Nov 5, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Jean L. Hays
Genre: Whimsical Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
I Married Her
©November 5th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I was a broken man, and I was broke. My wife had left. I missed being loved.
One day, impelled by a whim, I awoke, and went to my car.
“Love me,” whispered Edsel-la. I looked at her then, saw her true soul, and fell in love.
I whispered sweet nothings into her carburetor, and stroked her yellow-painted cheeks.
She told me to make some changes, promising me untold wealth if I followed her instructions.
Laugh at me if you will. I did her bidding. I’m not broke anymore.
Tomorrow, my car and I are going to get married.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
For some reason, I couldn’t get the InLinkz script to make a link to the other stories, and share the code. I guess it now needs us to log in. Please help, someone (do I need to make an InLinkz account, Friday Fictioneers?).
In any case, thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for sharing this strange and interesting photo-prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers (an online writing community that writes flash-fiction based on photo-prompts — for the uninitiated who might be reading my blog) . I did the best I could in my 100-word story. Hope you like it!
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, man and car, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, the Ford Edsel
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.
______________________________________________________________________
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
Aug 28, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright – Madison Woods
Genre: Science Fiction/Horribleness
Word Count: Exactly 100 words
Dinner
©August 28th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wounded, far from home, crash-landed on this planet, I felt a chasm open up.
Flaring my optics into flame, I shut them down hurriedly. The light was too intense. My heart throbbed, flopping on the dirt, hanging by a thread.
Would I never see Ztruthnutzhehaasszz!%$^ again? “Nooo!” screamed my belly, wherein lay the shining gem my mother had implanted when I was born in her back-sack. I wept copiously, my springs watering the strange pointed blades that emitted oxygen, almost too rich to bear.
A four-pawed creature, horrible breath emanating from a long-snouted, fanged opening, noted me.
The fangs descended.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank, as always, to Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting Friday Fictioneers! Thanks, also, to Madison Woods for this truly terrible picture!
P.S. I was away for the past two weeks prior to this one, so I missed the last two story prompts alas! I’m quite addicted to Friday Fictioneers.
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, alien story, canine antagonist, Flash Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Aug 7, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright-Björn Rudberg
__________________________________________________________________________________
Genre: Semi-Horror Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
House (Me)
©August 7th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am fashioned from all your dreams and all your nightmares.
You return to me in sorrow, in joy, in darkness, in light. You fall into my arms, and I soothe your senses, your soul. You drown in loneliness, but I’m here, I’m here!
Yet, you see me not for who I am.
Someday, you will.
Cobwebs and horrors crawl through my dark spaces. I scream soundlessly. I wince and sigh, when I’m hurt. I creak and moan and sob through howling winds and storms.
Yet, you hear me not.
Today, you will.
And I’ll take you with me.
Come.
__________________________________________________________________________________
I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my 100-word story from yesterday. This house called to me. Here’s my second attempt!
(Thanks, as always to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to Björn Rudberg, for his excellent photo-prompt!)
__________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, Creepy House, Flash Fiction, Micro-Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Semi-Horror Story
Jul 23, 2014 Original Short Stories
Here’s another one I wrote, and it’s 74 words long! I cannot believe it! This was done entirely for my daughter, who sat beside me and wondered whether I could write a shorter (than 100 words) story based on a prompt. So, to her wide-eyed astonishment, I unfolded this one from start to finish, with only one phrase and two words edited! (I know it’s weird, or even weirder than the last one, but please be kind, since I wrote this under duress!)
Another One Bites the Dust
©July 23rd, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I held up my chopsticks and surveyed them calmly.
“More hot sauce,” I snapped.
The waiter came forward in an obsequious manner.
I leaned forward and caught his nose between my chopsticks.
“Get rid of your nose! I don’t like people with big schnozzes serving me,” I said through gritted, razor-sharp teeth, which I bared menacingly, as if to help him with the project.
He turned pale and fled.
Another one bites the dust!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, Flash Fiction, Micro-Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, seventy-four word short story
Jul 23, 2014 Original Short Stories
Genre: Weird Semi-Real Fiction (I just made that up)
Word Count: 100 Words
Sauce
©July 23rd, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
What? I scare you? Why? Am I not handsome? Isn’t this great food? What’s your problem?
“You are the problem,” you say? Have I harmed you? Okay, I’m from a time far from yours, but that’s no reason to hate me. You don’t believe me? Explain this then: How come I’m answering all your thoughts? Guesses? Sigh. How did I ever emerge from a race like your backward little one?
