#FlashFiction for November: Drawer Full of Memories

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

Okay, it's that time of the month again! A little Flash Fiction is over on the Lightening Quick Reads blog from yours truly. This month's topic was thankfulness, which gave me a lot of pause when writing. The story that came out was, well, a little more autobiographical than I really wanted it to be. But I honestly can say that I needed to write it. I've always processed things through writing. But it doesn't make for an easy piece to read, nor is it very story-like. Still, some of you might take something from it, so here's a little teaser:

Drawer Full of Memories

Source

Time seemed to shudder to a stop, rocking her back on my heels, as soon as the drawer slid open. The mad scrambled search for scissors forgotten in a heartbeat. Inside the drawer was a scatter of memories, each their own small world of wonder.

Each something she’d tried to forget.

Almost by some outside force, she reached inside. Folded papers that echoed words she’d loved. She’d believed them, too, and their professions of love and apology, faith and trust. Some part of her heart still burned with the embers of what they’d meant, a part she wished she could douse with water. Reading them pooled tears in her eyes, long forgotten memories flaring to life once more. The cinch of pain around her heart tightened down, sure and steady in a way she’d learned to live with over the past year.

The other objects conjured a myriad of other thoughts. The photos were the hardest. Smiling faces and far away places. Echoes from a time when things had been so much easier. But still, it was hard to ignore the pain that each smile covered in the images. The knowledge of what led up to those posed scenes on rooftops in other countries. The harsh words. Those photos hid all of that to the outside world, but today, they rushed back, impossible to mask.

Did she want to mask them? Sometimes it was so much easier to remember the better parts. Pretend the photos captured the truth, and not just the careful façade. But the truth, it always leaked through.

The rest can be found here!