So, I wanted to introduce a new recurring feature on my blog. Each week, I’ll provide a prompt and a bit of flash fiction. If you want to join in on the fun, please feel free to post your flash fiction in the comments or link me to it via the comments.
I’m a really big fan of quotes or music lyrics as prompts, so a lot of mine will be in that form. For today, I chose:
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
-Dr. Seuss
And here is my flash fiction, based on the prompt:
The Answer
Jane tended to hold on to people that aren’t very good for here. It was as if she curated a collection of former friends like a crafter would a pinterest board. For the longest time, they were all there, images of them in her mind that tied in memories. The times they had lied, manipulated and cheated their way through their friendship, and of course the few moments that felt like they were real friends.
Jane held onto that collection a lot longer than she should have, worrying about how she could leave the pain behind. And sometimes she worried maybe she was broken, maybe if she would have just bent over backward a little more, given a little bit more, maybe she could have made things work.
It was a lie though, and somewhere deep down, she started to realize that.
That was when she started to wonder about moving on. How could she leave the past in the past? It felt like chains, holding her down.
That was the problem, though. The mind held on to things longer than the body did. It was easy to throw pictures in a trash bag, to delete texts and block emails. Jane found it a lot harder to let go of the good times, than the bad, but eventually realized the answer was simple.
Leaving them behind was as easy as looking forward. Stay in the present and the past is just the past.
The Taming of the Muse 