At least shake hands, then. Hey! You’ve strange hands — FIVE fingers? Check out my two — long, pointed, perfectly carved bone things. Nice, huh?
Fork! Don’t go! Try my hot sauce!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
And, as always, thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and for providing the prompts each week, and to Marie Gail Stratford for her photograph above.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, 100-word short story, Chopsticks, Flash Fiction, Micro-Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Jul 2, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT, Copyright – Claire Fuller
This is in response to the above photo-prompt for this week’s “Friday Fictioneers,” which appears on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ blog. Every week, writers from around the world write a story based on the given photo-prompt on her site –and we have to do it in 100 words or fewer. Here’s mine.
Genre: Semi-realistic, semi-historical fiction
Word Count: 100
Reigning Supreme
©July 2nd, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
“Ozzie, this won’t make a difference,” said the brave Queen to the King.
Honesty was her greatest gift. It was also her downfall.
No one questioned him and lived.
The statue he commissioned was completed. Alas, the sculptor was also repaid with death, because the King wanted no replicas. He was that sort of king.
Eventually, everything in his kingdom fell apart. He died. Only the statue remained. Then, even that crumbled.
A traveller to his land found this on the pedestal: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”*
Only dust reigned.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, Flash Fiction, Micro-Fiction, Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley, photo prompt, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Jun 27, 2014 Original Short Stories
This is my short story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Silence is a Tree
©By Vijaya Sundaram
June 28th, 2014
Sathya was exhausted. Yesterday, at work, she’d been reprimanded. Nobody had asked questions, or listened.
Every day, since the diagnosis of cancer two weeks ago, left her drained. She’d told nobody. She’d already hated her job. Now, she wanted to leave.
“I want to know things, like trees and birds,” she wept to her husband, who listened, aching within.
Today, they went to the woods with a book: Trees of North America. Birds sang in the shimmering air near a huge oak waiting for her.
“I’m home,” she said to her husband, face aglow.
He wept. The tree stood, silent.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, Flash Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Silence, Tree
Jun 11, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright-Ted Strutz
This prompt proved to be difficult for me, in terms of what kind of story to write — in the end, I settled for realism and tried to mix in a little humor and menace– and tried to do it all inside 100 words. Hope you like the story! Thanks, as always, to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to Ted Strutz for his evocative photograph-prompt!
(NOTE: I published this originally as “(S)Trapped (Down)!” — but I ended up editing it, tinkering with it, and incorporating some of the dock-and-sea imagery into my story. I also gave it a different concluding line.
Sea of Troubles
©June 11th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Dr. Drinkwater was drunk. He was old. His breath stank.
Get me out of here! I thought, panic rising in my throat.
I was trapped. Strange instruments held my mouth open (I hadn’t dared to peek, when I’d arrived).
Fool! I thought. You came here of your own accord. Now deal with it!
Mrs. Armstruther, Receptionist, tapped away at her computer. Outside, docked boats undulated greyly.
He advanced.
I whimpered.
Smirking, he said, “It’ll be all right.”
I gibbered.
Eyes narrowing, he snapped “Novocain!”
I fainted.
Awakening, I found myself far from shore, alone, afloat at sea.
I screamed.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, Dentist's Room, Flash Fiction, Novocain drama, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Shakespeare reference "sea of troubles", Strapped, Ted Strutz, Trapped
Jul 31, 2013 Original Short Stories
Following one of my favorite bloggers, Helena Hann-Basquiat, I ended up at a blog I’d never seen before, and was inspired to contribute to Friday Fictioneers time, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
This one involves writing a very short story (100 words) that is based on this picture below. There are many wonderful stories to be found, if you follow the link.
Here it is, exactly one hundred words after the title bits (hyphenated words seem to be counted automatically as one word here):
Help! He’s Covered in Bees!
(As homage to my very favorite Eddie Izzard)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
July 31st, 2013
A man wearing stiletto boots teetered up to where sweet-smelling clover bloomed.
He was the son of Khloris, the Greek goddess of flowers. Briefly, he had flirted with the idea of being a mortal. Now, sickened by a dying earth, he wanted to leave.
He opened his impossibly red-lipped mouth and called up to the Immortals. A buzzing began. On the horizon, a dark cloud appeared.
A madly humming horde of bees converged upon him.
A passerby began to scream in horror, “Help! He’s covered in bees!”
Waving, the stiletto-ed man rose into the air and disappeared into the clouds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: 100-word short story, Bees, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneer, picture-prompt-based story, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields