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.
Today’s photo by my old friend Al Forbes, a multi-talented blogger and a great guy, provides the opportunity to celebrate this momentous day in the Scottish calendar.
The idea, as always, is to write a story of around 100 words based on the picture, below.
© Al Forbes
Click here to hear me read the story, and more!
Of Mice and Men
‘Tis pity, thinks Rab, that the petrol engine is not yet invented.
Turning the rich Ayrshire soil with a horse-drawn plough is heavy work, even for a strong young man.
And Rab’s mind has a tendency to wander, as a braw lad’s does.
He does have an eye for the lassies!
The sound of tiny consternation before him brings him back to reality.
He is dismayed to see a family of mice fleeing from the destruction that his plough has wrought.
Seeing one of them hiding behind a daud of earth, he stoops and speaks.
Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie…
Robert Burns was born on 25th January 1759
