7-word Fiction Challenge!
This week, I attended a new writers’ group called Writers on the Avenue in Muscatine, Iowa. It was a great working session, and if you are local, I’d highly recommend joining us next month. The take-home challenge was to use seven randomly selected words to write a short piece of fiction.
I wanted to see if I could get a small snippet for my next historical fiction done by completing this challenge. Here is my attempt, see if you can puzzle out what time period and part of the world I’ll be focusing my novel on next. Leave your guesses in the comments, and enjoy reading!
At the end of the long lane to the Admiral’s Club was a Cape Willow. She’d seen it through two full seasons now. That untrimmed mess of a tree had made her world feel more upside down than having black live-in housekeepers and adjusting to the accents. Its proud branches would fill in all bushy and verdant in December when they attended the holiday ball. And in July, when the wives gathered for this tea or another, most of the leaves were scattered on the ground brushed about in the cool, dry temperatures of South Africa’s winter.
Tonight, Christmas lanterns with red wax candles were posted like sentinels up the walkway. She was wearing a red gown and an emerald pin. Her underarms were damp, and her skirt felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. If they couldn’t have snow for Christmas, could there at least be a breeze?
“Ilona?”
A soldier boy extended his white-gloved hand toward her.
“Can we keep the daydreaming to a minimum tonight, please?”
Ilona looked past him to see the veranda a hive of activity. Inside was not any better. Black silhouettes, holding arms and delicate crystal glasses, mingled through every windowpane. She wished she could be anywhere but here.
She fixed her face with an exuberant smile and delicately placed her fingertips in her husband’s hand.
“This place is nearly a dream all by itself! Look at all of those people up there.”
She felt his gaze study her for a moment before placing her hand in the crook of his arm.
“Well let’s not keep them waiting.”
He was transformed right before her eyes. These people, in evening gowns and starched military uniforms were his community. He thrilled at the pomp and circumstance, the talks of new military excursions, and who was up next for a promotion. It all bored her to death. Every one of those people could go on and on, totally absorbed in their own circle and themselves, as if the world existed for them alone. She had disliked the Admiral’s Club from the moment they had arrived on base. It felt like a stuffier version of the cotillion back in England.
But that man, her husband of three years, was her ticket to the life Ilona really longed for. Mathew was not the life, or the goal. Not even her dream. He was a means to an end. And the end she had been longing for was freedom abroad. Nothing was off limits to the British military, and while she couldn’t be a soldier, she could be a soldier’s wife.
And sometimes that meant stuffy parties and award ceremonies.
Ilona picked up the edge of her skirt, and sashayed her way inside on Matthew’s arm.
“The last batch of men came back with a horrid case of scabies from the natives. They’ve kept them quarantined—”
“Scabies! How dreadful!”
“What is scabies?”
“A nasty local pest, something like lice.”
Ilona looked down into her glass. Was it already empty? A loud clamor erupted from the men’s smoking lounge, followed by a burst of deep laughter. She sighed. If only she would be allowed to join them, the night would be much more enjoyable than this dull, bigoted chatter.
A winking light caught the corner of her eye. Ilona turned her head to see bobbling brilliant white orb tracing the path of an infinity sign through the window. He’d come. A waiter passed in front of her just in time to receive the sherry glass she no longer needed.
“Excuse me, Dorothy. I need to attend to something in the ladies’ room.”
Before anyone could offer to accompany her, Ilona was out of the parlor and making her way down the deserted front hallway. The wait staff would be prepping the dining hall, and Matthew, well−he would be preoccupied long into the evening.
Ilona dashed down the gravel drive, grateful for the cover of night. She hadn’t been expecting him to follow her here, to this place. But when the mood struck—
A blinding light caught her right in the face.
“Put that blasted flashlight down!”
“I couldn’t resist,” she heard the grin while twinkles danced in her vision.
“Here, I brought these for you,” Anton held out a canvas bag and thick soled waders.
“You know exactly how to please a girl,” Ilona grabbed for the items.
Anton began untying the donkeys he’d packed up with climbing gear and sample collection vials, plus a few other necessities. Ilona emerged from the dark in thick canvas breeches, a billowing blouse, and waders.
“Lead the way!”