“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t see you tomorrow.”

“You’re calling off our Wednesday date?” he asked. “We’ve been having dinner every Wednesday for eight months!”

“I know,” she said. Her voice was small. “I just can’t tomorrow.”

They walked in silence.

“Are you going to tell me why?” he finally asked.

She didn’t answer. “I’ve got to go,” she said abruptly and turned around.

He watched her walk away and pressed his lips together.

He started to call her that night, but changed his mind.

He thought about her all the next day. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he went to her house after work and stood in the shadows of the alley across the street, trying to think what to do.

She came out, dressed in a stunning dress. She didn’t see him as she walked past the alley, but he could smell her perfume. She had only worn perfume one other time that he could remember. Clearly, this was a special occasion.

He followed from a distance, walking up the hill to the cemetery. He lost sight of her, then heard her voice. “I miss you so much. I love you.”

But he found her alone. She was startled.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“M-m-my husband,” she stammered and started to cry. “He was in New York on business on 9/11. I never got to say good-bye. Every year I try to.”

He wrapped his arms around her.

“I still can’t,” she said.

This is my submission for the Unicorn Challenge. It’s a simple challenge — write a story of no more than 250 words based on the photo.

“One… two…. three… four…” counted Rory.

“What are you counting?” his mother asked.

“Five… aw, dang, Mom! You messed me up,” he said. “I was counting the waves. Oliver said that the seventh wave is always the biggest.”

“I never heard that, but, okay, I’ll help you count,” she replied.

She stared at the sea and the waves licking the shore. “How do you know which one is one?” she asked.

Rory explained, “I wait for a big wave, then I start counting.”

“There!” his mother shouted. At the next wave, Rory called, “One!”

“Two… three… four,” they counted together.

“Wait,” said Rory, “that was another big one.”

“The biggest?” Mom asked.

His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Let’s try again.”

They watched and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“They’re all small now,” Rory whined.

His mother nodded understandingly.

“There’s a big one!” his mother said, then Rory counted, “One!”

“Two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine,” they both counted.

Rory looked at his mother. “It’s not seven,” he said.

“Where did you hear this again?” his mother asked.

“Oliver,” he replied. “His uncle told him. He’s a surfer so he knows.”

“Hmm,” his mother said. “Let’s try once more.”

After the next big wave, they both counted “One!”

Then together, “Two… three… four… five… six… SEVEN!”

Oliver jumped up and down. “It’s true! It’s true! Every seventh wave is a big wave!”

His mother questioned, “EVERY seventh wave?”

“Yes! Yes! You saw it, right?” Oliver said.

---

This is my response to the Unicorn Challenge which calls for a 250 word response to the photo prompt.

I’ve been listening to this Skipinnish song on repeat for a while. It’s so hopeful. The name of the album is “The Seventh Wave” and the song references in its lyrics “the seventh wave” so, of course, I looked it up.

Basically it’s not true.

Except when it is.

Go figure.

If this story is fiction but sort of science-y, does that make it science fiction?

“Tell me about this,” the detective said, handing her a photograph.

The woman in the hospital bed studied it, then handed it back.

“I dunno. Just a car,” she replied, and pronounced it “cah.”

“Boston?” the detective asked.

The woman scoffed. “BAH-stin? Gawd, no. That’s not Massachusetts!”

“I was trying to guess your accent,” he replied. “Boston?”

The woman shook her head, trying to remove her confusion with a vigorous shake. When she spoke again, the twang was gone. “No,” she said,”I’m from…” Her voice trailed off.

She looked at the photo quietly, then asked, “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.”

“That’s not the driver’s door open, right?” the woman asked, staring at the picture.

“No, it’s the passenger door.”

“Was I driving?” the woman asked.

The detective hedged. “What do you remember?”

She furrowed her brow. “I… I… I don’t remember anything.”

Her English was clipped and clean, practiced, so as not to reveal anything about her.

“What’s your name?”

The woman raised her eyes from the photograph and studied the detective’s face.

“I don’t remember,” she said finally.

“Who were you with?”

“Where were you going?”

“Where are you from?”

“Why are you in Scotland?”

He peppered her with questions; her answers were all the same. “I don’t remember.”

After the nurse left the room, he shut the door and leaned in close to her face. “Listen,” he said, “I know why you’re here, but if you want protection, you’d better start talking.”

---

This is my response to the Unicorn Challenge. 250 words on the button.

I don’t know why I’m struggling so much with these photographs lately. I kept looking at it and looking at.

I thought about the time I was driving home and had to pull over to throw up (stomach bug). My two youngest daughters had been with me and for months after that, whenever we passed the spot, one of them would say, “Remember that time?” Yes, I remembered.

I didn’t want to write about vomiting though. Instead, I thought the fact that I just started Season 19 of Taggart. I started at Season 1 some months ago. It’s on Brit Box.

“Mama, look!” Hank nudged his mother. She sat dozing in the stadium suite in front of the window.

