Confession

I can’t help but smile, eyes down, a private moment of satisfaction as I think back to last night. My skin is glowing, my eyes have regained the sparkle they lost some time ago and I am radiant with new found confidence. I’m sure that if I went outside into the sunshine right now, every one would look at me and know…

I’m having an affair.

Don’t for a moment think I don’t love the one who I have devoted myself to over the last four years. Don’t think that I plan to stop slaving away at making that as perfect as it can be. Just because I am finding passion elsewhere, it doesn’t mean I’m giving up on it.

I’m a slave to the excitement that my new lover gives me. Our encounters are fast, thrilling and without the weight of commitment. No more than an hour, it’s all we need, then back to real life. I just can’t help being tempted away. I’m reminded of John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons; “It’s beyond my control.”

And who is my lover? The short story. Or more specifically, flash fiction. Heavens, you didn’t think I meant something else did you? I am British you know…

Yesterday I was seized by an idea, one that even though I had other things to write, other projects to pursue, I simply had to attend to. Less than half an hour later I sat back from the keyboard, breathless and flushed, looking at the story that had rushed onto the page. A little editing, some time apart from it to straighten my clothes, a little sanding down of the rough edges and it will be done. A story. A thing made manifest in the world.

The Collective Inkwell contest was like electrodes to a slumbering monster – zap and it sprung into life! Since then, I’ve written three more short stories, two flash (under 1000 words) and one for another competition coming in at 2,499 words.

I feel young again, special again! There’s a spring in my step and a smile on my face and clichés abound in my blog but I don’t care. I wanted to capture this excitement and tell you before it’s tarnished by the worry about my first online interview and the mountain of work I have to get through. Before the guilt of the affair sets in and I realise that my main love, Twenty Years Later, has been neglected far too long.

I am drunk on creation and my lover is beckoning from the softly lit room where new ideas are slumbering, ready to be woken. Who am I to refuse?

Tagged as: Dangerous Liaisons, flash fiction, short story