#Three Line Tales: First timer

For Sonya’s Three Line Talesprompt. A topical one this week.

photo by Josh Hild via Unsplash

He had been walking all night, set off from his village at sunset and hit the outskirts of the city just after midnight.

The rain had been falling steadily for hours as he walked like a zombie along silent streets where only foxes were about, going through the bins, and by daybreak, he was dropping with weariness.

He found the signpost, slumped in a tired heap outside the door—just had to wait now for the polling station to open.

#Three line tales: Shoot

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.

photo by Egor Vikhrev via Unsplash

She had always dreamed of fame, being featured in magazines, seeing her face on the front covers, and wherever she went she behaved as though she was surrounded by press photographers.

She never just bought a sandwich or waited for a train, she posed, hoping that someone would notice, which is what she was dreaming of—a photo shoot for Rankin—while she stretched out her long legs over the platform edge.

She did make the front page in the end, but not in the way she intended, when the High Barnet train shot out of the tunnel and swept her away.

#Three Line Tales: Gothic

Microfiction for Sonya’s weekly photo prompt.

photo by Watari via Unsplash

 

Inspired by the stories of Walter Scott, he built the house, mimicking the Gothic he never really appreciated or understood, believing vaulted ceilings and cloisters created a ‘sophisticated’ atmosphere.

When his cruelty to the womenfolk of his household shaped Gothic horrors that haunted the nights of the mock-up castle, his line dried up, faded, and he died screaming in a straitjacket.

Now junkies haunt the lonely rooms and fake cloister, weaving their own horrors, painting the walls with their own madness.

Microfiction: Destiny

Sorry to take a cynical view of this photo, but that’s life, for some.

photo by Melanie Dretvic via Unsplash

 

‘When I’m too big for my pony, Daddy’s going to sell her and buy me a real horse, an old, used one like you, that I can practice on until I get good, then he’ll buy me a better one.’

‘And when you get a better one, little girl, what will happen to me?’

The little girl shrugged and said, ‘You’ll go to the knackers, I suppose, where all old horses go.’

#Three Line Tales: Another world

For Sonya’s weekly photo prompt.

photo by Dave Herring via Unsplash

Sometimes, you step outside your own neighbourhood, and the world changes from Mad Max to Narnia, a place of silent comfort, where no old cars clutter the kerb, and no kids and dogs run screaming after balls across the unfenced lawns.

You walk across the rainbow path that leads through the expensive residences, and you wonder if the people who walk happily hand in hand along this path to church ever know pain.

You shrug, wrap your arms around your secrets and turn back to your own neighbourhood, where even the rainbow-coloured chalk dust on the soles of your shoes could earn you a punch in the face.

Three Line Tales: The mystic

For Sonya’s three line tales prompt.

photo by Rikki Austin via Unsplash

Miranda had taken up her place in the centre of the henge on a campstool to keep her robes off the damp grass, facing the east and the rising sun, when dawn was still only a paling of the darkness along the horizon.

The air was in movement with the faint presence of ancient lives that still vibrated in the holy place, and she was certain that this sunrise would reveal the arcane mysteries of the stone circle.

She held her breath as the first cold rays shot across the hillside and probed the entrance stones to touch her dew-damp feet then her knees, only letting it out in a gasp of disappointment when thick cloud smothered the sun and a light rain began to fall.

Three line tales: A step for mankind

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales.

photo by Neil Armstrong (via History in HD on Unsplash)

He stands, listening to the blood pounding in his ears, his circumscribed vision fixed on the blue planet hanging in the vast darkness, and he wants to weep with the beauty of it.

This is the greatest moment in the entire history of mankind, he thinks, no one, nothing has created anything to equal this achievement, and I am part of it.

Then his gaze drops to this unknown ground, earth, dust, a world where he is the first man to leave his mark, and he sees the footprints.