PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

“Of all the ridiculous…not Quebec again.”

Gerald sat on the steps heedless of melting snow making the rear of his jeans cold and wet. He propped his elbows on his knees and set his forlorn looking face in his hands. His gaze darted around the concrete stairwell. “Le Petit Champlain. I know where I am. A damned quaint, picturesque tourist hole.”

He stared upward as if seeing through the clouds. “Look, I’m trying to find the ultimate evil down here. Get your bloody coordinates straight for once.”

“Sorry,” said the chagrined voice in his ear. “We’re still experiencing technical difficulties.”

It’s Wednesday and time again to participate in this week’s edition of Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image at the top to inspire the creation of a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

Jennifer’s photo is very large so it was easy to read the signs and use Google to look up where this is. You can do the same yourself, but basically this is a small, touristy commercial center in Quebec. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it, but since periodically, different scenes from that city show up on Rochelle’s photo challenges, I decided to make something of it. I pulled a transporter and trying to locate “ultimate evil” out of thin air (although maybe this is exactly where the evil resides).

To read other stories based on the prompt or to contribute one of your own, go to inlinkz.

The “Ruins” science fiction anthology is coming soon:

Across the vast expanse of space and time lie the remnants of civilizations that reached for the stars—and vanished. Silent cities carved into asteroids. Derelict megastructures drifting between galaxies. Temples buried beneath the red sands of dead worlds.

Cover art for the anthology “Haunted Waters.”

This book contains 13 bold tales of humanity’s encounters with these cosmic ruins.

That’s how the narrative for the Kickstarter for “Ruins: A Space Opera Anthology” begins. The anthology contains my short story “Sunrise.” The kickstarter is at well over 100 followers now and growing. Please consider contributing to this effort or even passing the information along.

The ghostly anthology Haunted Waters edited by Jamie Ferguson is now available for purchase. It features my short story “The Wreck of the USS Hollander.”

Sixty years ago, the U.S. Navy attack submarine Hollander sank in the Atlantic under mysterious circumstances. Today, a group of pirates and weapons merchants are descending to nearly 10,000 feet to retrieve the submarine’s nuclear torpedoes. However, they find something terrible waiting for them, not only in the surrounding waters, but on board the derelict sub as well.

My next science fiction novel “A Wobblegong and His Boy” has proceeded through both structural and line edits. The dedication and acknowledgement sections have been added, and now the publisher, Raconteur Press just needs to do the rest of the magic on their end so that sometime around March 6, 2026, the novel will join many others are part of their Boy’s Adventure Books series.

I’m pretty excited since this will be my second published science fiction novel. Not bad for a retired guy.