3 Minute Fiction Entry

NPR has this cool writing contest, called "3 Minute Fiction," where novice writers can submit entries for their contest. They usually have a theme, or words that must be used, and it's always interesting to see the stories that come out of the minds of all the writers who submit.

I've never submitted before, but this month's story starter got me hooked, and I did...I submitted a 3 minute story. The rules were, under 600 words, start with "Some people swore the house was haunted"...and end with "nothing was ever the same again."

So...following find my entry... a little melancholy, perhaps because I'm tired today....

My Ghosts:

Some people swore that the house was haunted, and I would agree that it was. I just let the rumors circulate because it kept people away. I wanted solitude, craved it, ached for it, and the house was the only place that I could truly get away from it all. A busy life, full of people, often afforded me no chance to reflect on the purpose of my life, on the richness with which I had been blessed, on the love that I’d shared.

This house was full of laughing ghosts who remembered all the summer evenings in the front yard chasing fireflies, or the winter months huddled around the fire making campfire popcorn, on days when school was cancelled. There were ghosts stomping through the kitchen with wet boots to show me the latest find from the creek out back, and ghosts who came to crawl in bed with me during those late summer thunderstorms. I often saw ghosts who sat at the table and smacked their lips waiting for the latest sweet from the oven. And on nearly every school evening there were ghosts doing homework, and listening to music, and tormenting their sister or brother.

While warming up soup I could feel a ghost sneaking up to hug and kiss me, and of course the same one who rolled over in bed at night and pushed up against me to let me know he was wanting. There was a ghost rolling a cigarette and smoking on the front porch, or perhaps tinkering with one of the broken down cars in the garage. The only ghost missing was the one that would hold me while I cried. I really wished that ghost would show up.

The house wasn’t always empty, as you can imagine, it had been filled with my wonderful family, the children, then teens, then young adults, and the love of my life, who came into our lives quite late, but changed us in ways we could never have imagined. This house, sitting here so near the road, was haunted with ghosts of times past. I could see them in the garden, on the swing, and riding their bicycles down the road. I could hear them singing, arguing, and saying “I love you.”

I often went into a dark room and hesitated to turn on the light, because I was sure, if I waited just a moment, the ghost would become real, and I wouldn’t be alone any longer. The solitude that I pushed so hard to get, would be broken by the one person who would make me want to talk, want to dance, want to laugh. And then, I’d flip the switch and for just one second the ghost would be sitting in his chair, taking a drink, and then…gone.

There may come a time when the kids, all grown up now with lives of their own, don’t seem so far away. It may be possible to believe that the ghosts won’t haunt me forever. Perhaps, even, a time when the pain of his death is lessened by years. But when he died, all quiet and softly in his sleep, on the most beautiful night of the year, it became very plain to me that nothing would ever be the same again