Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Last Sunset

Posted on 25 February 2026 | 38 comments

Hi Rochelle, thank you for sharing your lovely picture of a warm sunset. A fantastic view from your home with a sense of peace with nature.

I’ve gone for something slightly darker in my story this week, an emotional last farewell.

BERJAYA
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The Last Sunset

It’s cold, Eileen. Come inside.

What a wonderful sunset. Well tomorrow.

Let’s work this out, Eileen.

Oh John, I’ve tried. My bags are packed.

You’ll miss all this. The birdsong dawn and warm, glorious sunsets.

Everyone misses something. For me it’s life. Where has it gone?

I won’t let you go, Eileen. No, you mustn’t.

There is no turning back this time. It’s now or never.

I can’t live without you, I love you. Please, please Eileen.

Face it, John, you’re a bum.

The taxi is here.

Wait until I’ve gone, then you should call your mother..

38 Comments

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Bric-a-Brac Romance

Posted on 11 December 2025 | 23 comments

Once more I pick up my pen to scribe an unlikely tale in response to Rochelle’s Friday-Fictioneer’s challenge. A novel in one hundred words. A thank you to Dale for another interesting photo-prompt, wherever it may be.

More stories from the Friday group can be read HERE.

BERJAYA

Bric-a-Brac Romance

On Sundays I offer bric-a-brac to curious explorers along the narrow alleyway.

Absently, she fondled the queen from the chess set.
Do you play? I offered her the king.
She smiled and showed me her wedding ring.

Next time she gently traced the cracks on a porcelain vase.
Does he buy you flowers?
She coughed.
I saw bruises edge out beneath her dark glasses.

Weeks later she came by. 
Her hair was loose and unkempt; she wore a ragged coat and scuffed up shoes.
She caressed and softly kissed the white knight.
No ring, just a smile.

Coffee? 
Maybe.

23 Comments

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The Weeding

Posted on 16 October 2025 | 14 comments

I find a long walk in the woods away from everyday sounds refreshing, and I particularly enjoy the solitude. Thank you Rochelle for this week’s challenge, and Lisa’s picture of the woods.

More contributions from the Friday-Fictioneers group can be found HERE.

BERJAYA
PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

The Weeding

On our trek to safety, we rested at the picnic area. 

We often came here during holidays where I ran and hid.

The bloodhounds, my sisters, became experts at tracking. When found, I was dragged back to share brisket sandwiches and kompot as mother lay basking in the sun. 

Coloured spots on tree trunks marked them for thinning out of the forest. 

Today, the smoke rose from the valley villages, from homes dabbed with red paint. 

The weeding had begun.

In the mountains, we will regroup before crossing the Mediterranean to build new homes.

A revived nation; independent and eternal. 

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Incompatible Crew

Posted on 19 June 2025 | 21 comments

Thank you, Ted, for the photo-prompt and our host Rochelle for posting the 100 word challenge.

More stories can be accessed HERE.

BERJAYA
PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

Incompatible Crew

Our survey was for a few hours collecting surface material for analysis.  However, our space-craft system failed, and we waited six earth months before being rescued. 
We had time to kill.

Marina explored the planet discovering fruits to supplement our dwindling rations.
The isolation turned our relationship aggressively bitter. Tensions grew and exploded.

In a fit of anger, I laced Marina’s cherry tea.

Today, fear knotted my stomach as I took my painting of First Officer Marina and placed it beside her body in the coffin.

I had tried different fruit teas, but cherry was the only one that worked.

21 Comments

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Who Killed Lilly Anne?

Posted on 31 March 2025 | 7 comments
BERJAYA

Just uploaded to KDP my seven short stories for the world to read.

Who Killed Lilly Anne – Short Stories Stung by Love.

Seven short stories about love and relationships that, like earworms, become fixed in the characters’ minds.

A shy woman falls in love with her neighbour, resulting in an unexpected consequence.

Drinking coffee in a Berlin café leads a man to an infatuation with an oil painting.

An alternative end-of-life plan provides relief to a cancer patient.

On a return trip to Italy, a lonely veteran searches for his past lover.

Marriage is the answer for a gangster’s daughter to break free from her father’s influence.

The tropical heat, strong rum and a beautiful woman are irresistible temptations to a lovesick man.

Brian’s vasectomy and his wife’s unfaithfulness leads to divorce. But keeping secrets hampers his future relationship.

7 Comments

Posted in Books, Uncategorized

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Russell Holmes Investigates.

