Friday, January 16, 2015

Flash Fiction Friday

The prompt this week was a stanza from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "A Dream". Here's my response. It begins with the stanza from the poem.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

She pushed her textbook away. The past. The past? Can it be considered the past if it’s still sitting right next to you? A chill passed through her hand as her dead boyfriend’s ghost reached for the textbook, brushing her hand. “What’s up? Is the reading assignment not your cup of tea?”

“Um, no, it’s fine,” What’s not my cup of tea is the fact my last reading assignment accidentally led to the partial resurrection of my dead boyfriend. She looked at him across the table. His ghost had this dark shadow that was deepening behind his features. He was becoming more and more restless in this limbo he found himself in. The ‘ray of the past’ that lifted her heart the first time his ghost found her was all but gone. Her heart was broken when he died in that car accident a year ago, but was this any better? Could it even be worse?


She took her textbook back, smiling weakly at his pale and frightening features. Maybe more Poe could tell her what past is past and how to keep it there.

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And there we have it! To see other responses check out the blogs here:


Quinlyn Shaughnessy - qsstoryblog.blogspot.com


Ginny Romney - romneyrants.blogspot.com

2 comments:

  1. Ooh, I like this a lot. The idea of the accidental partial resurrection is great. And there's so much emotion in wishing he'd just stayed dead.

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  2. I am in all agreement with Kat!e!

    Accidental partial resurrections are the worst! I do like the detail that his features are frightening. It's interesting to think that a shadow of a living person can be terrifying.

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