Here we go, the first flash of the year!
January is finally at an end, although January has never bothered me too much as I have a birthday in Jan. Anyway, little February is on the way. How about we go traditional again next month and have our theme as ‘Love’? I think we should mix it up for March though and go a bit random so get your thinking caps on, only 28 days to think of something!
Starting Over
‘You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.’ C.S. Lewis.
It was the fourth time she had read the quote in the last half hour.
She’d had a wobble, and in response he had given her this. A small embroidered piece of material; pink with a pale green border, the writing neatly stitched in black thread. Protecting it was a thin gold frame and an old piece of glass that was slightly pitted in one corner.
There was a knock at the door, and the giver entered the room.
‘Where did this come from?’
‘I thought thank you was the normal response!’ He bent down to kiss her cheek.
She blushed slightly. ‘Sorry, I mean, thank you it’s lovely, but surely you didn’t..?’
He chuckled. ‘No. I wasn’t practising my needle point last night. It was my mother’s. I’ve never done anything with it, apart from dusting it occasionally, so I thought it might be of more use in your office. Especially after this week.’
She grimaced. ‘My melt-down you mean?’
‘Your crisis of confidence, I prefer to call it. It’s quite common, with the…’ He tailed off.
‘With the what, the older ones? Go on say it, I dare you!’ Laughing, she slapped his knee.
Now it was his turn to blush. ‘Look. You are my favourite. I’ve given you a present and this is what I get. Bus seriously, getting into a state over a five hundred word piece of flash fiction? It’s daft. I’ve seen you calmer when you’ve been writing a novel to a tight deadline.’
She smiled again. ‘Well that’s different isn’t it, they’re so big it’s almost the way you have to write them. Cutting things, adding things, editing them to death, changing things, then changing them back again. But these small pieces, I don’t know, I just feel that I should be able to rattle them off, no problem, and it frustrates me when I can’t. It’s taken years to get here, and now I often think am I past it? Anyway, I hate starting over, and over, and over.’ She chuckled at the look of utter frustration on his face.
‘Don’t!’ She chastised him. ‘It’s important. It’s not often you get asked to write a piece like this, and for such a special occasion, to such a tight deadline. I’ve always wanted to go to the Hay festival.’
‘I know, and you will go to the ball cinders, with your handsome agent on your arm.’
‘Well I forgive you I suppose, for the age reference, and I’ll take the gift in the spirit in which it was intended.’
‘Good, I’m pleased. Now you take a deep breath, and let the words flow. Just relax, it will all be fine.’
‘Yes, it will,’ she reaffirmed.
She turned around, propped up the sampler, opened her keyboard and as she started typing, she heard the door softly closing behind him as he left her to it.
Janet Stock 