Fiction 173
Real photographs. Questionable stories.
Every photograph shows us something. What we think we're seeing is another matter.
A shadow across a windowsill might be nothing more than a passing branch. Or it might be prison bars. A pair of stone faces on a garden shed might be decorative objects. Or they might have been waiting for someone for the better part of a century.
Fiction 173 begins with real photographs and proceeds with very little regard for what actually happened.
The stories may be funny, unsettling, sentimental, improbable, or entirely unreasonable. The photographs provide the starting point. Imagination takes responsibility for the rest.
There is just one rule.
Every story contains exactly 173 words.
Not approximately. Not fewer because the ending was particularly good. Not more because someone had something important left to say.
Exactly 173.
Why?
Well, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable number at the time.