Every week, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields (thank you, Rochelle!) hosts a flash fiction challenge, to write a complete story, based on a photoprompt, with a beginning, middle and end, in 100 words or less. Post it on your blog, and include the Photoprompt and Inlinkz on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!
Alpine Retreat
I knew as soon as I saw the chalet that I must possess it.
My sweet, my beloved Robert would have adored it. The door was weatherworn, coffin-dark; the walls were stone; the eaves – ah, those eaves! – were patterned in colours that once had been rich purple and glowing orange. Glorious!
It’s hard for a foreigner to buy property in Switzerland, but thanks to a smart lawyer I took possession in May. All summer I walked and wrote. I abandoned the world.
Then, when the winter came, I left the stove unlit. Gently, serenely, the chill bore me to Robert.
Autumn Leaves 
Wow! That was a hell of twist at the end, which changes the meaning of what went before
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Thank you very much for the kind and helpful comment, Neil. It’s really helpful to know that I succeeded in persuading the you to re-evaluate your conclusions.
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Oh, the bite of that ending. Well told.
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Thank you for your comment, Anne. I’m glad you appreciated the bite of the ending.
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A tragedy, or perhaps just a story of true love. Nicely understated.
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Thank you for your kind comment, Iain. Perhaps sometimes one can love too intensely, too exclusively? I left a clue in the first sentence (“possess”) that perhaps we had a pathological relationship here.
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I certainly wasn’t expecting that ending. Chilling in its simplicity.
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Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Sandra. ‘Simplicity’ is a word I like, because it means the mechanism behind the chilling effect is unobtrusive.
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amazing! I love how it feels like a successful purchase of a dream and turns into a deathly end. Well done!
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Thank you for your lovely comment, Mason. I’m delighted you appreciated the story.
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You’re welcome!
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how sad. i hope that someday she’d learn to let go and move on.
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Thank you for your compassionate comment, Plaridel. Sometimes the grief from bereavement can seem unbearable.
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As with others, I didn’t expect that rather sad ending.
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Thank you for your comment, Ali.
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“….the chill bore me to….” And there you have the ending of endings. Nicely done, Penny.
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Thank you for your perceptive comment, Bill. Yes, there’s no coming back from where she’s gone, I fear.
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Damnation! I was all warm and cozy till you turned everything cold! Beautifully done, though!
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Thank you for your kind comment, Dale. Sometimes love can be so intense as to make life without the beloved unbearable, don’t you think?
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I have to say that, much as I can love and have loved, I cannot imagine myself to that point of going without unbearable. Guess I’m too much the realist.
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Lovely story with a sad ending, but still enduring. ‘I abandoned the world’ a few words that tell a whole novel on their own.
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Thank you for your lovely comment, and especially for reading so deeply into ‘I abandoned the world.’ I did indeed hope to persuade the reader to picture the main character becoming ever more solitary and other-worldly.
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You caught me out. Powerful writing,
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Thank you for your kind comment, Michael. I’m very pleased you thought the writing was powerful.
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Dear Penny,
Just when it was all serenity and warmth you sucker punched me in the gut. It sounds like she had a plan all along. I hope Robert met her with open arms. Wonderfully written.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle
Thank you for your kind comment. You’re right that she had a plan all along.
Shalom
Penny
xx
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Penny, I had to read the story twice to allow myself to understand what happened at the end. Your story is beautiful and unbearably poignant. I like the description of place and the way she prepared herself to let loose of the bonds of the world to go and be with her loved one.
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Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Lisa. I’m delighted you found the story poignant.
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You’re very welcome, Penny.
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Wow. A powerful twist at the end, but of course, once you get there you rethink all that goes before. Perfectly set up and carried through.
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Thank you for your kind comment, Margaret. I’m glad you appreciated the foreshadowing that prepared for the twist.
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