Oct 30, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT-Copyright-Melanie Greenwood
Genre: Fill in the blank
Word Count: 100 words
The Patio-Loungers
©October 30th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I gazed at the patio of the house opposite where nobody lived. Outside, there were three chairs. Two people seated there waved at me to join them.
Only I saw them. My family called me retard daily. Better to not tell.
Every day, when soup was pushed through a gap in my cage, I was silent. I was busy, planning.
Hey, retard! shouted my step-mother, high-heels clicking closer.
I made up my mind.
He’s gone, Ted! Did you let him out?
Who, me? What the hell are you talking about?
“Hello!” I said to the patio-loungers, pulling up a chair.
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Tags: #Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, paranormal fiction, teleportation
Oct 23, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright- The Reclining Gentleman
Genre: Realistic/semi-futuristic fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Rising Waters
©October 23rd, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I like grey lakes, featureless skies, hint of human occupation … I mean, I am human … right?
We humans enjoy cutting down trees, cluttering the skyline, making messes … faking guilt about that, we put trash in bins, which we empty into landfills.
Approaching this bench, I think, living in this century can’t be all bad. Sure, that little island there was once part of the mainland, but hey, time marches on.
I’m happy. I owned the biggest oil company on earth. We made out like bandits. Now, we promote water power.
We own it all.
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Thanks, again, to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and for the photograph prompt!
Alas, today, inspiration eluded me, so this is my second attempt.
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, dystopian future, global warming reference, realistic fiction
Oct 23, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright- The Reclining Gentleman
Genre: I don’t know … existential non-crisis?
Word Count: 100 words
Island
©October 23, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Shireen approached the bench slowly. She’d been told to go there by someone in a dream which eluded her. All she could recall was the urgency of the voice, its quiet authority. It wasn’t a question of choice, she knew.
Loneliness was the thing Shireen understood beyond all else. The voice had commanded her to face the void before her.
She faced the surging greyness, and let it wash over her.
Things took shape as she watched. Something arose out of the waters.
She was alone no more.
And she was lonelier than ever.
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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers. I look forward to it every week!
Tags: #Islands, 100-word original hort story based on photo prompt, Friday Fictioneer
Oct 15, 2014 Original Short Stories
The Golden Ratio, OR The Prodigal Daughter
©October 15th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I thought I’d turned away from music, trapped in sadness — but it reached out and caught me.
Music arose sinuously from the depths of an ocean in a conch. The squares arranged teeteringly near it, kept 4/4 time. Beside it, in polyrhythmic counterpoint, the hexagonal tiles supporting an icosahedron trembled in mathematical ecstasy. A many-faced, octagonal container supported a rectangle with Florida Auger shells, five each flanking a center featuring squat moon snail, jujube and cockle shells.
Outside, the leaves rustled, a rhythm section veined with sunlight.
When I walked in, I knelt down. Time collapsed.
And I sang.
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Thanks to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, an online community which writes 100-word response stories to weekly photo-prompts. And thanks to Douglas MacIlroy for his exquisite and thought-provoking photograph.
Tags: 100-word original short tsory based on photo prompt, conch', icosahedron, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, shells, The Golden Ratio, Vijaya Sundaram short stories
Oct 13, 2014 Original Short Stories
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
The Visitor
©October 13th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
The Visitor looked around.
Cautiously, she tapped the glowing brass disc. A shimmer made her rear back.
Surveying the row of white and black teeth, arrayed like a beast without a body, she thought, “I must not fear.”
She let her extremities travel over the teeth. The beast did not stir.
When she bumped against something, a red light glowed. She leaned against the teeth, smooth and white, and a strangely beautiful, discordant noise blasted out of something behind her. She hissed.
Dust from some explosion lay in stillness about her.
She sniffed delicately. “Human,” she thought, turning to go.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and for the photo-prompt! Friday Fictioneers is an online writing community, and we respond to photo-prompts with 100-word short stories. Check out the link below for other stories on this prompt! You will be amply rewarded.
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, Science Fiction post-apocalyptic short story
Oct 1, 2014 Original Short Stories
Copyright-Kent Bonham
Genre: Dark Mystery
Word Count: 100 words
I Remembered the Sun
©October 1st, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
“Let’s visit that haunted cabin in the woods,” said Ry.
