70 responses to “Clear it out! – for Friday Fictioneers.”

1. Truly melancholic. Nicely done.

   • Thank you.. I will go through and read more later.. I almost expect this to be a common theme.

2. this reminds me when I visited my parents once and they had turned my room into the junk/hoarding room – despair! Good write

   • Ah.. yes my mom has done the same..

     • don’t they know how important we were ????? 🙂

3. There’s a good lesson in this — don’t keep what you don’t need because someone else has to eventually deal with it.

   • My mother lives like this..

     • We cleared out my in-law’s house on Fyn earlier this year, and they lived like that.

4. An amazing range of emotions in this weeks stories. Dawn with her hard nipples and you inheriting a father’s misery. FF always keeps you guessing. Good one!

   • That’s what I like the most as well.. the variation (and quite often far from the obvious)

5. def not easy when someone dies, cleaning out all the things…esp so full of memory like the family home….

   • memories are not all good.. can make it even harder.

6. I will add my father’s misery to my own How many of us do this? Whether it is misery or glee? Nicely done this week, Bjorn.

   • it’s all too common taking the misery from parents..

7. The winding down of lives lived – bitter sweet . . . but mostly sad (or so I have found).

   • I think the sadness can be is the bitterness one brings along

8. Melancholy does well in October. It is my favorite time of year and favorite month, but still…
   Of course, melancholy is only a hop, skip, and throw from horror!
   🙂

   • ha.. yes melancholy is just a lighter form of angst

     • Isn’t it, though?

9. Bjorn,

   You put in words exactly what I felt when I first looked at the prompt photo with Nan. Thanks for your story this week. It is an emotional mover. You are an excellent writer, especially with the words “with a jolt”.

   Mike

   • Thank you Mike, it was a hard picture to write on.. but somehow it was an overwhelming collection..

10. Such pain handled with such sensitivity — and your ending line is magnificent.

    • Thank you. I think it was a story that was close ti myself

11. Dear Bjorn, I’ve been real melancholy lately too and I do think it’s the fall season (and the fact that I just turned 65). I’m OLD!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well – beats the alternative. Love your story Bjorn. You are such a good writer! Nan 🙂

    • Sometimes the feeling of getting old can be quite tough to handle… but as you say the alternative is worse

12. What a melancholy story. All those dreams and now nothing but memories and inherited detritus. Great piece.

    • Thank you.. yes October makes me morose.

13. Bjorn, A different style from your usual, but a good story and well written. A lot of people seem to hoard. —Susan

    • I wrote a lot of melancholy earlier.. but I think that October makes it natural… thank you so much..

14. Few things in life are worse than inherited misery. Time for a ruthless clear-out I think, though that is easier said than done! Well captured 🙂

    • I think it’s the hardest thing to clear out.. especially if you already have a lot.

15. Such a sentimental and sad story. I could feel the anguish. Your first and last lines are perfect. I really like “inherited faults.” We did have similar ideas this week with the collecting/hoarding of objects and family matters, but my story took a darker turn.

    • Thank you.. I think mine could have turned even darker… but I decided to stay within the depressive..

16. Thought-provoking: made me reflect on the difficulty of clearing out the unnecessary pain and burdens of the past, inherited or no.

    • Alas we tend to stick to those things that are bad for us.

17. So many great phrases. I like the relationship of the piling up of physical things to the accumulation/recognition of our flaws.

    • Thank you.. so many things I feel we are too sentimental and love our misery.

18. I hate that he inherited his father’s misery.

    • That’s sad when it happens… But I think we all do.

19. Well told, Bjorn. You’ve got the melancholy but balanced it with self-realisation. He’s aware now – I think he’ll overcome.
    Marg

    • Maybe – or linger in his misery…

20. It’s very sad story, lost of dreams and lives. No hope in the future!

    • Just maybe it will – realizing the mechanism is the first step.

21. “Inherited faults”–we all have them, don’t we? Interesting reflection from this prompt.

    All my best,
    Marie Gail

    • We all carry the backpack of our past don’t we?

22. A true-to-life story for many…if not in its entirety…for sure in various aspects. Definitely something to which I can relate…

    • There are elements in a story like this that fits most of us.. part of it is of course autobiographical..

23. Dear Bjorn,

    I should have put my little foam smiley face ball in that picture, then I wouldn’t have to go kill myself. You nailed the melancholy right to my skull. Well done.

    Aloha,

    Doug

    • Ah.. no need to kill yourself.. I wonder if a foam smiley would have changed my take though 🙂 I think happy memories are rarely connected to misery.

24. Dear Björn,

    After my parents died (within three years of each other) we moved into his house. My inherited faults remained before my eyes for the next 25 years. Depressing, but well written.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

    • My mother’s home fills my thoughts (actually part of my inspiration).. within (not to many years ) we will have to take care of it.. and neither my sister nor me will move there.

25. You certainly took this reader down, down into despair. But then there’s light. Nicely done.

26. Yeah, this was melancholic indeed. Lovely piece.

27. Melancholy is about right – I shall have to have a cup of tea to recover my equilibrium!

28. Perhaps, there’s a lesson here: live in the now and enjoy what you have with the people in your life; stuff is just stuff. 🙂 Great story!

29. This is rather somber, Bjorn. I can see having collected all that stuff in one place might make one feel overwhelmed with life’s inadequacies. This made me think of my coffee tin of seashells I kept throughout all my childhood. You know, I never know what happened to that. Great story and nicely written.

30. This reminds me a lot of what a friend of mine is going through right now…sorting through a lifetime of things left behind after a loved one’s passing. Bittersweet, a chore, surprising and sometimes, happy.

31. Great take on the prompt, Björn! I agree that many can relate to this.

32. This is sad and reflective…letting go of all that ‘stuff’ takes a long time. I hope there’s a little corner in the museum for inherited qualities.
    Ellespeth

33. This definitely rings a bell. Very well written, but a little too near to home! I’m not a hoarder, as I don’t want to inflict all that sort of clearing up on my offspring after I’m gone..

34. Yes, I have already been told to clean out 4 boxes of junk old papers. My daughter said no matter; either way, moving or otherwise, please do not make me move them again. :)) Thankful my parents were never hoarders. Good luck with all the memories when you go through the home museum. Love reading on your sites.

35. A sorry tale indeed Bjorn. Well told

36. Brilliant! I thought it was your personal testament when I first read. Real and sharply edged in every way.

37. Melancholy indeed, but shouldn’t we strive to overcome our inherited faults?

38. Ah! That’s a great ending. Melancholic but a wonderful read.

39. Nicely crafted piece, dripping with melancholy.

40. The importance of the first sentence, perfectly represented. You had me at “hello”.

41. I like the way you catalogued the collection in your narrator’s museum, but I’m going to be positive and hope that the realisation of adding his/ her father’s misery will result in its letting go.

42. Melancholy definitely works. Really like what you did here.

43. We do inherit much more than things from our family. A lot to think about here.

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