Friday Fictioneers ✮ Flash Fiction 100 words ✮ Cloistered
Photo credit J Hardy Carroll
Friday Fictioneers is a weekly flash fiction writing challenge with a photo prompt, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
CLOISTERED
Cloistered. That’s what my sister Bessie called it. Cloistered in our ancestral home like two prize cakes, not to touch, only for display. Destined forevermore to do needlework and flower arranging and play pianoforte; attend the debutante debacle and attract the right husband in order to join a cloistering of a different kind.
‘Come with me, Bessie!’ I pleaded.
She wanted to, I could see it in her eyes. But she was afraid of the uncertainty of it all. So I went alone, hurried away with my head down, past the gates to my new life. To join the suffragettes.
Word Count: 100
I saw the mutton chop sleeves and the hooped dress and the determination on her face
Thank you Neil! I’m glad I achieved the sense of time and place
ps Neil I cannot work out how to comment on your stories – your last one was just beautiful.
I so hope she makes it to wherever she is going!
Thanks Dale! I am rooting for her and in my mind, she definitely does! 🙂
Dear Rebecca,
With that last line you established time and place. Very well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks so much Rochelle. I look forward to reading yours.
She left for an admirable cause. Delightful.
Click to read my story
She left for an admirable cause.Excellent.
Click to read my story
Thank you Keith. I will go take a look at your story!
This reminds me of the book The Workroom Girls. The heroine ran off to avoid an arranged marriage, but found she had to work for a living and live in the slums. Thankfully she survived but reality was a shocker.
So who was happiest in the end? Chapter Two in your book. 🙂
This reminds me of the book, The Workroom Girls (Catherine Clifton Clark?) She ran away from “privilege” and an arranged marriage to marry the man she loved. She found the working world a tough go, without the help of a former housekeeper she wouldn’t have survived. She had to work her fingers to the bone and live in what we’d call the slums, but she persevered. I found it a much more realistic take on the setting than you often get. Running away with no place to go was — is still — a major risk and rich girls in those days had no marketable skills.
(My apologies if you’re getting this comment twice. I tried with my phone but seemingly didn’t get through.)
It did come through twice but no problem! I will have to look up The Workroom Girls. I actually based this on the character Iris from my 2nd novel who abhors all the conventions forced upon girls (Edwardian period). Iris doesn’t run away to join the Suffragettes though – this was my own little twist on it!
Love the tie in to host at the end. Well done.
Thanks so much Iain!
That cloistered band, some would run, some would stay, perhaps even today. A timeless story, well told
Thank you Mike 🙂 Yes, there is a timelesness about it. I set it in the Edwardian period but really, it could be a girl running from aything