Posted on 17 March 2025 | Leave a comment

I have just posted my revised book of short stories onto Kindle Unlimited.
It is the 1890’s in Glasgow and cases of murder are under investigation.

These stories are inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

The characters are; Russell Holmes, Major (retired) Wilson, and Audrey Fergus, who live at 221 Victoria Circus, Glasgow.

Watch out for the German Baroness, Alexia von Hochstahl; “I despise men who consider me a fool.”
Perhaps, Russell Holmes should have known better.

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The Fast Lane

Posted on 05 March 2025 | 17 comments

Thanks to Rochelle, I now have an insight into the lives of those travelling salesmen. Always on the go with little time for a healthy life, eating fast food as their daily diet. Why do they do it?

More stories can be read HERE.

BERJAYA
PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The Fast Lane

The sales targets are impossible.
When I complete the figures, Scarface raises the expectations and holds up my bonus payment until the following month.

Financially, it is a race to retirement.
My plan, by fifty, is a healthy life on Barbados, away from this rat race.

Fast sales, fast cars, fast-food, and sleeping with a Magnum under my pillow in Motels are all aggravating my angina.
The beta blockers are a lost cause. 

I need to stop before I drop, but living my dream on a Caribbean beach consumes my thoughts.

Just one more gigantic sales contract.

Then I’m finished.

17 Comments

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Dance Hall Blues

Posted on 29 March 2024 | 29 comments

This is a lovely photograph from Dale, showing a tropical lightness for the dark nights. I wonder how vibrant the dance hall was before it closed.

A shout out to our Friday-Fictioneer host, Rochelle, for selecting the prompt.

More contributions from the group are available by clicking HERE.

BERJAYA

Dance Hall Blues

When the alien pandemic flushed human life.
Beautiful Anne died.

I remember this dance hall where we met.
Forever closed.

The band played and the singer sang.
Let’s twist again, let’s twist again.
Are ye dancing. My ballroom-twang.

Are ye asking?
She fizzed like bubbling champagne.

Dancing, prancing across the hall,
Twisting legs, shaking hips and arms.
Are ye winching. My ballroom-bawl.

Are ye asking?
Full of sweet smiling charms.

Lights turned low and the music slow.
Bodies in close with swaying moves.
I’ll walk you home, when it’s time to go.

Not a chance!
She’s wearing fancy new shoes.

29 Comments

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On The Wagon

Posted on 23 February 2024 | 24 comments

Thank you, Alicia, for the picture which was a reminder of the western films I watched as a boy. I spent hours researching the emigration of the Scottish Highlanders to America. Mostly, they were driven out of their crofts or else were disillusioned with their miserable lives. In Georgia they secured a new future.

Thank you Rochelle for posting the prompt. Many other story contributions can be read by clicking HERE.

If you are interested my flash fiction collection. The Listener is available free on Amazon Kindle this weekend.

BERJAYA
PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas

On The Wagon

Mary promised she would never touch another drop. Although Jim muttered obscenities.
He found brandy in a Lucozade bottle, and vodka in the vinegar bottles behind the gravy powder.

‘Look!’ said Mary. ‘They are full. I haven’t touched them.’
He poured them down the sink. ‘Are there anymore?’
‘More!’ 
‘The promise, no more alcohol. Ever.’
Mary held John’s hand. ‘I am fine, very sober and cheerful.’

‘I am worried.’
‘It’s okay, I’m going for a walk and some fresh air.’

Checking, John was not watching.
She drank some harsh Scots hooch from the old wagon barrel.

’I love you, Grandpa.’

24 Comments

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A Fortunate Accident

Posted on 15 February 2024 | 41 comments

Thank you Dale for the picture, it reminds me why it is better to clear the snow when it has just fallen. Otherwise, people walking compact it to ice and when it melts the layer of water on top makes it treacherous. My story takes advantage of this situation.

Thank you, as always to Rochelle for hosting us on Friday-Fictioneers.
More stories on this prompt can be read HERE.

BERJAYA

A Fortunate Accident

That problems are clearer in the morning after a good night’s sleep didn’t ring true to Carol. She couldn’t sleep.

Scar-faced Harry had conned her. He wanted his money repaid at a thousand percent rate.
Today.
Impossible!

Carol agreed to discuss alternatives. Although, selling herself in his seedy club was off the table.
Easy money he sneered and laughed as he slipped on the ice.

Carol heard the snap of bones.
She called an ambulance, then stamped hard on his broken arm. 
Harry was unconscious.
She saw the blood pooling behind his head.
She checked his pulse.
Dead.

Problem solved.

41 Comments

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