First Campaigner Challenge: Home

There is a challenge up at Rachael Harrie's blog - the First Campaigner Challenge. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction, up to 200 words (excluding the title), and the opening must be, 'The door swung open'.

Interesting.

And there are some optional extra challenges too - make the piece exactly (excluding the title) 200 words and finish it with 'the door swung shut'.

I decided to try it, to see what I could come up with, and below is my attempt; wish me luck!

Home

The door swung open. Reluctantly. I thought it would be easier. On the way here, on the journey that you said was too long but which was really much too short, I had rehearsed what I’d say, what I’d do, how I’d cope with the disapproval.

But you told me not to come, didn’t you? You said that you didn’t want me to see you like this, old, in pain, that you weren’t the father I had known. And I, glad of the excuse, told everyone that you wouldn’t see me, that you wanted it this way. Which is why this is the first time I’ve been here, in this place they call a home, in the place you called home for the last three years of your life.

I stepped over the threshold - reluctantly - to collect what few belongings you’d left behind and I felt the loneliness being caught out and scattering to the walls. And what was there apart from some dried up flowers and a tatty paperback? Just one thing. That photo, the one of you and me smiling at each other, happy.

As I left, your distant voice still echoing, the door swung shut.

© Lisamarie Lamb 2011