Lillie McFerrin's Weekly Flash Fiction Prompt - 'Forgotten'
This is where this week's prompt took me:
Alice
had been sifting through the contents of the old box in search of something
else, when she stumbled across them. She couldn’t resist opening them and
having a read, reminiscing over her lost love. The letters had been nothing
less than an out-pouring of his soul, and she found herself sick again with the
love they had once shared; tears rolling down her face as they had when she had
first opened them.
She heard her husband call up to her; wondering where she
was and whether she had found their old wedding photos. She didn’t reply as she
bundled the letters up and stuffed them into another box, trying hard not to
think about the day she’d received the news that he wouldn’t be back; instead
rummaging through the other boxes and pulling out the album from the special
day she had spent with the man downstairs, shutting the memories of the love of
her life away to be forgotten again.
Such a sad twist to this tale, my heart aches for Alice because I knew exactly what those moments feel like. Very beautifully written Miranda!
ReplyDeleteI love this, because though I'm very happily married, there will always be emotions that accompany old memories...I get the same response when rereading diaries!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
I always find scenes depicting bittersweet melancholy very powerful because they require the character (and the writer) to deal with multiple emotions at once. There is the joy of remembering her lost love - a love that still continues even if unfulfilled, the sadness of knowing he is gone, and the resignation that what she wants can never be. And in this scenario, she also has to deal with the feelings for her husband. Does she hide the letters because she doesn't want him to know out of respect for their relationship - or out of fear? I can't tell from what's here, but you can see how a complex situation can be described in just a few sentences.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder what was so special about her lost love that his memory still burns within her.
Very nice!
Thanks for all your comments.
ReplyDeleteIn response to K R smith - respect not fear, definitely.
And sometimes some loves are so deep and passionate you never quite get over them!
Thanks for reading.
Love it, Miranda! Such a beautifully sweet and sad scene! Poignant. Great job.
ReplyDelete