The Last House
Written By Shan Jeniah Burton Copyright 2012
We lay tangled together on an airbed covered in beach towels, in the exact middle of the white-sand floor. Our hands dance over familiar but endlessly intriguing terrain, hungry for exploration, as the warm noon breezes waft through the window openings, carrying the scent of the ocean filtered through the pomegranate and olive trees, and the scents of dinner being cooked away down in the village.
The birds are quiet except for slight rustlings and chatterings that echo our love murmurings.
We eat pomegranate and crusty bread, sopping and licking the juice from lips and hands and letting the moment drift into gentle lovemaking. We never look away from each other, even as the waves crash over and through us, catalclysmic, shattering us, remaking us….
We are one as we’ve never been, and our damp, warm bodies move as though making the loveliest music…
We’re still whispering to each other as the sun sets, painting the sky and the sea with the colors of our love, achingly lovely, sending beams across our skins.
We fall asleep together when the first stars come into view, our breath flowing to a single rhythm.
When I awaken, it is dark, and he has died, surrounded by peace and beauty and my love, just as we intended.
Original Friday Flash Fiction post from LS Engler.
Original Photo from Five- Minute Getaway.
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Just a smiling visitor here to share the love (:, btw great style .
Mauricio –
Welcome!
What a heart-wrenching, bittersweet ending. If only all of us could be so lucky to have last moments like this…. Lovely work, to go with the lovely image. I love what you did with the prompt!
L.S. –
Thank you. It was therapeutic to write this, and give Tim the ending he deserved. And that image was so lovely and evocative to me……
I really liked the way this couple only had eyes for each other but were still inextricably part of the world around them and of each other. You connect them well and, despite the ending, it left me feeling that they they’d truly lived every moment and there’s not much more you can hope for but that.
Kath –
Thank you! That was how I felt in my relationship with my late fiance, and just the mood I was going for.
It means so much that you took the time to share. Again, thanks! =)
Quite a beautifully poetic piece of writing, both sad and uplifting at the same time.
Steve –
Thank you very much. I am fond of mixing emotions, since life generally gives them to me that way…. =)
I really like your writing style, superb information, appreciate it for posting : D.
[…] February 11, I wrote and posted The Last House, another photo-prompted flash fiction piece. I really felt this one, and it received many […]
Very poignant … sad about it being somewhat a part of your real life …
So, I’m in your campaign group and I’ve tagged you on my blog! Stop by and visit and grab the questions I have for you! http://theresasmallsneed.blogspot.com ~Theresa Sneed, author of No Angel and its forthcoming prequel, From Heaven to Earth
Theresa –
I’m sorry I didn’t respond sooner – my husband was seriously hurt and hospitalized, and pretty much everything non-essential got sidelined so I could be there for him and tend to home and kids.
He’s home, now, and, although hurting, getting better every day.
I’ll be looking into your questions and answering them in the next several days, as I play catch-up on lots of things that were laid aside in the crisis days.
Thanks for the comment, and the tag!
Shan jeniah
Shanjeniah, lovely story…”pomegranate and crusty bread”…powerful ending.
I’m a fellow fantasy campaigner…I’ve tagged you on my blog for “11 questions” if you choose to answer them!
Colleen – I will be FINALLY getting to your questions this weekend, I hope. So sorry to keep you waiting!
Not that weekend, or this one, but eventually….I am deep into my last week of ROW80 now, but this is on my to-do list for when I’m done…..
I really didn’t intend for it to take so long!
That should have said campaigner *shakes head* 🙂
=)
Fellow campainter stopping by to say hello – I enjoyed your story very much and look forward to learning more about you and your work 🙂
Thank you! You can learn more about the rest of our lives at my unschooling/life blog, The Unfettered Life (button on the left over there, or at http://www.memismommy.blogspot,com).
I am hoping to get a chance to check out some more campaign blogs during the next few days! Priority, of course, to those who have commented here (even if they’re “campainters”- my fingers don’t always cooperate, either!).
Nice to meet you, Shan! This piece is quiet lovely, indeed. What a way to go!
A pleasure to meet you as well, Susan!
I’ve always thought I would not like to die surrounded by sorrow, but rather by love and joy. I know it’s not that likely I’ll get to choose…..except, of course, when I’m writing fiction……
This seemed like a very difficult place to do anything but live joyously in……
hi! Zooming past on my campaign trail 🙂 Fellow fantasy writer and now reader of your blog 🙂
Hi there! I know two other Sylvias, and they are both lovely people, although I don’t think either one of them writes fantasy.
I am hoping to check out some of the blogs as I slowly dip into the world of campaigning….new to me, and a little heady and stomach-churning, all at once….
Welcome to my real-life world, which, to some, might seem pretty fantastical….
[…] I posted again, very early Saturday morning, with this Friday Flash Fiction post, “The Last House”. […]
What a fabulous little story. And the ending. Pow! I do so adore those cheeky faces in the header too. Thanks so much for linking up at my blog hop this weekend. 🙂
Shah- So sorry it took this long to respond. Your comment got sent to the spam solder – I have no idea why! Then, when I moved it, it vanished into the ether for a while before re-emerging….I guess it had quite an adventure!
Thank you for the opportunity to post to your blog hop – I think I will make it a goal for most weekends – I have old things I like sharing, and new things i like creating…..
And they are pretty cheeky, aren’t they? Wonder WHERE they get that from?! =)
Hey, just wanted to make a quick stop to follow for the Challenge. Will be around and make a meaningful comment soon, but I’m way past my bed time, and this close —> | | <— to writing gobbledygook.
I so know that feeling. I posted to the Challenge at about 7am, after yet another all-night writing binge….I am apparently a were-writer!
Going to go check out some other Challenge posts in a few hours…writing and hometending are what’s on the agenda for now….
Wow. So strong…
Thank you – once it emerged, it kept coming, unfurling itself for me to capture…..it needed very little in the way of edits – mostly fixing typos where my two left hands tripped over each other!
It left me feeling opened up in a way I haven’t been in a while….which is always of value, even when a bit uncomfortable.
I’m a fellow campaigner and I wanted to say that I like the layout of your website.
Thank you. =) I am very much learning as I go along. my goal is to keep it clean and simple, yet inviting (in a way my day-to day life isn’t always….inviting, yes, but not either of those other things, very often!
Wow Shan – I love this. I could feel the environment. The ending is so sad. 😦
Thank you.
Some endings are. And we all end.
I’m hoping my narrator hold to the joy of the day, and not the sorrow of the night.
Eerily beautiful… An theme that flows in a lot of stories. I love it. I really love it. Mmmm!
This was the second story. I had about 200 words of another, then deleted the whole thing because there was nowhere for it to go.
Then I stared at this picture for about five minutes, until I could start to see inside the walls, then imagined until I WAS inside…..
it was therapeutic to write this one.
[…] Friday Flash Fiction (on Friday, Even!) (shanjeniah.wordpress.com) Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]
I once sat on a hospital bed and held the love of my life as he died. I think he would have preferred this. I know I would, today.
(And I love you, Tim. Time and life could never change that; you helped me to find the wife and mother I am today, within that broken girl I was…. A part of me will always be your Honey D” <3)
Interesting that we were on a similar wavelength today. Loverly written. Thank you.
Peace,
Morgan