Micro Monday Flash Fiction: Silence
From now on, Mondays will be a sort of kick-off day for our writing week (for you and for me). I will post a prompt - likely just one word - and we then have all day to post a microfiction based on that prompt. For the sake of this weekly series, "microfiction" will be works of no more than 300 words. This is just an exercise, meant to get our creative muscles warmed up for the week ahead. So have fun with it, and don't let perfectionism get the best of you! I will post my own microfiction with the prompt post, but I'd love to see yours in the comments, or link up to your blog post on twitter using #MMflashfic and tag me, @amy__lutes!
Our first prompt will be "silence."
Aaannnddd...GO!
In the silence, my fears are immense. I cower in their shadows. I do not yet realize that that's all they are - shadows. My fears are not solid things that can inflict pain on me. They are mere shadows that grow and waver and change in the play of light. Oddly, they are less ghost-like when the light is strong. But then, I can better identify their shape, and so they have less strength to work their magic on my subconscious. No - it is when the light is dim - when I feel far from the sun, far from that Light that gives me strength - that the wavering shadows of Fear cause me the most issues. For it is then that my imagination turns them into these solid towers that stand before me now.
I feel my hands quiver as I turn to look at the towers. Still there is no sound - the silence is palpable. I don't even hear my own breath, my own heartbeat. I look at the towers of blackness. But what I see gives me pause. Suddenly I gasp. The Light is bright, radiating. And the blackness of the shadows of Fear are sharply outlined. And they are shaped just like me.
I feel my hands quiver as I turn to look at the towers. Still there is no sound - the silence is palpable. I don't even hear my own breath, my own heartbeat. I look at the towers of blackness. But what I see gives me pause. Suddenly I gasp. The Light is bright, radiating. And the blackness of the shadows of Fear are sharply outlined. And they are shaped just like me.
I realize in this moment that what I fear most lives within me, in my heart. And with this realization, the fear weakens, wavers, as Light blazes through my heart and shatters the towers into a million pieces. And I smile as the tiny black ashes flutter through the air. One lands on my shoulder and I turn my head, smiling, and brush it away with a wave of my hand.
And then I turn my back on that place and walk into the Light.