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

17 replies
  1. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
    Rochelle Wisoff-Fields says:

    Dear Rebecca,

    With that last line you established time and place. Very well done.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

    Reply
  2. Christine G
    Christine G says:

    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.

    Reply
  3. Christine
    Christine says:

    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.)

    Reply
    • Rebecca Stonehill
      Rebecca Stonehill says:

      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!

      Reply
    • Rebecca Stonehill
      Rebecca Stonehill says:

      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

      Reply

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