With her writing hand shaking uncontrollably, she struggled to hold on a minute longer to her house of possibility.
The regret of procrastinating poems beyond her validity deadline hunted her.
Deadline, she hated that word.
The constant line that limited her existence as a woman and poet of the nineteenth century.
A woman poet of the nineteenth century.
Deadline.
School.
The threshold of her room.
The narrow corridor of narration.
Dead line.
Stuck in a corner of her quiet hive, she would fly up and down the lands that had threatened her seclusion. With the quill held between her teeth, her nails would clatter rhythmically on the cedar. Her back would go moist with the scorching heat of the Vesuvius. Her tummy would tickle with the impending Death she couldn’t stop for.
She had to find the door.
The door she had assumed to know better than the back of her palm.
The door she had prided herself in creating.
The door that was more valve, less door.
The door to her house of possibility.
The door that had would soon transfer its custody to some other word weaver.
If no one else, Emily trusted her sister. She was the only one who could stop this shameless exploit. She would surely be brave enough to do what she herself couldn’t.
To cremate her over the ash of her poetry.
Note: This short story is a somewhat dark take on reverent poet, Emily Dickinson's most anti-climactic hours.
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Missing Thread
Short StoryA collection of flash fiction. A string of daily mundane stories, wreathed with words and a lot of compassion. [Some of these short stories have been recognised by various literary organisations.]
