‘I wish he would stop haunting me?’

He felt the knife in his pocket and let out a sigh. The job had to be done by seven and it was already past eight. He got up and looked at the skyline wistfully.

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A post for;
SundayWhirligig

Word prompts-hazel, months, scar, pouts, small, spirit, limp, tight, glances, softens, letting.

Flash Fiction forAspiring Writers on a photo prompt.

Sunday Scribblings 2,  word prompt -seven

The Man Who Wrote The Diary

He looked at the ancient structure and smiled. He had done it. No one had believed him when he had unravelled the mysterious directions indicated by his grandfather’s grandfather in his diary.

“So you think you will find it?” they had laughed. But he was not to be deterred.

It took him five years but he had eventually reached the place.

As he entered the hut he was shocked to see an old man lying on the floor.

“You did well. The treasure is yours; you deserve it.”

“And who are you?” he asked hesitantly.

“The man who wrote that diary.”

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A post for FridayFictioneers on a picture prompt.

Word count 101