Hello readers! Sorry I’ve been MIA lately. Life has thrown a lot my way, and I’m working to adjust accordingly. Hopefully in a month or so, I’ll be posting regularly again. I’ve got ideas, just need to get them down on the paper. 🙂
This month, I decided to participate in the Penprints Flash Fiction Dash. It’s a challenge where you receive either a sentence or picture prompt and write a story from it that’s 1000 words or less. I had a lot of fun working on this, and thought I’d share it with you all since it has to do with relationships. (And because I haven’t posted in a while… oops.) Picture prompt and story below. Please read and enjoy!
The Decision
Silver rails and wood ties, as far as the eye could see. She looked to the east, then the west. Would the train come? Where would it take her?
Snow lay deep, interrupted only by bare trees and dead brush.
Long, dark hair fell over her shoulder and tickled her cheek, rustled by the winter breeze. The abandoned bridge lay above her, supported on stacked, rough-hewn blocks of stone. Frozen rivulets of water shone in the sky’s dim white light. Guard rails perched atop the black road kept phantom cars from plunging onto the tracks below.
Snow fingers crawled toward her boots over the gravel under the bridge. The silver rail she stood on could have frozen to her feet through thin boot soles.
She looked east. So many choices, so many destinations.
She must choose.
The wind whispered in her ear.
Tell me which way to go.
A single word resounded in her mind, as if the wind held her answer.
Alone.
Faux fur tickled bare thighs and calves. She bunched the sleeves of her hoodie in her fists, hiding fingerless gloves.
No one had come here with her. Few would wish to. This place held nothing for them.
And everything for her. So many thoughts and decisions she’d made here.
On her own.
The wind died. The snow’s stretching fingers rested among rocks strewn between railroad ties and hair settled on her shoulders. She licked dry lips.
Moisture froze.
How would she decide?
The world’s answer wouldn’t match the wind’s. Whom did she trust with this?
Only herself.
No one else would dare to understand. They’d only push her closer to the world’s answer.
She’d only ever had herself, really. Would that continue the rest of her life?
And if it did? She’d lived almost thirty years of life on her own. A few close friends had scattered to the winds, still there but harder to reach out to in times of need.
So she must turn to herself. As she’d always done before those friends stole into her life and heart.
She closed her eyes, breathing in winter’s sharp, bitter air.
Thank goodness she hadn’t become bitter.
Much lay in her past, all that she’d come to terms with. She’d accepted every piece of it. Even her own guilt.
Yet here she stood, indecisive. Which path to take?
The wind whispered again. To her.
Alone.
Perhaps the wind knew best.
She’d done many things wrong. Broken friendships lay scattered behind her like rocks, fragments of those few she’d hurt and alienated.
If she avoided going deeper than friendship, what would that make of her life?
It would give her everything she’d ever wanted, hoped for.
She’d only ever wanted a friend. Close friends, both guys and girls.
And now?
The world pushed toward dating, engagement, marriage. She grew older every day, and the world reminded her at each turn.
But she had remained careful, selective. If she chose not to follow the world, she could gain everything she’d ever wanted.
Would others understand?
No.
As the world saw it, one couldn’t be happy without a marriage, a family.
And yet she was. She’d been happy for years on her own, focusing on friendships. Friendships she still held on to, the kind that lasted.
And when she’d delved deeper than that? Disaster. And lost another friend.
Not again.
Only once had it been the right decision to step past friendship into something deeper. In the end, she’d lost a friend, a good and close one. But that had made sense, it had been right. She’d learned from it, more than if it had never happened.
This last foray into dating? Her own foolishness. And her fault they no longer spoke.
Perhaps they’d never speak again.
She must learn to rely on herself first, her own voice of reason. Not her emotions, so easily influenced by those around her.
Alone.
Yes, that’s the train she must take. She must defy the world’s views. Remain on her own, forming close, lasting friendships.
That’s all she’d ever wanted.
Now, she must live up to that decision.
She turned west and stepped from rail tie to rail tie, standing straighter than she had in days. The wind flowed around her, as if commending her choice.
Alone: how she was meant to live.
Voice Pianissimo 
What are your thoughts?