Photo credit: Kaboompics (Pixabay)
Esqat lay on the hard floor, staring at the simple wooden dome above him. Not especially tall, not especially large, but a perfectly reasonable place to worship. Tomorrow he would hold services here for the first time. A great improvement over meeting at the mill. Room to spread out, at least until they gathered more hearts to the cause.
Into the silence, Esqat sang a hymn, filling the rounded space. Lying beside him, his wife joined in, her rich harmony layering over his own.
The dome transformed, growing large enough for windows, gaining ornate carvings along the edges, smoothing out in the middle and gaining a colorful painting extolling the virtues of the gods. Now, there was a dome worthy of great reverence.
When the song ended, Esqat described his vision to his wife.
Her voice was soft, teasing. “Ah, and have the gods suddenly given you future sight, my love?”
“Not yet. But they have granted me imagination. And that begins the journey.”
He took her hand and squeezed it, still gazing upwards, dreaming.
Word count: 175. Inspired by this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers challenge. Thanks to Priceless Joy for hosting! See the original photo prompt below, and click here to see the other stories and submit your own.
Photo © TJ Paris
Lovely story, indeed imagination is key.
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As a fellow writer, I have to agree! But in all things, yes, imagination is as close to future sight as we’re going to get.
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🙂
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Where would we be without imagination? Great story, Joy 🙂
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Thanks Sammi, glad you liked it!
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Great story, Joy! It all begins with a dream. 🙂
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Thanks, so glad you liked it, PJ! And yes, exactly, a dream is the first step to the journey!
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I love your using the inspiration image and melding it with another to make your story come to life – Brilliant!
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Thank you! I’m always trying to figure out how to use these modern images to relate to my lower-tech world. This is the first time I thought of dreaming of the future.
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Well done indeed 😉
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Great story! I love the sentiment behind Esqat’s words. Imagining the future really is the beginning of making it.
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Thanks, glad you enjoyed it Joshua! I really like the sentiment too. It seems like an impossible dream for Esqat, but who knows?
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Nice Joy, You transformed that wooden dome-like roof into the one in the prompt picture splendidly. I love to see how you handle prompts with your stories on the Eneanas. Having him dream of what the worship space roof could be was a great idea.
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Thank you! I can’t always find a way to make the photos work, but this idea came to me pretty quickly. I was hoping to find a photo of the inside of a stucco dome, but the wooden one works fine too. Then I just had to figure out who was looking at the roof and dreaming!
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I think one of the things I love about your flash fiction for these challenges is that you manage to find an alternate photo that works within Eneana, and then you convert the story to fit as well. You have an extra step in your process and I admire that.
As for the story itself, I really enjoyed it. At first I thought there was either magic happening or some kind of vision quest, but you brought it back to imagination, which as another fellow writer, I find invaluable. 🙂
A fine tale, Joy. Great job.
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Thank you so much Chris, I really appreciate it. Yes, the (self-imposed) restriction of keeping everything consistent with Eneana really does complicate matters sometimes, but I find that the challenge really stimulates my creativity. Sometimes it takes a ridiculous amount of time to find those alternate photos, though!
And yes, I was trying to hint at magic, and at his wife teasing him about suddenly having magical powers, so I’m happy that you caught that!
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Oh, how beautiful! Imagination shapes reality, and transforms it, or will transform it soon!
You are a wonderful story-teller, Joy! Your prose is lucid and it sparkles.
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Thank you so much for saying so, V, that’s so sweet of you!
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You’re welcome, Joy!
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Beautiful story. Wonderful how you merged the two pictures into one final dream.
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Thank you! I thought it worked out very neatly this time, not sure when I’ll be able to manage that again. 😉
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What a vision!
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Esqat is certainly blessed with a wonderful imagination. I’m sure it will inspire him to great things. Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Jacqueline!
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