Mini Story, Photo Prompt

Destination Unknown

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Our gracious host, Rochelle, is asking us to get
creative in 100 words or less using the photo
seen below. Welcome to Friday Fictioneers
This is where the prompt took me.

© David Stewart

Mrs. Zhou had followed her GPS religiously for twenty minutes, marching down Battery Park’s tree-lined sidewalk with unwavering confidence.

“YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION”, it announced cheerfully.

She looked around. No restaurant. No address. Just pavement and walls.

“RECALCULATING”, the phone chirped.

“Again?” she questioned, glaring at the screen.

It had led her to a fish market, a tire shop, and now….. nowhere.

A passerby noticed her predicament. “Lost?”

“No!” Mrs. Zhou said firmly, chin up. “My GPS is lost. I know exactly where I am.”

She marched back the way she came, phone notifications pinging frantically behind her.

NAR©2026
100 Words

This is “Any Road” by George Harrison

13 February 2026

 All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

54 thoughts on “Destination Unknown”

      1. I had to snicker at your first comment. We have a saying in our family. If mom thinks it’s left, go right! No, I should have said, but I don’t drive. It’s been 23 years now, because we’ve lived in places outside the US where I can easily take public transport. And that’s what I choose to do. haha. I don’t miss driving (only occasionally). When we visit a new city, my hubby serves as our GPS because he does have an excellent sense of direction (whew).

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  5. A great snapshot of our over dependancy on the creeping technological world we live in. I know people who set they Sat Nav just to go to the shops, where they travel to every week.

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  6. I’m calling you out on this one. This is not fiction. My GPS has literally tried to kill me. It told me to turn onto a freeway offramp. I wrote an animated series years ago that never went anywhere, but I had one of those TomTom devices try to kill my main characters. They eventually threw it out the window, but it came back in a later episode to try to kill them like a Terminator.

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      1. Fortunately, I’m not a slave to my phone. I knew better than to drive onto the off ramp.

        I hoped to get it produced, but I had no idea how to do that. I’ve considered turning it into a book. Now, with AI, there may be a way to make it myself if I choose to. If you really want to read it, that may be possible. Only the first episode is more than a rough draft.

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    1. Mrs. Zhou is based on a woman I would see in the grocery story from time to time; whenever a clerk asked if she needed help, she would raise her chin and firmly declare “No. I’m fine. It’s your shelves that could be better organized.” What a character she was!

      I’m glad you enjoyed my story and the music; as I like to say: “There’s not a single thing wrong with a George Harrisong.”

      Thank you!

      🕊️

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  8. Very funny post, Nancy. A GPS can get lost or provide incorrect navigation, leading to you getting lost. This happens due to signal obstruction (tunnels, skyscrapers), outdated maps, battery failure, atmospheric interference, or signal jamming. While devices can lose signal, they can also misdirect users by taking them to the wrong location. 

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  11. Ugh! I feel her pain! Happened to me once. Of course, if it didn’t start off with a “turn north on…” North? I’m not at a crossroads and I came out of a building! Tell me left or right, dammit!

    Excellent, my friend.

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