Photo Prompt
Each month, we post a photograph as a writing prompt. Post your 100-word story in the comments section, and we’ll choose one to feature in our next issue. To see examples, read photo stories we’ve published in the past.
In the spirit of fun and fairness, please follow these guidelines:
• Post only one story per photo prompt.
• Be mindful of others’ feelings when commenting (keep it positive rather than giving feedback).
• Remember this is a shared safe space for all lovers of 100-word stories.
Photo Credit: Matthias Ripp
Secret Place
I knocked on the door, but there was silence. I knocked a second time. Again, silence filled the air. I knocked for the third time and finally heard a clap. My mind settled as I waited patiently. Noon turned to twilight. Ever since my father journeyed to the beyond, meditation had become an elixir for my mother.
At dawn the next day, she emerged from her room holding a plate of cucumber rinds.
“Mum, just cucumber for a whole day. Why?”
“Son, that’s all that appealed to me. That’s what my soul was drawn to,” she replied gently.
I shrugged.
I bite down on the juicy watermelon in my hands. A flavor of sweet water damps my parched mouth. I look up and watch kids galavant around playing endless games. I hear them giggle and shout out at each other.
I take another bite of the slice of watermelon in my hands. The juice runs down my hands, leaving stickiness behind.
I soon set down the rind of the watermelon on the old, wooden table. I glanced up again, the children were gone with their games along with them. Only silence and the sun grazing my skin. A peaceful moment.
When I was 3 I believed that what age you are that’s how many things you eat. So one very hot summer all of my friends were out of town so I was in my back yard playing in the sprinklers then I had a sudden urge for some watermelon. I went inside my house and luckily my mom was in the kitchen.
I asked, “Mommy can I have 3 pieces of watermelon?”
She replied, “ya but aren’t you a little small for that much food?”
I nodded my head no. She cut the watermelon. I enjoyed it out side.
BLESSED
” What can you see on your computer screens?” I asked my students.
” Discarded rind?”
” Littering ?”
” More work for Mom ?”
” Lack of good manners?”
” What you see,” I continued with zest, ” is a lesson
Embrace the relevant, discard the irrelevant. Just because of the thick rind, don’t discard the fruit.
Because of a minor misunderstanding, don’t discard the relationship.”
My grade eight listened enthralled.
I knew I had scored another hit when I saw two students smile tentatively at each other, another pair link hands…
How blessed I am to be able to give Lessons of Life without actually seeming to!
Thick as Watermelon Rind
“Gross!” Grandpa’s teeth fall out with the watermelon rind. Bright pink juice bleeds down his witchy chin. You can pickle it, stir-fry it, grind it into gazpacho, or sling the rinds and run. On this birthday blue sky day at the park, a zoo of gangly brothers scream, sling ‘em and run. But their thistle garden sister sits. Her thighs rooted to the bench. Chest pounding. Monster and mouth beside her. Her pinkie peeks from her little fisted bud and taps at the teeth. Grandpa grins. Everything’s back in place. She can run or scream. Or be the family glue.
In a town in Central America a group of teenagers meet to play football, which they very much enjoy. It is very hot so they get very thirsty.
Their coach has had the good idea of bringing water me;onwith him. Each of them get a slice, dark red with dark pips. Their thirst is quenched but they are not sure what to do with the skins, so they leave them by the shed where they change. The local rodents will eat them up.
So in Central America football and water melon make for healthy attitudes.
Left Behind
I missed you, but I know you were here. You ate the last of summer’s watermelon on the wooden bench behind the shed, shivering at the first chill of autumn. You left the rinds behind as I always did. For the birds and the soil. Funny how you used to scold me for it. Those pink slivers will rot and fade like I am. Now. Always. Somewhere, not with you. It’s hard to see color anymore; the yard has gone entirely grey. But I still see us here, forever, seeping into the wood, while the juice has not yet dried.
WATERMELON REVELATION
In that summer of 1950 when I was nine years old, I learned something about myself. Watermelon was three cents per pound and two friends and I pooled our allowance monies of 25 cents a week to purchase one, glorying in the massive treat we carried home. We cut slices and eagerly consumed them with epicurean gusto. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered then that I really don’t like watermelon. Hated the seeds, hated the bland watery flavor, hated how sticky my hands got. Did make a very satisfactory splat when we threw it off the bridge though.
The Summer Picnic
Laughter floats through the yard as the kids play tag or some other imaginary game. Mothers sit, sharing stories and updates. Fathers hover around the grill, football dominating their attention. Three children run to the picnic table, each leaving a decimated slice of watermelon.
“Hi mom!”
“Hi Aunty Rae!”
“Hi Auntie Rae!”
They exclaim in unison before dashing back into the sun. Rae laughs, her sister shaking her head at the mess. She jokes that Rae’s daughter is the ringleader of their carelessness.
They were the last memory I have of him-three pathetic, discarded watermelon rinds. The fair had been in town. He’d won me a Teddy Bear. We’d talked with Molly, Jaime, and Amy, We’d kissed on The Ferris Wheel. I’d thought food would settle the butterflies in my stomach. I should have savored every second of the sensation and every moment with him. Now all I can hear is the incessant ringing of the phone, see the bold, black letters from the headlines, and smell the stale scent of the interview room at the police station. Johnny, where are you?”
What the Bell?
Watermelon and Taco Bell. That’s all she wanted. Baby Liam was not even the size of a peach but Abby couldn’t stop the cravings. She could understand the watermelon – there were vitamins, nutrients! But Taco Bell, c’mon!? She’d pull up to the drive-thru window after teaching all day and order a six pack of hard shelled tacos to go. Before even starting to drive, she’d have one taco inhaled. By the time Abby pulled her car into her parking spot at home, lettuce and cheese on her round belly was the only evidence that tacos had been there at all.
Summer’s Suitcase
Pop Pop farmed family property. The way mom described it we were “land people” which hinted at southern aristocracy but truth is a modest
150 acres was left to him. This dwindles down every few years for another trailer. The plot may have been modest but Pop Pop knew how to farm – blood red softball sized tomatoes and heavy webbed watermelon. As he’d tell it “summer’s were hotter than a mule’s ass” or “watermelon rinds were summer’s suitcase”. Plowing through the produce aisle with puny dull pink tomatoes and bad lighting I sure miss him.