99 word #prompt : luggage
If you want to participate, here’s the link: https://carrotranch.com/2018/07/27/july-26-flash-fiction-challenge/
July 26, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about what happens next to a stranded suitcase. Go where the prompt leads you, but consider the different perspectives you can take to tell the tale.
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My daughter laughs at an abused green suitcase. “I remember that thing!”
“You used it for a summer in Morocco. I trusted you…”
“I know, I know,” she chuckles at me. “You kept it in pristine condition and I returned it all beat up without the wheels, BlahBlahBlah… Why won’t you throw it away?”
“Together, we explored the world. I had a career… a life. I met your father…”
“Then you had me, so it’s all good!”
What if I’d told him no?
Too late…
Like this dusty attic, I hold the memories of a lifetime no one understands.
Strange the useless things we keep only because of the memories attached to them. One look or touch of the object and memories all come flooding back like it was yesterday.
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That’s why it’s so hard to throw them away. How many times have we looked for the things we could toss or part with, just to put them back on the shelves again? Sometimes, it’s all we have left to prove that an event happened.
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You are absolutely correct! I am held hostage in my home by all these things surrounding me that I have difficulty letting go of, but I am working on it. Use the rule, if I haven’t touched it in five years, I don’t need it! Lots of books: if I have’nt read it in five years, I never will! Had the “junk” man out a few weeks ago. No regrets!
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I really like this one. Very poignant.
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Thanks. 🙂
Thought it is fiction, the concept certainly hits home.
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Evocative! Abandoned suitcases are by their very nature both sad and mysterious. My solution is to use any suitcase I purchase until it falls to pieces.
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That’s a good solution. 🙂
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Oh my, I can totally relate to this story. Very good. 🙂
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Thanks. 🙂
It seems from the responses I’ve been getting that most people “of a certain age” and/or with kids can relate. 🙂
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And we think WE own those ‘objects’…
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They become family.
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Your last line makes me think of those lifetimes lived in secret. The what ifs no one else knows.
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When I was a child, there was a woman in our neighborhood with the best kept yard and home. Not that a child was ever allowed in her home (she’d yell at us for stepping on her yard) but she was reclusive to the point where my mom wondered about her a few times. When she died, her next door neighbor was tasked with trying to find family and that meant going through her things. Ends up, she had a life so rich in experiences that it would’ve make quite an adventure novel..
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That makes me wonder how she went from adventure to seclusion. But I have to think she relished the memory of her experiences, or maybe not!
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I’m trying to remember the details, but what I remember most is the feeling of awe, and a bit of jealousy, from the neighbor who went through her home.
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I would have relished that task, too!
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