Jane Dougherty has started a microfiction challenge. I have been back to writing poetry for a few months, now, but this is the first story I’ve written, so I feel a certain amount of trepidation. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I have a 200 word limit.
Anyhow, time to dip my toe into the water of microfiction. Looks a bit chilly from here!
We don’t go upstairs to the attic rooms. Not since our last governess went away. We like it down here, by the fire, where we can keep warm. It’s so cold up there. We hate to feel cold.
We like to read. We read together.
No, we don’t like to play. We used to play with her – chase, and hide and seek. We ran all over the attic, in and out of all those tiny rooms. There are all sorts of things up there – old wardrobes, trunks, piles of photographs. It was fun, but now, we prefer it here, nice and quiet. We snuggle up close and read our book.
My brother thinks you have pretty hair. Our last governess was pretty, too, but mummy was the prettiest of all.
We do hope you’ll be kind to us. Our last governess was so mean. She made us do arithmetic, when all we wanted to do was read our book. She ran away from us when we chased her. She hid so well, we never found her.
Do you like to read? You can read to us, if you like.
It’s a ghost story.
Sarah writes poems 
This rewards careful reading, thank you. 🙂
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Thank you. I just wanted to generate a slight feeling of unease.
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You do create a feeling that there’s something sinister about the children. I like the way the child addresses the reader—draws you into the story. The way the child speaks is spot on, and it’s concise, no wasted words. Just one thing I’d say is that you could make it clearer whether the children like playing or they don’t as you say both. And the governess is mean and makes them do arithmetic all the time, but they have fun playing hide and seek with her. It comes over (to me) as slightly muddled. I’m thinking that they probably started off being allowed to have fun and when the governess tried to get them to do something more educational, they got a little…stroppy. It’s maybe a question of getting the chronology right, what they used to like doing before, and what they say they like doing now. The child obviously blames the governess for spoiling things. I like that 🙂
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Wow Sarah this is such a beautiful story, if a ghost story but for me I love the perspective you have given the image. Loved where you took this.
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