#Three line tales: No hope

Inspired by Sonya’s photo prompt.

photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen via Unsplash

 

Two small faces press up against the glass, laughing.

Cubs, she thinks. Mine gone. Nothing left. Empty water.

The attendants hustle the children away when the bear beats her skull against the glass until the bones break.

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#Three Line Tales: Second thoughts

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales writing prompt.

photo by Philippe Mignot via Unsplash

Dawn on the quay; he’d seen it so many times before as he trudged, head bent to the cobbles, on his way to work, but this morning he seemed to see it for the first time.

They were already there, waiting up ahead for him, but he slowed his steps, watching the play of the first rays of light on the rippling water, making the damp stone glitter.

They were leaving, it was decided, so there was no going back, but suddenly he felt a catch in his throat, his vision blurred, and he wondered, if the others had been late, would he not have turned around and walked back home through the early morning splendour?

#Three line tales: Remembrance

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt. What a picture!

photo via Unsplash

Grandma Burke and Aunty Peg stare into their muddy memories, stirring up reproach and blame, while Cathy turns away and sobs, unable to cope with their notion of remembrance.

The old ones refuse to look at her or offer any words of comfort, and it’s Mam who cuts the cake, her face hard and judgmental too—as if she wouldn’t have prevented it had it been possible!

Mam digs in the knife, Grandma Burke turns her face away, and Cathy trembles uncontrollably—this would have been his ninth birthday.

#Three line tales: Trapped

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.

photo by Peter Gonzalez via Unsplash

 

When he moved them to the city, drawn by the lights, the life, the bubbling creativity (and the shops, it has to be said), she had acquiesced; they could always get out again.

That was years ago, and the city has grown, tentacular and voracious, eating up the countryside around, even the agricultural land disappearing under concrete and tarmac, until now it has meshed with the outskirts of the neighbouring cities.

These days, he takes her out in the car to get a change of scene, to watch the traffic lights change colour.

 

Three Line Tales: Ghosts?

A three line tale for Sonya’s photo prompt

photo by Ahmed Odeh via Unsplash

 

In a midnight basement, two boys leap to their feet while a third scatters the letters of the ‘psychic’ message in an attempt to make the apparition go away.

Somewhere, far away, a girl stands in her bedroom, petrified with fear as three phantoms swirl about her in a blur of terrifying faces and flailing arms.

In a third dimension, a priest, a seer and a soldier laugh at the terror they have sown, and pull down more strings of time and light to enmesh more worlds, more planes in their game of chaos.

Three Line Tales: The weight of time

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.

photo by Stijn te Strake via Unsplash

“It’s amazing isn’t it, how we’ve always needed to know the time, to the extent of building fantastic machines like this.

“Such intricate-looking engineering, you can almost see how all the different pieces in the mechanism work, not like the tiny chips we have now, where you can’t see anything move at all.”

“Yeah, but what cracks me up is to think that in the olden days everyone carried one of these around with them!”

Three Line Tales: Treachery

This is a very strange photo. For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.

photo by Danny G

“Erm, those characters up ahead, is this Game of Thrones cosplay, or who are they?” she says with a nervous giggle, taking his hand.

He slows down and raises their hands so that the guy on the horse with the sword and the wolfdog can see and recognise the sign.

He smiles, shaking his head at the bemused expression on her face and says, “Sorry, Jen, but they won’t let me thought unless I pay the toll—it’s you.”