Tag Future

Fevered – Alastair’s Photo Fiction

freyathewriter 16 Comments

Here is my offering for Alastair’s Photo Fiction this week, inspired by the photo below.  Why not take part? And why not visit his photography and writing blog to take a look at his other photos…?

Copyright - Kattermonran

Copyright – Kattermonran

– Fevered –

I will never reach the end – the heat will sear me like meat on a spit. I imagine my hair crackling and frizzing, my skin crisping.

We are all but flesh.

I pause, blinking against the searing sweat flooding my eyes. The sting takes me back to a buried schoolgirl memory; a cross-country run in freezing January, the finale a lung-bursting incline to the crematorium.  The irony is not lost on me.

I would kill for that biting wind, for breath torn from my chest in frozen gasps, for skin encased with gooseflesh. Now all we have is a furious orange sun, farther away from our planet than ever, yet burning us alive latitude by latitude.

Winter is a myth.

I wipe my eyes against a sweat-soaked shirtsleeve and resume my climb. 

Redacted

freyathewriter 8 Comments

It’s beginning to feel as if life has always been this way. Most days, I forget the months and years of Before. We took all that for granted. We complained about endless summer holiday boredom. What I wouldn’t give to be bored, right now.

Water needs to be collected from the standpipe two streets away. Little Sarah has taken on that thankless task, balancing a container on her head and carrying it ‘like the African ladies’, so she tells me. She thinks it’s fun.

Davina deals with our washing. She found the twin tub in the shed, got Lance to drag it out for her. Thank goodness it still had the mangle attached. We turn the rollers by hand and squeeze the water out of our clothes. Nothing is really clean, but we manage a sight better than most. The kids down the road – the two Underwood boys and a couple of other strays – are filthy and stink to high heaven. They make me feel sick. I’m not sorry for them.

I’m glad we hadn’t moved to the countryside. What about the farm animals, broken loose and roaming half-feral and starving across the overgrown fields? How would I know what was safe to eat? At least we can take tins from the warehouses by the docks and know what’s inside. Lance finds our food – he’s quick, strong and knows all the shortcuts, away from the empty main streets, away from the danger.

They had said we should leave, that it wouldn’t be safe in the city. But we’ll be OK for a bit, at least until the next Collection. And we know the hiding places – They don’t.

“Lucy, Lucy.”

Sarah is tugging on my sleeve.

“Yes, sweetheart, what is it?”

“When’s Daddy and Mummy coming back?”

My heart creases. The pain is as sharp and overwhelming as ever. She hasn’t forgotten them either. I had hoped she would be saved from that, at least.

“Never, honey. I’m sorry.”

She hugs me, hard, locking her fingers together behind my back, squeezing the breath out of me. “And how long is never?”

Too long.

Interwoven – (not quite) Trifecta Week 88

freyathewriter 21 Comments

Below would have been my offering for week 88′s Trifecta challenge word, which is ‘band’ except I didn’t use it as a verb – whoops! Too much rushing, not enough time and reading on a smartphone! As you will see from the relevant blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘band’ is:

– to gather together: unite <banded themselves together for protection>

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! Please check here for the other entries!

I’m going to leave this piece as it is though, since it means a lot to me.

*****

– Interwoven –

The sisters stood, arms slung around one another’s waists, motionless in the soporific heat of the summer dusk.

They had done it. They had reached the end of a day which at its start, none of them had secretly thought they would achieve – not without falling by the wayside, not without splintering with exhaustion and despair.

In the middle of the triumvirate stood the eldest, uniting them all. Battered by the implosion that had threatened to shred them all to pieces, she felt old, so very old, as the sun drowned itself in the evening sky. She knew that grey hairs had silvered her dark mop in the past few weeks, that new lines had etched her once-smooth forehead.

Badges of honour, she thought.

Despite everything, despite the tearing at their flesh as they had said their goodbyes, she felt a tiny glint of happiness deep in her chest. She had regained her sister after all these years. She had found a bond with a step-sister she had hardly known, not until recent weeks.

She imagined a band of bright steel, sparkling in the now violet gloom, linking the three of them together. Their separate pasts had made them who they are. Their united futures would honour the man they had each loved in their own, unique ways.

She raised her eyes to the stars above, grasping the lifeline of her sisters a little closer.

Thank you, Dad.

Trifecta