PHOTO PROMPT © The Reclining Gentleman
It was a place of death. Nana went there and didn’t come back. Grandpa too. Later Uncle Tom died there. Bill was sent when he was hit by the car. He was my best friend and his was my first funeral. I hated the place, the place of death.
They took Mother. She was in pain, about to explode. Father brought me to the place of death. I ran screaming across the parking lot into the flowerbed. The spring’s first daffodil was sprouting in this place of death.
Father found me. “Come,” he said, smiling, “meet your baby brother.”
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Word count = 100
Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This weeks prompt is here and uses a photo provided by © The Reclining Gentleman. Read more or join in by following the “linky“.
Trent's World (the Blog) 
So succinct and so powerful. Nicely done.
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Thanks!
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At least, the child will now know the hospital isn’t just a place of death. Lovely story from the point-of-view of a child. Well done, Trent. :) — Suzanne
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I guess it depends on how he feels about his little brother ;) Thanks!
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LOL
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:)
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Wow, interesting story, I hadn’t a clue what was going on until the end! Great job!
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Thanjs!
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My pleasure :)
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Wonderful. I love where you took this. Such a beautiful moment of growth and learning for the child.
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Thanks. I like to have those occasional happy endings.
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I started to chuckle and suspect when I read about mum exploding… and you didn’t disappoint. Great story.
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Thanks! You are the first one to mention that hint so I almost forgot I had put it in.
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Talk about a paradigm shift! Hospitals are definitely places of life as well as death..
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They can be both. Although most of us do think of the association with life, I can see a small child getting the wrong association.
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For sure!
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Nice turn-around at the end. I was thinking all sorts of supernatural/conspiracy thoughts until I realised it was a hospital.
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Nicely done. Loved your interpretation of this prompt :)
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Thanks!
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Hospitals …
Brilliant story.
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Yep, “places of death” = “hospitals”. Thanks!
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Good to learn a place of death can be a place of life too.
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It is a good lesson to learn that life rarely absolute, that it sometimes depends on point of view.
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I can see why he hated the place.
DJ
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Terrific story and a great take on the prompt. Well done.
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Thanks!
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Dear Trent,
At first I thought you were writing about a cemetery. It took a couple of reads to realize you were talking about a hospital. The realization at the end made me smile. Very well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks Rochelle. For some reason the photo reminded me of a hospital. With the first flowers of spring, i.e., new life in front, well, you know where my thought went from there.
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I’m glad your story ended on a happy note, Trent. I guess life truly is one big cycle, but that doesn’t make death any easier. Nicely done.
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Thanks Amy. I do like a happy ending on occasion and since my first thought when I saw the prompt was “new life in front of a hospital”, well, you know the rest.
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Well done — you really capture the way that kids work out the logic of things in their heads, not necessarily so accurately. And what a happy ending that the child was wrong about Mother exploding in pain!
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Thanks! Sometimes bad experiences really do taint the way kids see things. I like to occasionally have a little twist in these bits of flash fiction, but I try to put as many twists towards happy endings as ones that go a little darker.
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Given the preponderance of horror twists in this crowd, I especially appreciate the occasional happy ending!
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Nice. Yeah. A friend of mine, her husband died. She’s saying she feels so lost and she thinks she can not live without him. I am trying to think of a perfect way to say something to her but I have no idea what to say. Damn it!
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That’s pretty awful. It is so hard to know what to say in cases like that. If she has kids, of course there is the “You have to be here for the kids,” which is true even if they (the kids) are in their 60s – every one needs their Mother! If she doesn’t have kids, it’s a little tougher.You just have to hope something interests her.
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Her kids are all grown up and gone. I hope one of them will come over to her home.
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She needs to be reminded that no matter how old a kid is, everyone needs their mother. It would be nice for one to help her feel needed.
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Yes. I already send her an email. Hope I did ok.
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What a surprise. Kids do make those associations. :-)
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I needed one that the surprise at the end was a happy surprise. An kids can make those associations. If that is what they know, that is what they think.
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Great story!
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Thanks!
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Lovely twist. Life and death.You built the tension well.
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Thanks Irene. A hospital can be a place of death, but it is also a place of life, and in this case, new life, the first spring flowers both literally and figuratively.
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