Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who provides us with a photo prompt. Each week’s challenge is to write a 100-word story inspired by the photo.
PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson
I am really late on this one. We have three days to get it in by Friday, and I still didn’t finish until Sunday. Oh well. I wanted to do something alien given the undecipherable writing at the bottom, but I just did that with #FFFC: Ruins. I decided upon an idea I’ve been kicking around for a dystopian novel. Sometimes I have nothing. Sometimes I have more ideas than time. I have four or five books I want to write and one I’m trying to rewrite. Oh, to freeze time and have perfect focus just for… I’m not sure how one measures frozen time. Let’s say five books. Oh, and I don’t age during that time. Is that too much to ask? Oh, it is? Dang it! Right now, this is fiction. I can only hope it remains so. There seem to be a lot of people in the world who act like they want this:
United We Stand…
His demagoguery led to the curfews.
Protests led to arrests and tighter restrictions on freedoms.
Xenophobia led to martial law.
Protests led to riots, which led to fewer protesters.
Martial law ended elections and dissolved the government into a dictatorship.
Suspicion and mistrust led to fear and hatred, which led to self-segregation. It wasn’t long before segregation became law. Each group was designated a portion of land. When some in the groups tried to blend with others, walls were constructed to keep them separated.
Revolution was plotted and attempted, but it was too late.
A demagogue made himself a demigod.
NobbinBlog 
Not a million miles away from some of the themes in my couple of novels that I’ve managed to finish and publish. Would make a great starting point to a novel, hope you manage to get at least one of the five over the line!
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999,999 miles away? A glance at the news makes it easy to see from where dystopian novels come.
Thank you. I’ve written four, so I know I can. I just have to capture that focus and chain it to my desk and keep it away from the internet.
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The logic is frighteningly believable. What a powerful pun to end the tale!
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Thank you, and thank you. It’s the worst-case scenario of the things I see happening around us. Fortunately, the large-scale worst-case scenario doesn’t happen often.
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You’re welcome. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, as the saying goes.
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A sad reflection of what can, and might happen closer to home than we anticipate. Troubled times inspire troubling fiction.
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My hope is that as long as enough people remain aware that something like that could happen, even if it is worst-case scenario, we won’t let it happen. A lot of what is happening around us is certainly troubling.
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These are troubled and hazardous times. We can no longer take democracy for granted. Good writing, Nobbin. —- Suzanne
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Troubled and hazardous times are a consistent fact for humanity. Of course, some of us make it a lot worse for the rest of us. Anything we take for granted instead of nurturing and protecting is more likely to be taken from us. We need to remember that Democracy is just as fragile as our health, love…
Thank you, Suzanne.
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