Just like an itch aching to be rubbed except I couldn’t reach where it hurts, this pain torments me. Looking up from the sink, I saw how my face is reacting to this pain: my forehead scrunched, eyes watering, nose twitching and my lips twisted.
Who would want to go through this pain? There are alternatives out there. But I’m already here, I might as well face it.
“Do it,” I fortified myself. Pushing my shoulders back, I re-positioned myself.
In 3… 2… 1!
Tightly closing my eyes, I pulled hard.
Finally, those stubborn nose hairs are out.
Copyright © 2018 Shela Laubach. All rights reserved.
This fiction is called a Drabble and should only contain 100 words. I was able to do it in less by two words. It’s difficult to practice brevity after having not written short pieces for a long time. Limited words also tested my creative writing in evoking the image of pain, enough that you’d feel it at the same time. The challenge of this exercise was quite good and I liked my friend’s reaction to it, “it goes in an unexpected direction.” With this encouragement, I’ll try to post more of my flash fiction exercises for you to enjoy.
On another note, there is a very painful situation that resurfaced recently. When I was younger I have seen the same kind of situation drain my parents. Now that I am able to address it properly with them, particularly my dad, the pain feels like a knife slowly ebbing itself deep into my heart. I would have preferred betrayal by a friend than a family member. A friend is easier turned into a stranger than family.
Is it the sorrow that changed the flavor of food and drink? Is this pain that nicks my heart the cause of hollow sounds in my laughter? I turn to games, to books, to writing and all I could think of is how everything came around in full circle. Just like what my friend Anne-Cécile would say, don’t aim for a revolution but a forward evolution. There is no forward evolution if people stubbornly refuse to change. In that way this pain and my sorrow continues.