(100-word flash fiction)
She cannot recall when she lost her voice. As in, she would speak but no one paid any attention. The teenagers, indifferent, her husband, always on the phone.
Then, she became a ghost. In the room, but un-present, unseen, ignored. A cooking-cleaning ghost who got attention only when the food was too salty and the toilet paper ran out. Little did they know. She considered buying chillies in bulk, for the food and the toilet paper.
When her husband brought his lover home and made love to her in their bed is when she went looking for a butcher’s knife.
The scarecrow not having a mouth gave me this idea. It looks a bit ghostly too.
So many women in different cultures live without a voice, with no agency to exercise their choices. I wanted to write a more hefty story, with more punch and power to bring home their plight, but this is all the muse’s giving me at this late hour.
Many thanks once again to the lovely Rochelle, the helmstress of Friday Fictioneers.
PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook
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The ghost idea is so clever
Thanks a lot Neil.
A ghost with a knife will get their attention. Great idea from the prompt, well done.
Thanks a lot Iain. They might fear her, but I think respect was what she was seeking.
Dear Joyful,
I had the impression she wasn’t a ghost in the true sense of the word. The invisible wife…taken for granted is the sense I had. Hubby deserves the blade.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks a lot Rochelle!
That op;ening paragraph tells it all, and expertly so. Well done.
Thanks a lot, Sandra.
Everyone has a snapping point. I’m sure many women feel like this.
Yep, they do. Unfortunately!
Wow, that was chilling. (But who could blame her?)
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
Thanks Susan. No, we can’t but the law will.
Very well done. A living “ghost”, but one that can still bite back…
Thanks a lot Trent.
Terrific take on the prompt, JJ.
I especially like the first sentence.
Thanks a lot CE. 🙂
You touched a very real sore spot for a lot of women around the world. Well done.
Thanks Linda. I really wish things would change for all those women.
Desperate situations call for desperate measures. A great take.
Thanks Keith 🙂
There have been times when I could identify with her.
So sorry to hear that Liz. Hope you’ve found your voice and using it to full effect.
She’d reached her limit. Whatever happens next, nothing will be the same. Great storytelling, Jolly.
Thanks a lot Lisa. And yet the judicial system won’t see it that way 😦
I hear you 😦
it must be tough to be taken for granted. but i think she didn’t deserve to have their blood mess up her dress. she should have divorced him and done with it instead.
True! That would have been less messy, but does she have the agency to ask for a divorce, though?
Nicely written. Very spooky! And there is a terrible sadness to how this ghost came to be.
Thanks Laurie!
Powerful, and a call for change, well done
Thanks Michael!
There’s plenty of punch and power in your story as is. Sometimes there’s more power in what goes unsaid.
Very true that, I guess all great story writers have mastered the art of narrating through the unsaid.
A great ghost story, perhaps she could have kept them on edge with lots of haunting, which would more fun than butchering the lovers for soup.
She’s not dead yet, James , just feels like it 🙂
I reckon chillies on the toilet paper would be even worse than getting stuck with the knife 🙂
Quite a sad life she is being forced to live, unseen and unheard until someone wants something.
It would be hard to hide the chillies though 🙂 Yes, it’s a sad life for a lot of women in a similar position.