Badger ran ahead of us through the snow. “He seems to be his ordinary self, doesn’t he?” said the man at my side.
“Right now… yes. But there are moments when I can tell.” I wasn’t sure yet whether the experiment was a success. Every once in a while the dog would lose the façade. His engineered nature bled through when the animal became tired.
“It’ll be okay,” the man reassured. I didn’t trust him either. It was his company that stood to gain the profit if the experiment succeeded. And he had always been reluctant to accept my observations.
[...] internet is out at home so can’t upload until I get a break at work today. In the meantime, here’s the page where mine will be, and you can go on and leave your links and comments there. I’ll catch up [...]
I’m baaaack
And I think my internet at home will be back this evening, thank God. Just now making my way down the list, and the going will be slow because I’m working the day job too. So if I don’t reach yours today, I’ll be there tonight or tomorrow morning! Whooo-hoooo! I love our fun on Fridays 
Good Morning Mads!
I’ll keep my eye out (and stuck to the desk with some tape) for your story as well as those of all the rest of the gang. Here’s the link to mine. (Following Sasha) Enjoy.
http://ironwoodwind.wordpress.com/
Aloha,
Doug
I wrote one… I am going to write a few more on this! Good prompt!
Here’s the first one!
http://faitaccompli.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/ho-ho-ho-ho/
Is all this snow causing you to have a white-out with your internet?
Hopefully you will be back on line soon.
Ah for the safety of good old England!
Here is what you have wrought from me today:
http://fictionvictimtoo.blogspot.com
Lindaura
No, what happened with my internet is that I disconnected one service before the next one took effect, which has left me netless for about a week! Terrible oversight, lol, and it’ll never happen again if I can help it.
This snow was from 2 years ago. Last year we had an even better snow than that one, but hardly any so far this year. I love snow, so wish we’d get a good foot, and a foot is enough, all winter long.
Hi Madison,
Here is mine:
http://repuestodelatabla.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/friday-fictioneer-6-baby-its-cold-outside/
Hope to see yours up and out of the snow soon…
Carlos
[...] Friday Fictioneer time again. This weeks photo prompt from Madison Woods had me thinking about [...]
Great prompt Madison.
Had me thinking of cats and wandering off.
Here’s mine:
http://mjshorts.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/always-wandering-off-a-100-word-story/
I’m so slow today! Just getting to you’d Mike …
I love this photo! It made me want to curl up by a warm fire with my dog! Thanks, Madison. I’m on the road to Dallas this morning, so will look forward to reading everyone’s flash fiction tonight or tomorrow! Here’s mine:
http://jansthoughtsovercoffee.blogspot.com/2012/01/flashfriday-fictioneers-home.html
Mine is ready I just have to get to a computer. I feel so left out!
Can’t wait to read yours and the others
Finally made it to you Jan! Hope you are enjoying your road trip
Nice picture, M!
Had me thinking of all the snow fights I’ve came across the past years (except this one because there’s still no snow here).
Here’s my attempt: http://wp.me/uGD7
//Cae
I heard on the news report this morning that snow is scarce in lots of places. Hope we get some this year. that photo was from 2 years ago. Heading your way next
Looking forward to seeing what my fellow writers make of this. My offering is somewhat on the dark side but that is where my muse often wanders. Here is my effort:
jeffreyhollar.com/2012/01/unexpected-complications.html
My offerings are usually on the dark side, too so I’m looking forward to yours
[...] more 100 word flash fiction by the #Fictioneers, check out Madison Wood’s blog and look for the links in the comment section. It would be so great if you would share [...]
Will post a new dribble on Sunday, meanwhile here’s a link to my latest (last Sunday’s) post: http://joelerner.blogspot.com/2012/01/0420.html
Alright Joe, heading your way next.
Hi Madison, I’m a newbie so maybe I’m not quite getting it. Is it mandatory to use your photo prompt to participate in this weekly forum? Thanks!
