NPR All Things Considered Flash Fiction Contest
This time the rules are simple: 600 words or less and the first line, written by author Luis Alberto Urrea (
The Devil's Highway,
The Hummingbird's Daughter and
Queen of America) must begin the piece. Here's what I did with "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door."
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. After 74 years, she finally believed she could do it because she held a book, actually held it in her hands. After months of effort, today she had grasped the spine, opened the cover and moved the pages. Now she would grasp the front door knob, open the door and walk through.
She floated to the knob and reached out her pale fingers. The first three times they passed through the metal, the fourth time they touched. Slowly, concentrating, she closed her hand around the knob. “Turn!” She willed, focusing like she had on the book. “Turn… Turn….” But the knob wouldn’t move.
Naturally, she could pass through the door anytime she wanted. Since her murder, she could pass through anything: walls, furniture, people. She wanted to roam free of the house, out in the wide world. But, every time she left its walls, she felt a longing to be back again. She watched her family move away three weeks after her death. Six other families had been in and out of the house since then. She liked the boy who lived in the house now. But he would go too. Everyone left; everyone but her.
Unfinished business, the stories always said. She’d read them as a child, never thinking she would one day be a ghost with unfinished business. But what was unfinished? She’d never find her killer and she didn’t care to. Her spirit hadn’t followed her family. She was tied to the house. Sometimes she felt that if only she could open the front door and walk out, she could stay out.
She remembered the day she died in front of that door. The young burglar thought the house was empty. He went crazy when he saw her, hitting her repeatedly with terror in his eyes. He left her bleeding in the front hallway. She didn’t know how long she lay there. She heard the doorbell and then a knock. She tried to cry out, but the sound died in her throat. She tried to move, but she had no strength. She could not open the door. There was a UPS package on the doorstep when they found her.
She turned her attention back to the door to try again. She touched it and sensed its smooth hard surface beneath her fingers. She closed her hand. “Turn.” She repeated the word over and over in her mind, concentrating on the weight of the matter beneath her fingers. “Turn.” The knob moved the smallest bit. “Turn.” It moved again, a bit farther. Much later she finally heard the latch release. Hope rushed within her and moved the air around her. With laser-like concentration she willed, “Pull.” White light shone through the sliver of the opening, blindingly beautiful. She continued to pull. Warmth and calm surrounded and filled her as the light pored over.
Hours later a small boy rolled his train into the entry. “Daddy!! The front door is open.”
