This story is this week’s response to the weekly picture prompt challenge on the Writer’s Mess, and it heralds in the beginning of a new year. Follow our narrator, as they celebrate New Year’s, and pull a full on Whoville moment where they understand it’s not at all about WHAT you have.
They couldn’t have fireworks, not within city limits, and even if they could, it wasn’t really in the budget. They were sharing a three-bedroom apartment with five people, and they were small bedrooms.
It was perfect though, they could be themselves here in this place, where their room barely fit a twin bed, and a good stretch would end with broken fingers.
It was better than the room they used to have, that was bigger than the entire apartment, and filled with the best of everything. Everything from the carpet to the curtains in shades of pink, and closet filled with dresses for a girl that wasn’t who they were.
Here they could be who they were, be named as they were, and that made the small overcrowded space more of a home than that place where she used to live.
Here there weren’t fireworks, there were dollar store sparklers held out the window to keep the fire alarm from going off, and it was the beginning to a new year, a new life, more than they ever could have hoped for.
I will probably be taking a bit of a step back now in the New Year. I have two courses, as well as some personal projects that I am working on. I am going to try and keep up with Six-Sentence story, but it is more likely that I will just be doing biweekly short stories, and biweekly short fiction. I am still kicking though, so don’t go anywhere, because I will be back on full time before you know it!
Anne McSommers' Writing Nook 