Nope not at all. A couple others don’t use it. It doesn’t bother me if you don’t use it
Sent from my iPhone… You should have seen the typos I *did* catch!
Here is mine! Another Traxin adventure!!
Crashing
http://susielindau.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/crashing-100-word-flash-fiction/
Alright, let’s go see what poor Traxin has gotten himself into now
“An explosion ripped the ancient city—a smart-bomb’s direct hit.” http://joelerner.blogspot.com/2012/01/0420.html
Looking forward toreading everyone’s flash fiction tonight..Here is mine:http://squidwrite.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/the-snow-wolf/
Hey! Glad to see you join us again – I’m heading your way on my next break.
[...] for Madison Wood’s FridayFictioneers for the photo prompt shown above. I did go over 100 words, I think my count was 117- next time, [...]
[...] courtesy of Madison Woods. You can see the picture prompt if you follow the link. 100 words, no more, no [...]
Thanks, Madison! I’m officially back. Also, I posted some pictures of St. Andrews on my blog, so when you get to my story (I know you’re working and busy for the moment, but when you do eventually), you can find them by clicking back to the home page and they should be obvious.
Here’s my 100 words: http://thecolorlime.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/the-driveway-100/
Oh boy! Heading your way next
Thanks 
Good Morning everyone,
here’s mine:
http://cleveroldowl.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/friday-fictioneers-snowy-trails/
Here’s to a great year for writing.
Craig
Here, Here! to a great writing year *Raises glass to toast*
Happy Friday!
Here’s mine http://russellgayer.blogspot.com/
Here I am, chugging in late, of course. I loved writing this one. Great picture, and looking forward to reading yours!
http://sweettea.kdmccrite.com/flash-fiction-3/the-dog-in-the-snow-flash-fiction-1612/
Finally made it here to you KD!
Will these dogs be manufactured in China? If this man wants to maximize the profit, that seems like the most economically profitable course. And are there any plans for parallel lines of products? Cats, especially. Very creative thinking, way out there. You can’t even see the box from where you wrote this.
Here’s the link to my humble effort: http://bridgesareforburning.wordpress.com.
Ha. Hadn’t thought yet about where they might be manufactured, but no, I don’t think China will be the right place.
This one will likely make its way into a short story or perhaps a short novel one day. Thanks for your comment!
Heading your way next
I don’t have a story today. I’ve been swamped with edits for myself and editing for others. I loved your story, though, Madison. I loved the tension and the uncertainty in it. Well done. Have a great Friday and a wonderful first weekend of 2012!
Siobhan
Very sweet of you to stop in and comment on my story Siobhan! Editing is next on my list of things to do tonight too. Good luck on yours and you have a wonderful first weekend of the new year too
[...] more flashes prompted by this photo, and to learn more about flash fiction, visit Madison Woods and go exploring. Advertisement GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", [...]
Managing to be creative while battling a cold is exhausting, but here’s my Friday Fictioneers offering–plus a little writing tip.
http://mymusings-maggie.blogspot.com/2012/01/two-for-one.html
Sorry to hear you have a cold, but happy to see you managed to create something anyway! Heading your way next
A great story Madison.
A clever idea of using technology to recreate dogs that once were.
I loved the line, “His engineered nature bled through when the animal became tired.”
Thanks Mike
That’s a very interesting take on the image.
A dubious sponsor with vested interests, a brilliant scientist with conscience,an unaware subject – a dog and an untested experiment showing signs of failure. Makings of an interesting thriller perhaps?
Wow. I might have to use that for my tag line! Seriously, I do think there’s enough there to build a larger story and had planned to do that one day. Thanks
I love that you named your dog Badger. Mine is Bowser…
I like your take on the picture. Genetic engineering is a scary yet interesting subject. Dean Koontz writes often about engineered/altered golden retrievers…
PS – Here is MY 100 words! Thanks for reading:
http://www.susanwenzel.com/
Late getting down the list tonight, but heading your way next, Susan
Is your real dog named Bowser too? Badger had dark ear tips and slight mask when he was a puppy, so we named him that because of it. As he’s gotten older, it’s all faded to where he’s mostly white now. When he’s not dirty.
