“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page, from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s prompt is Maienfeld, Switzerland.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Trapped
A flurry of snow burst against the window, leaving its four little panes crusted so thickly white that the feeble daylight could hardly force a way through.
Heidi poured warm goat’s milk into a bottle, and sighed. Before her grandfather had died, she had enjoyed living on the Alm even in the winter. Grandfather had kept the woodstore full of dry logs which smelled sweet when they burned slow and hot in the stove. He had kept cheese and cured meat in the store, tasty and ample to feed them through a blizzard.
What did she have now? A little butter and some potatoes riddled with dark spots of decay. Peter, feeding the last of the hay to their goats, would turn up his nose at them.
She heard thumping as Peter knocked ice off his boots.
In the corner, the baby started to wail.
The snow kept falling.
I adored the opening lines Penny
“A flurry of snow burst against the window, leaving its four little panes crusted so thickly white that the feeble daylight could hardly force a way through.”
But the sad plight of the rest of the cold story sent an emotional shiver up my spine
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear Ivor
Thank you for reading, and for your kind comments. I’m so glad you enjoyed the opening lines. You’re right that it’s a sad story, but I think there’s hope for Heidi and Peter. They’re young; they didn’t necessarily intend to have a child; and they don’t yet have all the knowledge of how to survive comfortably. But they will learn those skills as they mature. The first few years of any marriage have some difficult periods, don’t you think?
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
Your imagination of how their situation is going to improve in time, softens the coldness of the story…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! This is fantastic!
Also, how fun that so many of us went the Heidi way? 🙂 I only read others’ stories after I post mine, which make it all the more fun to see how the same venue pulls people in similar yet different directions! 🙂
Well done, you!
Poor Heidi, though.
Na’ama
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear Na’ama
Thank you for reading and for your generous comment. I wonder to what extent our slants on Heidi reflect our specific interests? You’ve looked at the psychological needs of your MC; I’ve done a ‘slice of life’. BTW I think Heidi will be okay in my story – she and Peter will gradually work out what’s needed for comfort in the mountain hut!
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m so glad you think Heidi will be okay. If my story is to be seen as a continuation of yours … it seems she will indeed be okay and that her legacy would continue in her progeny … 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
I love this imagining of Heidi’s possible future- Heidi and Peter all grown up and struggling with the same issues every adult has to deal with. Said but truthful. Our lives change and we shrug off our younger selves, evolve into new people with new preoccupations. Wonderful, Penny
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear Lynn
Thank you for reading and for your kind comments. As writers of fiction we have so many futures we can explore, so many lives we can live. I feel very privileged.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
And it’s so much fun, isn’t it? Why waste money on expensive air fares, risk getting stranded abroad as another holiday firm collapses, polluting the environment with green house emissions … When we can stay at home and travel in our imaginations 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Life in the Alps is hard — and used to be even harder! I like how you brought back the tastes and smells of the nostalgic past, to emphasize the desperation of the current situation. I hadn’t realized until I read the comments that this was about *that* Heidi — what an interesting twist!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Joy
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful comment. I’m glad you liked the way the descriptions of the past gave an effective contrast with the present; that was exactly what I hoped, so thank you for mentioning it.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLike
I love where you took the prompt. I purposely avoided the Heidi theme but you scooped it up and ran with it! I’ve never thought about Heidi all grown up. You built a very believable world around her. Love the idea of the potatoes riddled with decay making Peter angry. As if it’s her fault! Very well done.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Lish
Thank you for reading and for your kind comments. You’re right that the Heidi theme was risky, but it seemed to be Maienfeld’s one claim to fame. (Besides, It amused me to think of how shocked Johanna Spyri would have been to envisage Heidi with a child born out of wedlock!) I do so enjoy imagining alternative lives…
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this. Sort of a cross between Heidi and Hemingway’s short stories about the Alps.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear Josh
Thank you for reading and commenting. I wonder what made you think of Hemingway?!
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
A good question, Josh. Fill us in.
LikeLike
I always liked that they got it together, especially after his grandmother died. But I thought winters they spent at the priest’s house.
And you definitely caught the flavour. And now I’m cold.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Crispina
Thank you for reading and for your gentle comment. I admit it – I only read the first Heidi book, so I hadn’t realised that Heidi and Peter spent winter at the priest’s house! You’re kind to say I caught the flavour – thank you.
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure who wrote the sequels. There were two books. But I read them sooooo long ago
LikeLike
Oh, wow, such a take on a classic “Heidi”… great story, great tragedy. 🙂 ❤ ~Shalom, Bear
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Bear
Thank you for reading and commenting so kindly. I’m glad you enjoyed my re-imagining of Heidi’s young adult life.
Shalom
Penny
LikeLiked by 1 person
Poor, dear Heidi! This is not the future I want for them! That said, it was beautifully written and oh so chillingly plausible. Well done!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dear Karen
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m sorry to be so late acknowledging your comment. It would have been nice to write a happy ending, but even Heidi has to struggle through the difficult early years of adulthood. In ten years time she’ll probably be a plump and contented hausfrau, and Peter a burgermeister!
With very best wishes
Penny
LikeLike