Charli’s prompt this week:

February 8, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes fireweed. You can use it as the plant, a flower, a metaphor or as the name of someone or something. Go where the prompt leads. Burn bright when you write.

“It’s hard to believe the carnage that happened here a short while ago.” Olivia looked around at the bombsite where once her home had stood.
Across the whole area, pretty purple flowers grew, giving the destroyed street a hazy filter.
“That rosebay willowherb has just taken over. It’ll take an age to clear it up too, before we can even think of rebuilding…” Janet sighed.
“Fireweed… that’s what they call that, across the Atlantic, where I’m from.” Chuck, the GI who had befriended them at the dance the night previously, said. “It sure loves a bit of burned ground!”

I’m not great at researching pieces, often just going where my mind takes me with prompts, but with this one, I had to do a little reading first, as I didn’t know much about fireweed, and other than cracking a joke about fire and wee… my imagination was coming up with nothing! Apparently, fireweed was rife where the bombs had razed parts of London to the ground, during World War 2.

https://carrotranch.com/2018/02/08/february-8-flash-fiction-challenge/