Ever feel like your head is so full of things you need to do and choices you need to make that it’s about to burst?
Well, I’m with you and I can’t offer you answers, only distractions.
I wrote about choices for last month’s AWC Furious Fiction competition. The parameters were that the first sentence had to be three words and the story had to include some sort of first and a candle. You can read the winners and the shortlisted entries here and my 500 words worth here:
“Your father’s dead.”
The words drop, stone-heavy, into darkness.
“No.” I gasp and struggle against sleep-slick depths.
They’ll say I showed a proper reluctance to accept their tidings; that I cried out in disbelief that such a man – such a colossus – should prove mortal. But it’s only fear those stone-cold words will drag me with them into the abyss.
I blink against the light – blinded, bedazzled – until the flare diminishes. My sight sharpens with wakefulness and I realise there’s only one candle and my father is, indeed, dead. Why else would my room be full of those who, even yesterday, would have scorned to speak to me had they seen me hunched over one of my books?
The worst of them, my father’s cousin, steps closer, candle held high.
“You are Firstborn,” he says. The word is meant to resonate; meant to sound a dynastic chord thrumming through a line of secondborn and thirdborn, fourth and fifth and so on. But all it does is echo in my bedchamber, solitary and alone.
Firstborn. Only born.
My father sought a remedy. Now his wedding feast will serve for cold and unwelcome funeral meats. No doubt this task tastes just as bitter in his cousin’s mouth.
“Your father is dead and you are Firstborn,” he repeats. “You must choose.”
He holds out the candle. Others offer a book and a sword. My choice of faith-light or learning or leadership. Life is full of choices.
When I was born my father chose not to ring first-bells in celebration. I was small and frail and they say he feared I would not survive. Feared or hoped.
Four seasons past my father’s first wife died and I kept my mother’s candle vigil alone, for he chose not to see it with me.
Three moons ago he chose to spend Firsthallow courting a new bride, rather than hear me read my dissertation to the conclave.
Two days ago he chose to hunt for his wedding feast, but the beast he cornered chose not to join the celebrations.
I glance at the crowd who lean forward, eyes glittering, intent on the book. All know I’ll choose a scholar’s life. Or perhaps not all, for something hums through the room. Fear? Or hope?
I throw back the covers so the candlelight burnishes the cloth-of-gold cape I wear over my scarlet robe. They gasp. Did they think to find me vulnerable in white linen at such a time? I grasp the hilt of the sword and raise it high.
“I choose to lead,” I cry and my voice fills the room, banishing echoes and leaving no space for the shadows of other choices.
My father’s cousin opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so it is another who shouts, “The king is dead. Long live the queen!”