PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

They say the best way to conceal something is to hide it in plain sight. That’s what Charlie did. To everyone else, it was his cluttered man-cave, but the room held something he couldn’t share.

He knew he shouldn’t, that it was forbidden but once he’d invented the process he couldn’t stop. He’d always had trouble letting go but even he knew this was over the top.

“Screw it.” He flipped on the power switch and adjusted the equipment to her frequency.

“Hello, Mom?” She’d been dead for three years this coming Monday but he could still talk to her.

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 up top as a prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

Recently, I read something about a story or a movie about talking to the dead and that having a cost. I leveraged that for this story. Maybe I need more coffee this morning.

© James Pyles

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

My YA science fiction novel A Wobblegong And His Boy is up to thirteen reviews/ratings on Amazon with 89% of them being 4 and 5 stars (slowly gaining traction). Don’t forget you can also review my novel at Goodreads.

Oh, here’s my most recent interview with the fine folks at Mythbehaving:

The MythBehavers sit down with James Pyles, the author who figured out the secret to bringing back the golden age of science fiction—it was hiding in the 1950s whole time. More about his novel “A Wobblegong And His Boy”

Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-z3v35-1b1a0b4

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6T9Mtg0XGG0vNpIozr3UIL

Happy Wednesday.