Three Line Tales: Caged

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.

photo by Ben Williams vis Unsplash

The big house has railings around it like the park, and big gates that never open.

There used to be a sign on gate that said: Beware, vicious dog, until the dog pulled it down.

Not vicious, he shouts at whoever stops to look into his sad eyes, just lonely.

Tactics

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.

photo by Michal Vrba via Unsplash

 

There is something about the sight of children absorbed in a tactical game of skill, wits and intelligence that gives me the creeps.

I imagine them later, older, sitting together again, but this time around a conference table in a boardroom.

Older, the tactics refined and put to other uses, children who never acted the maggot at school plot with cold, dispassionate moves the fate of millions.

#Three line tales: Queen’s speech

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales photo prompt.

photo by Frenjamin Benklin via Unsplash

 

From within the folds of her green plush apartments

the hamster queen gives her message of peace and understanding

Urbi et Orbi.

 

#Three line tales: Stars

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.

 

While we fix our eyes on instant fun (buy it, own it, do it)

and search for vacuity to fill our vacuum (see nothing, learn nothing, be nothing)

the rest of creation is looking at the stars.

#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.