Mildred needed a coat. The zipper didn’t close, and even the gentlest breeze would find it’s way to freeze her skin. Winter lay before her and New Year always came with blizzards.
Pushing her cart brimming with summer dresses she edged closer to the shop’s window,
Window shopping had another meaning compared to last year. The warmth of Richard’s hands lingered like phantom pains, and she could hear herself purring:
‘I love that necklace, darling’.
Richard smiled.
Then came the hospital bills, his funeral, and being left with nothing.
‘I would love that winter-coat’..
She saw herself; smiling in reflection.
© Shaktiki Sharma
The image this week told me a sad story again. I think many of us fear how an accident or illness can pull us down to a point where we never thought we’d be.
Friday Fictioners gather around the same image every week and exercise in the task of storytelling in only 100 words. Rochelle try to keep it all together, setting an example and inspire with her writing.
—
December 28, 2016
Dear Björn,
Sad story but so beautifully told.
Shalom,
Rochelle
I see the beauty in Friday Fictioneers a lot in how to tell a tale.. obviously it’s hard to have an original narrative in 100 words.
Tragic tale
Thank you (I think)
This is insanely good. I was loving every smooth, lizard-dripped word, then quickly accepted the unexpected death and moved right past it and into that exquisite final line. That’s where I’ll be imagining a thousand different possibilities today.
Honestly, loss can be unbearable, especially if the love is/was strong, but if her debt is paid off and she’s at zero, not below, then I think life could become the most beautiful, simplistic canvas. Maybe she’s just a gypsy girl, at heart.
I just wanted to leave you with that hope.. I think she will find herself out of where she is
I liked the note of positivity at the end there, like the wheel might possibly go full circle eventually. Well done.
I think that from the bottom you can either drown or seek the air.
Possibly a long, grim winter ahead of her. You’re right, any of us can be coasting comfortably along, then a chasm opens beneath us and we fall right through. Very well written, a sad, sad tale
That’s what scares me most… sometimes we are acrobats without a net below. But hopefully she can get through
Aww, what if she smiled at her reflection because she could see the shape of her tummy, with his baby inside? I love this idea. 🙂
Let’s hope so. Great story, Bjorn
My take on this week’s prompt told a similar story, yet from the point of view of a mother whose daughter ended up on ice. I thought of how I breastfed both my kids for well over a year and made my first stewed apple without sugar as his first meal and how he refused to eat it and how you do all that right as a parent and yet our kids can still slip through our grasp. It is scary how easy it is to slip through the cracks. This reminds me, too, that we need to look out for our friends and those in our sphere and to ask the next question and put ourselves out there for them. We all need the community fabric to bounce back from whatever adversity hits us.
Speaking of this, I am growing sunflowers from seeds taken from the MH17 crash site in the Ukraine. I might have mentioned it to you before but the hope these represent to me seems like a perfect response to the setbacks experienced by the woman in your story.
xx Rowena
Love the tale of those sunflower seeds… could be as the poppy from the field of flandern
Thanks, Bjorn and thank you for sharing that connection with the poppies from Flanders Field. I hadn’t thought of that and the fields of sunflowers make such a potent symbol of resistance to the effects of terrorism and war. Beautiful!
xx Rowena
I love the glimmer of hope at the end. 🙂
There is almost always hope…
We all live on an edge of uncertainty…yet find strength and hope.
We are strange creatures…even when it’s darkest we still seek the light.
So true!
Very sad indeed. Some of us are the lucky ones.
DJ
Fortunately most of us are not unlucky at least.
There but for fortune you go and I. It only takes a second to change the direction of one’s life. You really brought that home. Happy New Year!
Happy New year to you too.
A grim tale, well told.
Thank you… grim with grit.
There are shades of Christmas past in this tale,
I thought a bit of that indeed… glad it came through
Well told… Strange, the memories we hold on to?
I think we hold on to both the worst and the best…
Sad and ominous story, Bjorn. Hopefully there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for her
I’m sure it is… she will have a cold winter, but then comes spring.
Very sad. There’s a lot of death this week! I hope she finds a way through this.
I think she will.. there is a lot of strength in a smile.
Life and station can change in a moment leaving us wishing for what we had.
I think maybe the memories is what keeps us afloat sometimes.
It can if we use it right. Sometimes for me it turns into a lead weight. I cannot dwell on what is gone too long.
Well written as usual, Björn. Life does that to us, doesn’t it? More reason to take nothing for granted. I like that she still has hope…
We can never take anything for granted… never.
Never….
Oh gosh so sad! What an awful year for her.
I hope that next year will be better.
Unfortunately the life we least expected becomes the life we have to accept.
Happy New Year,
Tracey
Happy new year back
perhaps she could exchange some of her summer dresses for a coat at the thrift shop. just a thought.
I think her need is for more than wintercoats in reality though
A new year, a new start …hopefully. Beautifully written.
My tale is called ‘Oh Bother!’
Oh yes,… I hope for a much better world
Too poor for a winter coat – there are thousands in that plight. You write so well.
Indeed… hopefully she will get one… and more as spring comes.
Good touch of irony at the end. Structured well, too.
Have a Happy New Year, Bjorn!
I think irony can help you, just like a smile.
😦 Sad. I hope it doesn’t bring blizzards!
I hope so too.
Such tragedy. You portray the bleakness of her loss so well. I want to buy her a coat and give her a big hug. I’m guessing that her friends fell away from her since the funeral, or they’d know of her plight D:
I have a feeling that she’s ashamed to receive help… she just says that all is fine and that she needs time…
D:
Sad story and yet maybe there is some hope in that smile.
I think that smile is a good beginning.
Such a tender story, Björn, that actually made me cry. So many people face this every day in the US. We have so much to be ashamed of, when it comes for caring for the people who need compassion. Thanks for shining a light on this sad problem.
Happy New Year, friend! xo
I hope that somewhere we can find in our heart compassion, and help the few who falls.
Awww … the winter chill that can touch deep inside to the core.
The tone of her pain came through brilliantly. A fantastic well-written story, Bjorn. I got misty at the end.
Happy New Year 2017 🎉 Cheers 🍷
Isadora 😎
I shouldn’t be glad that you got misty… but I hope that she will a find a way to push through
A subtle reminder that we are all just a minor tragedy away from the brink.
Thanks for keeping us humble 😉
Sometimes I feel that we need to have a safety net when walking on a tight-rope.