Yes, I have a Koontz idea rolling around in my head, but it might already have been done to death. I’ll have to see.
thanks for reading mine
Nope…I have a PeeWee (5yo Basenji mix) and a Mindy (11yo Black Lab) – both rescues – but those names didn’t flow as well to me. Bowser was the first thing that popped into my head.
Thanks again for reading!
See? This is what I don’t understand: This story is not actually listed anywhere else on the blog. Unless I happen to see the link somewhere, I don’t know how to get to it. With most blogs, it would, at least, show up in the general stream of things. On this site, however, things don’t appear to be linked in the normal fashion. I have not had this problem on any other sites.
Anyway, now that I AM in the right place, here is the link for my entry: http://wp.me/p24aJS-Y
Hmmmm. It should have been on today’s post to the blog. Did that link not work for you? It’s the same generic (except for the first paragraph which I update) post every Friday, which directs to the story page (which changes every Friday). Oh, maybe you’re trying to get here from the Wed photo prompt though – I’ll need to add a link on that page too, maybe! Sorry you’ve had a hard time finding us but glad to see you did in the end
Ah! Are you trying to find us from the Wednesday post with the photo prompt? You’re right, I don’t have any links on that page because when i post it there’s no story yet to comment on. But I’ll remedy that right now. The rest of us are getting here from Friday’s post, where I do have links. But now I’ve fixed the problem and made links on Wednesday’s post too. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I didn’t know you were having trouble finding the story page.
Initially, I had bookmarked the #FridayFictioneers tab that you have at the top of your pages, but that was always going to the general description/rules with no way to continue to the current prompt or story, so I changed my bookmark just to go to your main page.
That, however, never has the week’s story – only the mentions about the prompts and, of course, the rest of your blogging activity. It’s as though the home page is set up to display only posts within certain categories and the prompts are in those categories but the stories are not.
Try it for yourself: without being logged in, go to http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/ and see if you can find this week’s story on that page. For that matter, use the browser’s CTRL-F search and see if you can find the word “Badger” anywhere on the page.
Right, none of the stories are ever on the blog posts. But I always give a link to the story page on Friday’s post. Be aware, for the next two weeks I won’t have a story but the Friday post is going to have a link like the one today to the story page and that’s where everyone will leave their links to their stories. Next week Jan Morrill is going to help with directing any lost souls and the week after that Susie Lindau will do it for me. I’ll be spending R & R time with my mate who will be in from Afghanistan for two weeks. The Friday post will have a link to the story page – it just won’t name the story. It says “here’s the page” or “go to the comment section and leave your link” something along those lines. Even if I don’t have a story of my own posted, the page will be there so everyone else can use it for a meeting place to find everyone else’s posts. Ordinarily I post daily or very close to it, so someone might not want to subscribe to get emails from my blog but always if you look at the calendar on the sidebar, you can click on a Friday and it’ll have the post for that day with the links to the story page. That’s probably the easiest way to find it if not subscribed to the emails. Both the Wednesday post and the Friday posts are fairly close to templates and I use them over and over every week just changing out links. There won’t be links on the next two Wednesday posts, though, because I won’t be online to make them live on Friday.
Hope that helped a little (sorry I got so wordy with it, LOL, but it might help anyone else who’s trying to find the right page)
[...] Woods Here’s the photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneer’s: (click here or on the photo to go to the story page on Friday. The links won’t be live until then.) Winter [...]
I agree with Susan. The story feels very Dean Koontz-esque – the good Dean Koontz anyway!
Great prompt, Madison. I couldn’t be happier to rejoin the Fictioneers! Look forward to reading all the stories and slowly getting back into the 100 word groove!
