PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
Breathe
The schedule rested on the ledge at the guard shack. Electric devices long gone, the only way to make an appointment was to physically make one in the book.
Reservations were out weeks; visitors felt blessed it wasn’t months. Dome Association sites each had rustic campsites for waiters. Township halls’ soup kitchens fed the masses.
Rose and her family were next. The door whooshed open and soon they were breathing fresh air. The last surviving leafy plants, all now protected in domes, quietly gave color to their cheeks, if only for an hour. Baby Pip moved his limbs and smiled.
[100 words]
The adventurous Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the host of Friday Fictioneers.
Tao Talk 
Which one of the plants is Baby Pip?
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Beautiful!🌻
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:) Thanks and I love that sunflower!
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Jim, I deleted “no comment” and am adding this one. With Baby Pip’s limbs, I can see why you thought he was a plant. He’s a human baby that is slowly dying because he has no fresh air to breathe. When he gets fresh air in the dome he is revived. Hope that answers your question.
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“Feed me, Seymore.” I like the added twist to the preservation of plant life. I’m assuming Baby Pip isn’t a quadriplegic who regains the ability to move his limbs in the presence of plants. That would be a tragic twist. I’m imagining a more sinister twist.
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When the plants die, we die, so there is method to the madness. Baby Pip is languishing outside of the dome. Think Tiny Tim. You imagined right.
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Ah!
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At least everyone gets a fair turn
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The rich have domes they live in 24/7, so yes and no…
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This is a really dystopian view…. though I wonder how long we would last outside the dome.
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not long
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I wonder if this experience and opportunity is rationed out equally to all, or I suspect not…
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One tiny sip or the masses, one giant gulp for the top echelons, eh?
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a dystopian world narrated with much mystery and intrigues me to step out and breathe in more of its story -so well written!
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Thank you for your wonderful comment.
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my pleasure, your stories take me to many wonderful places.
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:) <3
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Great imaginative story.
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Thank you, Sadje.
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You’re welcome Li.
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A grim future, hopefully avoidable. The Des Moines Botanical Garden is a wonderful place to go on a frozen day like today.
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That was such a scary, and yet not impossible scenario. Well done.
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Thanks for reading and your comments, Sandra.
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At first I thought people were queuing to live in the dome, but I guess they were actually taking very short vacations.
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They were being given a chance to breathe fresh air for an hour every couple of weeks.
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Dear Lisa,
A world no one wants to live in, yet with auto emissions and plastics we’re closer and closer to it. Imaginative story.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thank you, Rochelle.
Shalom,
Lisa
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i’m hoping against hope that it won’t come to this. but the future looks bleak.
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The stories seem to be going back and forth between doomsday end-of-the-world and sci-fi this week. I read through the comments here, and was enlightened. I’d seen it a bit differently :)
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Thank you Linda. I’d be interested in hearing how you saw it? Also, yes, the photo did seem to generate a lot of those types of stories!
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Baby Pip seems to be the point of question. I immediately saw him as a meat-eating plant looking forward to his next snack. Others saw him as a human baby enjoying his taste of fresh air outside the dome. That smile at the end had a sinister feel for me, but then in a comment you said “Think Tiny Tim,” and there was certainly nothing sinister about him.
Open to interpretation, right? Which is one of the things I truly love about these 100-word novels we write each week :)
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Linda, you know I’ve gone dark a time or two, so having a dark spin on it wouldn’t be unusual. It may very well be exactly as you say. I just netted the story and wrote it down. You are exactly right on your last paragraph. One of the reasons I love Friday Fictioneers also <3
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Nice of the rich people to let the commoners have a quick go.
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Is this the future? A thought-provoking piece.
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Good question, Keith, thanks.
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A chilling vision of a future I hope we manage to avoid. Well written
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Thank you, Lynn, and yes, I hope it never comes to pass.
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My pleasure
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What of baby Pip, what future will there be? You paint a rather dystopian scenario. lets plan ahead if only for little pip.
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Yes, James. A very kind-hearted comment.
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A very bleak look into the future. I had no doubts that the baby was human and enjoyed the fresh air. I think the very young and the very old are the ones most affected by bad air quality.
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Yes
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A dystopian future with a hint of hope.
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Thank you for reading and your comment, Magarisa.
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My pleasure, Li.
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Oh this is clever.
Fresh clean air inside the dome. No wonder the wait list has blown out!
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Very cool story! A bit bleak but with a little silver lining at the end. Hopefully reality doesn’t come to this. Ha…
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Thanks, Parker. I hope it doesn’t either. When I see what’s happening in Australia, I have to wonder…
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