We were playing near the creek bordering our trailer-park. We never crossed it. Once, we had. We’d raced home when we glimpsed a man who aimed a gun straight at us. We’d been five. My mother had slapped me saying, “NEVER go beyond that creek!” I’d stumbled over to Ry’s trailer, crying.
Now, we were big boys, eight years old.
“Okay,” I said, surprising myself.
“Wanna lollipop?” he asked.
“Thanks!” I said, taking it.
We crossed the creek, and entered the woods. The sun was beautiful. I remembered that later.
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Thanks, Rochelle, for hosting Friday Fictioneers! For those who are curious, this is an online community which responds with 100-word stories to a weekly story challenge based on a photo-prompt.
Thanks, also, to Kent Bonham, for the strange, creepy photograph which inspired my story.
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Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, Missing, mystery, suspense
Sep 25, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright – Marie Gail Stratford
Word Count: 100 words
Genre: Greek Mythology
The Twice-Born*
©September 26th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I stand, ivy-covered thyrsus in hand. I induce madness, ecstasy or death. I, born of Semele of earth, and Zeus of the Lightning Bolt, stand, uncertain for the first time.
You ask, “Will you help me forget myself? For I am bereft.”
If I said, “Yes,” I would invite your death. I will not willingly take you there.
I kneel at your feet, Ariadne of the Labyrinth.
Come, sip on nectar and sup on ambrosia, while I throw your crown into the skies.
I am Dionysos, God of Joyous Oblivion. And this is the first time have I truly loved.
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* My second attempt at a story based on this photo-prompt. Thanks for reading!
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to Marie Gail Stratford for the lovely photograph!
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Love, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, Ariadne, Dionysos, Dionysus, falling in love, Flash Fiction, Greek Mythology, thyrsus
Sep 25, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright – Marie Gail Stratford
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count (not including the title, name, date): 100 words
Only Darkness at the End of the Day
©September 25th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
The wine-light spilled in gem-tones, red, gold and green, filled with promise, promising respite. He yearned for it.
He thought about what had happened that day — the morning quarrel, the slammed door, the long commute to work, work that sucked away his joy, unmade all he had become.
And when he’d come home, the note he’d found on the dresser, and the absence of his center, the lingering ghost of her perfume sealed it.
I’m sorry. I tried. It won’t work. You didn’t try hard enough.
Gazing deep into all that light, he reached for it.
Bitter oblivion tasted of grapes.
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Thanks, as always, to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for being such a warm and inspiring host of Friday Fictioneers. Thanks, also, to Marie Gail Stratford, for her beautiful photograph.
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Heartbreak, #Original Short Story, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, breakup, Flash Fiction, in vino veritas, Oblivion, wine and marriage
Sep 17, 2014 Original Short Stories
Genre: Magic Realist Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Wax-Blood
©September 17th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Farewell, my friends.
Those I’ve loved have melted away, and all those whom I hated have made moulds out of them. They sit, grinning, like skull-candles upon a mantelpiece in the home of the enemy, wherein visitors enter, and say, “Oh, how … unusual!”
All whom I loved do not exist, except as pieces in someone’s dream, atop a mantel-mountain with trophies littered around, like sleeping cats who may, at any time, unprovoked, unsheathe their claws.
Yesterday, I took my hoe, and went to my little terrace-garden on the top of the mountain.
I met a jaguar.
Sunlight spilled on blood.
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Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, Flash Fiction
Sep 11, 2014 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, Original Short Stories, the surreal and the unreal
Genre: Fantasy/Supernatural Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
You Won’t See Me*
©September 11th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I lived alone in the world behind the mirror. Those whom I saw, looked back at me, but didn’t see me – just themselves, endlessly repeated. They didn’t look, you see.
They didn’t see me, mouth open, beseeching… See me! Free me!
No, they smiled or pirouetted, smiled, frowned at fat, examined bruises, glared, and spoke to unseen enemies, stroked their hair, but missed me entirely.
Then, a child saw me, reaching out her hand. I stepped through.
Everyone vanished behind my mirror. I couldn’t see them, just a lonely, lace-curtained window reflected in the mirror.
And I didn’t see me.
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Thanks, as always, to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting, and to Janet Webb for the lovely photo-prompt!
*With a nod to The Beatles for the title!
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, Flash Fiction