As Far As The Eye Can See & Beyond – Fiction

Time for this week’s Flash Fiction For Aspiring Writers.   It begins anew each Wednesday.   100-150 words more or less to do with   the photo below  (photo changes each week).  I’ll put the link to this week’s stories at the end of this piece.  Blogs, like this, are such a great gift for writers – and I believe readers,  too.  Pass on by – click on the froggy at the end of this story.Huge thanks to PJ for hosting this for us.  It’s so much appreciated.

This is another attempt to expand my poetry into a story.  I’ve posted the poem after my story.  Thanks for reading this piece.

As Far As The Eye Can See & Beyond

“We will keep going,” Grandfather said. He dipped his battered oar into the water and pushed our small boat forward

Father held me near to him and Mother’s arms enfolded my younger sister. We were looking forward; away from all we were leaving behind.

There was nowhere else to go except to the other side of the lake and higher land. Night was falling in all around us. The rain was blinding and cold and hit like glass shards upon our faces. Distant lightening hinted only an endless body of water. My sister cried each time the thunder clapped.

“We’re almost there,” I said to her. “Stay strong, chéri.”

“We’re almost where?” she asked.

A lone snowy egret, an unusually free-flowing sentry, had been following us. It suddenly soared high and away with the wind. A strike of lightning illuminated a distant shore.

Grandfather smiled triumphantly. “Keep going?” he asked.

Ellespeth

So, if you’re interested, I’ve tried to expand this poem into the story:

Notes From A Calliope
Some days
don’t seem worth swimming to
find me there
praying behind the Cathedral
– listening to an old calliope –
on my knees in the rain
remembering you
and that you could not swim.

Ellespeth

The photo is from Ady, author of the blog, The Bourne of Infinitude.