Three Line Tales: An idyll

Three lines for Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Simon Berger via Unsplash 

A fairy tale, we said and sighed, pointing at the shining roofs and onion domes rising above the lake mist.

Whichever lucky person lived there, we said, must be in a state of beatitude, bathed in the beauty of nature, in tune with the universe.

We never wondered why the swans were all making frantically for the lake shore and flying far, far away.

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Microfiction Three line tales: The truth

I wasn’t sure I was going to be inspired by this picture, but it came in the end. Thanks Sonya 🙂

The old house had been a boarding school for girls for a time in the nineteenth century until it was closed down, a fire, or an epidemic, the curator had not been very clear.

She picked up the pen compulsively after a quick glance to make sure the curator was occupied with the wandering school party, dipped it in the inkwell, and words, in careful copperplate, ran across the pale paper of the notebook.

Her eyes opened wide in terror and she tried to let go of the pen, but something held her hand tight, her mind too, and as the full horror of the boarding school’s closure was revealed, the small room was suddenly crowded with the thin, pale, hate-filled faces of the victims.

Microfiction #Three Line Tales: Feathers

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales.

photo by Samuel Zeller via Unsplash

 

“Eew! Look at the snake,” she screeched and took a step backwards. “All those little slippery, slinky bones—no legs, just bones. Urk!”

He gazed in wonder at the delicate skeleton, so full of rhythm and movement even in death, and a piece of the puzzle slipped into place.

He blanked out her prattling and let himself drift back in time to the place where reptiles and birds shared the same feathers, boned and plumed, one concept, infinitely adaptable, and he wondered where it all started to go wrong.