Friday Fictioneers is hosted by the wonderful Rochelle, the undisputed master of what I call Sound Bite Fiction.
She sets the weekly challenge, and the standard.
And the prompt photo, which this week is provided courtesy of Linda Kreger.
I spent August in the Divided Kingdom, pretty much 50-50 in Scotland and the south of England, which I admit might have coloured my normally sunny view of life.
The idea, as always, is to write a story of around 100 words based on this picture, below.
© Linda Kreger
Click here to hear the writer read his words:
Post-Brexit
When ‘The Troubles’ begin again we will see head-shots of serious young men in uniform above reports of how they have been found lying in gutters, shot in the back of the head, execution style, and grey press photos of children’s bicycles and perhaps a football abandoned in the street as youngsters flee the sound of approaching gunfire.
Artists will paint shadowy images of crosses and bullets and tears, and poets will write words just as useless and pointless as these.
Sound Bite Fiction 
My dad was half Irish-American and mentioned “The Troubles” so I know about them. I met a man who had come to the U.S. to escape the English who were looking for members of the IRA. I read about the IRA and Irish-Americans who had given money to buy weapons for the IRA. My father had no use for the IRA because he said they didn’t care who they killed. They’d even kill members of the clergy. A good story based on history, CE. —- Suzanne
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It just seems the more things change the more they stay the same. I know that’s not accurate, but it seems this way.
Thoughtful story.
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“The troubles” reminds me of my childhood in snowy Minnesota, where one of the most visible expressions of politics I became aware of was a flourescent orange graffito of the letters IRA, which appeared one morning, on the brick outer wall of the local Catholic School’s compound.
I have since watched “the Ambassador” the British TV show about the UK’s rep in Dublin, I believe, a very unwelcome ambassador, whom most of the locals wanted gone.
So I only have the slightest superficial impression of what “the troubles” mean, and that is enough to make me quake in my boots. It is also interesting, that that period in my young life also held our last seriousUS Constitutional crisis, with President RichardNixon and Watergate. Disturbing how the world order seems to be quaking as well. Chilling warning/premonition.
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Mine We can only hope that all of the worst case scenarios are not going to come true, but this admittedly is looking doubtful. I would rather be anywhere (well, except America) than in England right now.
I hope your fiction is going to remain fiction.
By the way, great to see you are still around 🙂 it has been a while indeed sense I have last made an appearance.
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Angie, what a delight to see you here again, I hope you are well.
Better to be in England, I think, than in Scotland, where we voted 62-38 to stay in the EU.
So at least you guys, due to the population imbalance, are in a mess of your own making!
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It would only be of my own making if I had voted leave… Or even Tory! I am guilty of neither 🙂
still, it is wonderful to see you are still here and still writing wonderful tales 🙂
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Powerful, and chilling. I truly hope it remains fiction, but it is not without possibility. The “dream” of regaining “our democracy” by prying it from the hands of “unelected Brussels bureaucrats,” sounds so hollow as an unelected Prime Minister suspends an elected Parliament to impose his own political will. A political will he would argue was demanded “by the people,” the very people who held that dream. Not of a Great Britain (the name of the main island, not the nation) nor of a United (as you powerfully noted) Kingdom. What will these dreamers make of their vision when it equates to a “union” devoid of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales (at least North and Mid-Wales), London? How great will the Britain be made up of only traditional Tory Counties.
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Thank you, sir.
And, to answer your last question, I don’t care.
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Living through a difficult period is satisfying to some people and happy it’s over to others. Nice!
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Thanks, Nan
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Brexit or being blown up by shale gas. I still am hopefully that there will still be stories to told.
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There will always be stories, Mike, and we have to keep telling them
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So Brexit is a bad thing? I will never understand humanity’s obsession with labeling, grouping, and segregating ourselves. It’s easy to imagine a similar dystopia here, in America, given current trends.
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In its current form, or non-form, it is a disaster waiting to happen
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I don’t understand it completely, but I get that much. My question was sarcasm. Humanity seems to be in self-destruct mode.
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A gloomy picture you painted this time.
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Indeed, sir, but I fear it might happen
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Next time you feel like going on a holiday, CE, save your pennies up and head down under to sunny Australia and all this darkness will magically lift and you too will be believing “she’ll be right, mate”.
I haven’t seen much of the news over the last couple of months and have shut myself off a bit from the outside world. Indeed, at one stage there while I was fully embroiled in my research, I was reading the news from 200 years ago. It was much safer.
That said, I am concerned about the personalities of our global leaders as well as the burning of the Amazon rainforest. I guess I’d like the news to not only tell us about all these terrible goingss on, but to also lead us towards some kind of action plan, instead of leaving us feeling powerless. That we’re ineffective pawns who can have no impact on how the game is played.
Best wishes,
Rowena
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For ‘news’ read ‘propaganda, in the UK and France at least.
The money that controls our governments has no interest in the pawns.
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Once I would’ve called you cynical, but now more of a realist.
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Thank goodness Boris is here to save the day with his shut-down Parliament and everything…
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Laughing and shaking my head.
Well played, sir!
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But Boris thinks he can fix it.
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Boris thinks?
Really?
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Very dark. Here’s hoping the darkness remains fiction.
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Here’s hoping…
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“The troubles”… what a euphemism for such horrors… and I can see it happen with a union falling to pieces. Wonder if there will be Scottish, a Welsh and a Northern Ireland independence movement now…
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Exactly, Bjorn. I think ‘Civil War’ is more apt when citizens fight their own troops.
I refer to the Divided Kingdom for exactly that reason
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I saw someone comparing Boris to King Charles and his proroguing of the parliament – in that comparison it was expected that Boris would not be executed in front of the parliament at least
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Quel dommage, as we say in France.
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On my side of the Atlantic Brexit seems much simpler, although i understand it is not. Praying your experience is not nearly as hard as imagined here. Well done!
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The Irish situation is far from simple, Joe, especially when spectacularly mismanaged by Westminster
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I haven’t heard much at all about it from your side. Can you give me details? I find world politics fascinating.
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This gives you the background, Joe, but bear in mind that it comes from the long-discredited and utterly corrupt BBC, now no more than the mouthpiece of the establishment. Have fun.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887
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Thanks!
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I know some fear it might happen again, but I hope not.
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We all hope not, except those driving, who apparently don’t care
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What happened that all of the world leaders are such (unprintable) jerks these days?
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Lots to think about here. Amazing what interesting responses one photo elicits.
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Thanks, Linda
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This could have been written by Private Godfrey.
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Was he rubbish too?
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This has a dystopian feel about it. Could be the start of an interesting story.
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Or could be the end, Colline.
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That’s how I feel about Brexit too. Very poignant story.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Thanks, Susan, we are witnessing an undemocratic shambles.
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Dear CE,
Sounds like home in States. Grim and disturbing story. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thank you, m’lady.
Dark days indeed.
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The day is drawing closer. I hope you won’t be forced to return to these shores permanently once we are no longer EU citizens? You paint very much a ‘worse case scenario’, but as the government are asked when they use this excuse – ‘so, you’re not ruling it out then?’ Troubling indeed.
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Nothing is sure, Iain, except that things will get worse.
Cheers
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Very Wilfred Owen. I hope fervently this proves not to be prophetic
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Me too, Neil, me too.
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