In the meantime, here’s mine. http://wp.me/pReXn-dP
Ohh, this is a great one, Madison. I really love the thought of what may be going on within the dog, what sort of changes may be happening. Very tantalizing.
This is my offering for the week and I will be making my way down the list very shortly: http://quillshiv.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/drifting/
Oh Madison! Great story. We’ve all been naturalistic and realistic and here you come with a sci-fi engineered dog – and the evil man from ‘the Company’.
Good show.
Lindaura
I’ve already left my lead up above, but just in case, and oh there are so many nice ones to read through today…
http://fictionvictimtoo@blogspot.com
Hmm . . . a bionic dog. Sounds like he needs a little tweaking to perform properly in cold weather. On the plus side, he probably won’t get worms or distemper, but could shut down by a nasty virus.
Good story.
A bionic dog? What happens to it if the experiment fails!
We had lots of snow last winter. Almost none this winter though. Except for the freak Halloween storm.
mine: http://storytreasury.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/friday-flash-teeth-and-string/
Hmmm. There have been failed experiments before this one…and of course they can’t just let flawed designs loose on the world. But I’ll bet there’s a black market willing to pay a high penny for a reject
Here is my link.
http://www.lisamccourthollar.com/2012/01/foul-ones.html
I look forward to reading everyone’s stories tonight and this weekend. Here’s my link (another Carrie, Margot & Luke episode )
http://www.wakefieldmahon.com/1/post/2012/01/friday-fictioneers-puppy-love.html
Love this as the start to what has to an interesting story- I want to know more! (Which is often the after-effect of great Friday fictioneer pieces.)
Wow! Lots of contributors today!
Loved yours Madison! A shape shifter! How cool is that!
I know! Unfortunately, I’m getting sleepy and will probably not get finished reading them all tonight and will have to continue tomorrow
[...] http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/snow-badger/ [...]
That’s a great prompt, a parting shot. Thanks.
“..engineered nature bled through…” Very nice.
Here’s mine:
http://wp.me/p1Tjpv-7H
We had so many contributors to the Friday Fictioneers this week – awesome! I think I’ve made it over to everyone’s blog now, so if I missed you please be sure to let me know
I’ll visit any that add on after this comment either today, tonight or tomorrow.
After Monday, I’ll be scarce around the internet! I’ll be on a blogging and writing vacation of sorts for the next two weeks, spending all the time I can with my partner and mate before he goes back to the war zone.
I’m so glad that you are getting time to spend with your mate. Have a wonderful vacation!
Better late than never, here’s my piece from yesterday.
As ever, thanks for the picture, Madison! I was intrigued by your story … what had happened to the dog???
[...] Madison’s photo prompt [...]
Forgive me for this… But I have taken the liberty to use this photo prompt for another bigger (wayyy more than 100 words) story post on my blog.
I just could not control… Hope that’s okay!
Here’s the link of it:
http://faitaccompli.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/the-seeker-and-the-sought/
Parul, I’m glad the picture inspired you to write more! I’m planning to read it tonight when I’m back at the computer.
Late in reading yours, Madison, but worth the wait. Nice clean prose, like I like, and one of the few this week that took a sci-fi direction — which worked very well. Definitely seems part of a larger story with corporate deceit, professional rivalry, probably Haliburton-style defence contracts, etc, etc. Maybe we all should just write your story out into a larger one!
Hahaha! I love your blurb too Carlos. Yes, that’s the story in a nutshell! I think it’s enough to frame a novel around it, actually. Thanks for coming back to read my late entry
Seems my link didn’t work. It should be http://wp.me/p1PeVl-2q
Off to read a few other people’s before my flight home now…
For some reason, I never saw your first link. Going to check now… (I’m responding to this via the email notification)
.
Now I see that it’s a dog… haha. This reminded me of The Watchers.
Here’s mine: http://wp.me/p1OGXr-5h
[...] more flashes prompted by this photo, and to learn more about flash fiction, visit Madison Woods and explore. Advertisement GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]