Tag Archives: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Seeing Better

rain

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

When Benedict looked outside that morning, he thought it had rained and drops had speckled the window. But then he turned away and saw everything else looked that way. He checked, but he hadn’t put on his glasses yet. When he did, it didn’t help.

He was about to ask his wife what she thought it was, and then sadly remembered she had passed away two years ago last Tuesday.

He thought to call his doctor, but the effect was getting worse. Then he realized he wasn’t going blind, but only seeing the other side better. “I’m coming home, Marge.”

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You Are What You Eat

fast food

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Harold sat in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The doctor’s visit was more than disappointing. Doc called the pharmacy so that numerous prescriptions would be filled and waiting when he got there.

He looked down at the pile of trash on the car’s floorboards and then his expansive gut.

“You are what you eat,” he muttered. “Bloody blood sugar.”

He wanted to cry but instead he put the key in the ignition and started his car.

“This won’t beat me. I won’t die a fat slob choking down a bunch of pills. I must join a gym immediately.”

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Frick, Frack, and the “DOGE-Y” Scorched Earth Policy

jen window

PHOTO PROMPT © Jen Pendergast

I stood outside their High Tower watching our new leaders Frick and Frack gazing out the window at their vast domain, the one that used to belong to We the People.

“Hey, you,” I yelled. My voice quavered and I knew they could dispose of me like yesterday’s trash.

“Yeah, what is it?” sneered Frick.

“You just nuked Denver. Why?”

“They were wasting federal funds on public transportation,” said Frack.

“But the whole city’s gone, all the people dead.”

“We got rid of the waste, right?”

And everything else, too.”

Frick flipped me off. “Are you some gay socialist radical?”

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“I Told You Not To Summon Demons”

kent

PHOTO PROMPT © Kent Bonham

“They were using my books to play D&D again,” groused Mervin. He examined the tome on the big rock in his backyard. The persistent stains were centuries old, but it was due to rain soon. Kenny shouldn’t have left it out.

“Sorry, Grandpa. I was just coming for it.” The twelve-year-old had crept up behind him, a credit to his heritage.

“I told you not to play with my books.”

“They’re so cool, only…”

“Only what?”

“I was reciting the markings like you taught me and…”

“Did any of your friends get eaten? I told you not to summon demons.”

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The Cure for Cancer

view from train

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

I’m dying.

I’ve been riding this train to visit my children, well now, my grandchildren, for over thirty years. My dear wife Jeannie passed away six years ago, bless her. I’m the only one left of my generation and the docs say the cancer is spreading.

It’s spreading across our land as well. That old shantytown used to be a neighborhood sheltering good working men, families, children playing ball in the street.

The world’s falling apart and it doesn’t matter which party promises to bring prosperity. We are no longer represented. I pray I die before the bloodshed of revolution.

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Iconic

icon grill

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

Time traveling tourist Glinn Tanning staggered into the restaurant dressed in surplus fatigues and dragging a canvas rucksack in his right hand. It contained a couple of canisters of pepper spray and the makings of several Molotov cocktails.

“Where are the protesters?” he complained to the bored looking woman behind the counter.

“We’re closing soon,” she said. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Where is everyone? Isn’t this December 1st?”

“It’s the last day in January,” she said. “You’re late.”

He checked his wrist-mounted chromotron. “Damn. Eight years late. I knew I should have had this thing adjusted before I left.

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Eviction Day

beach junk

PHOTO PROMPT © Mr. Binks

Eliab strolled through another collection of junk. It was only a small sample of the enormous task they were facing. They had given so-called “modern humans” 200,000 years to build a civilization harmonious with themselves and their planet.

As predicted, they failed miserably. He was of the majority opinion, but “the Big Guy” kept giving them chances. Finally, the literal weight of evidence against humanity became evident even to Him.

The last of them had been evicted, resettled on thousands of primitive worlds to continue the experiment. Now Eliab’s team would have to spend millennia reclaiming Earth for productive use.

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Tunnel Visions

dales-tunnels

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Hill always came to places like this when he couldn’t sleep. He needed the dreams but without sleep, there were only visions.

In his visions, he’s alone usually by choice. People made too much noise. When he couldn’t sleep, it was because his own brain made too much noise and because he couldn’t let go of the world’s noise.

This one was better lit than most. It was quiet, but a little cold. He heard his footsteps on crumbling concrete. It was like a science fiction dystopia.

At the end of the tunnel, could he rest in a better world?

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A Boy and His Racoon

tree

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

“Oops.” Twenty-year-old Calvin Weiss wiped a clump of dark hair out of his eyes with one hand while balancing his grandfather’s mystic tome in the other. “That isn’t what I wanted.”

“I keep telling you Cal, it’s long-A on the umlaut and short-A on the tilde. Geez, will you ever get it right? The pudgy racoon reached into Cal’s backpack sitting near the discolored tree trunk and pulled out another beer. Popping the tab, he took a swallow. “That’s better.”

“Not better for me, Tubby. I was supposed to summon the wood Fae out of this tree, not dye it.”

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With Two Cats and a Flood

NC flood

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“Our house, is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats and a flood…”

He stopped singing the old song and listened to the water coursing down the street.

“Sure, I’ve been stuck on the floor days, your food has run out, and no one can get here to help, but we have each other.”

Chloe and Spike had been sitting on the coffee table staring at him for hours. He’d fallen out of his wheelchair and his usual attendant couldn’t get to the house.

The cats looked hungry and as he said, the food had run out.

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