The journal grew heavier in her hand with every page she ripped out. Had she made the right choice? What if she was severing her last tie with her mother? Nothing of her mother remained — not even a grave to visit on rainy days or one of her dresses to wear on Christmas.

Smoke lingered in the living room as she tossed another page onto the fire.

“Do you not want to know?” the fire whispered. It was a familiar voice–one that lulled her to sleep when loneliness and exhaustion dragged her to sleep.

She crouched by the fireplace to feed the flames another page. Did she need to know what happened to her mother and why the tides of her temper drowned their home? The handwriting on the page was full of sharp edges and sudden stops from the struggles of her hand to contain the endless flow of words. All it’d take was a closer glimpse at the words, a few moments to stop on every word and bring back her voice from oblivion.

In the silence of that winter night, she realised she already knew who her mother was — a raging ocean, stormy clouds, a hurricane imprisoned in a shoebox full of sewing needles and pieces of old ribbon and fading concert tickets from her days in the sunlight.

She tore another page from the journal, her last remaining prison.

“I don’t want to know,” she replied. “I want to set her free.”The journal grew heavier in her hand with every page she ripped out. Had she made the right choice? What if she was severing her last tie with her mother? Nothing of her mother remained — not even a grave to visit on rainy days or one of her dresses to wear on Christmas.

Smoke lingered in the living room as she tossed another page onto the fire.

“Do you not want to know?” the fire whispered. It was a familiar voice–one that lulled her to sleep when loneliness and exhaustion dragged her to sleep.

She crouched by the fireplace to feed the flames another page. Did she need to know what happened to her mother and why the tides of her temper drowned their home? The handwriting on the page was full of sharp edges and sudden stops from the struggles of her hand to contain the endless flow of words. All it’d take was a closer glimpse at the words, a few moments to stop on every word and bring back her voice from oblivion.

In the silence of that winter night, she realised she already knew who her mother was — a raging ocean, stormy clouds, a hurricane imprisoned in a shoebox full of sewing needles and pieces of old ribbon and fading concert tickets from her days in the sunlight.

She tore another page from the journal, her last remaining prison.

“I don’t want to know,” she replied. “I want to set her free.”

On 1st April I started a 100 days of writing challenge on my newsletter! It’s been fun to get into a daily writing routine and post short stories daily for a few days, and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to share them here, too.

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