“What? What?” she said, blinking her eyes and shaking her head. “Is the game over?”

“No, Mama, Stefan is playing now. See? He’s right there?” He pointed to a lone figure in front of the goal.

“Where’s the rest of the team?” she asked.

Hank pointed to the mob in front of the other goal. “Down there,” he said.

She watched Stefan shuffle around in front of the goal he was protecting.

He scratched his arm, looked up at the sky, bent down and picked something up off the ground. He shuffled around more, then waved in their direction with a big smile.

Shuffle, shuffle.

She started to doze again, but Hank nudged her. “Look, Mama, the ball is coming!”

The ball WAS coming his way. Stefan straightened up, then crouched a little, hands on knees. He was ready; anybody could see that.

She could hear his teammates shouting: “The ball is coming, Stefan!” “Get ready!” “Pick it up! Pick it up!”

She furrowed her brow. They seemed to be letting the ball advance towards their own goal. The other team didn’t seem to be trying at all.

Stefan bent, picked up the ball, and threw it with all his might.

The final buzzer sounded.

His teammates gathered round him, high-fiving and celebrating.

And the boy with the round flat face and almond-shaped eyes beamed as only someone with Down Syndrome can.

---

My somewhat late contribution to the Unicorn Challenge.

The Unicorn Challenge is simple: 250 words based on the photo. That’s it.

“Is there anything you don’t know, Mom?” asked Wolfgang, as he walked with his mother along the beach.

Virginia laughed. “There are a LOT of things I don’t know.”

“Like what?” the boy asked.

“Well, I don’t know what I don’t know. I just don’t know it,” his mother responded.

“Hmm…” he thought aloud. “I’m going to figure out what you don’t know.”

He looked at the tall grasses growing along the dune. “Okay,” he said decidedly, “why is grass green?”

She laughed again. “I actually DO know the answer to that one. Plants get their green color from something called chlorophyll.”

She started to explain more, but Wolfie cut her off.

“That one was too easy,” he said. “How about this? Why do dragonflies zig-zag when they fly?”

“They’re catching bugs,” she answered.

“Where do seagulls sleep?”

“You’ve seen them,” she answered. “They group together in an open place and take turns watching for predators.”

“Where does sand come from?”

“Broken up rocks, shells, and dirt pounded by and carried here by the surf.”

“How far away is the sun?”

“93 million miles.”

“How do you know stuff like that?”

“Grammie and Grampa encouraged us all to read. Your uncles and I also liked trying to stump each other with trivia. I like to learn.”

As they approached the lighthouse, Wolfie asked, “Why does that lighthouse not have a top on it like other lighthouses?”

“You know,” she replied, “I don’t know. Let’s go ask someone and find out.”

---

Exactly 250 words for this week’s Unicorn Challenge.

The challenge is so simple: write no more than 250 words and base it on the photo.

Easy, right? Unless, of course, you have no idea what the picture is. I tried and tried to figure out what this is.

Can you tell me? Is it a lighthouse? Where’s the lens?

This is the lens in the one lighthouse (Ponce Inlet Lighthouse) I walked to the top of with my grandsons on vacation this past February.

And this is the lighthouse.

She noticed the token on the platform and picked it up, slipping it into her pocket before boarding the train.

Once seated, she closed her eyes and replayed her day. God, she needed to get away. Glasgow may be one of the world’s friendliest cities but today she needed to get far away.

She felt a vibration in her pocket and pulled out the token. It was glowing, an eerie pearly white. She tried to read the words but the characters weren’t familiar.

The train ticked, hummed, click-clacked. She closed her eyes, holding the token, and thought, I should just go to London.

She opened her eyes at the squeal of brakes as the train eased to another stop. Her brow furrowed at the symbol outside her window: a red circle with a blue line. The Roundel.

Wait — what? London?! No-no-no-no-no-no!

If she really wanted to start over, she needed to go to a new continent.

The token vibrated. The doors swooshed shut and the train left the station, plunging into darkness. Clackety-clackety-clackety. Again she closed her eyes. Again she opened them at the squeal of the brakes.

Times Square — 42 Street Station.

New York. No, she thought, farther. The train unexpectedly lurched out of the station. The token flew from her hand. Darkness.

When it stopped again, she had no token. She looked at the other passengers. Their green skin tone and oddly-shaped heads told her. She WAS far away — and now with no way back.

---

This is my rather tardy response to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge seems so simple, just 250 words based on the photo. Yeah. Right. I whittled out so many words that this may no longer make sense.

For another ultimate exile, here’s the Kingston Trio singing about poor old Charlie, riding forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.

And all of this grew out of a quote I read the other morning about meteorites. Go figure.

“From above and outside the earth, there come the meteorites. These are debris from other galaxies in the cosmos. They were stones falling through the universe and the earth got in the way. This is the ultimate exile. Stones that fell out of their own story, fell onto a foreign planet. They are now total exiles here. They will never be able to leave.“

John O’Donohue, The Four Elements. “Fire in the Earth”