Mid Week Blues Buster - STAY

Well it's a week for participating in new writing prompts. I have always liked the look of Jeff Tsuruoka's Mid Week Blues Buster challenge but have never quite had the time to fit it in.

Instead of a picture or a word or even nine words his prompt is a song. Then you write a story of about 500 words, but the rules are very lenient and the story can be anything from 300 to 700.

This week’s prompt is provided by Manchester duo… Hurts.



The song is, “Stay”.  Here’s the link; http://youtu.be/1nP3XB7hrFo

And here's the story it inspired...

We say goodbye in the pouring rain, you shake my hand like the true gentleman you are.

Then you turn and leave without a single word.

But then you’ve already told me this is never going to work. Your letter so articulate and neatly written in your cursive old fashioned handwriting explaining everything.

Holding in all my raw emotions I watch you walk away, your umbrella aloft protecting you from the storm. Once you turn the corner, without so much as a backwards glance, tears run down my face mingling with raindrops. 

I can’t move yet all I want to do is run after you and beg you to stay - please. We can make this work - somehow. That’s what love is all about. Compromise, give and take, call it whatever you like.

Was it a mistake to see you one final time?

Well one last time for me but for you this is actually our very first meeting – isn’t it funny how time travel works – I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why our days together had to be so brief when you had the capacity to turn an hour into an entire lifetime.

What is the point of your gift if you can’t use it to be happy or to make those you love happy too?

In your time, the you who’s just left me standing here, oblivious to how I even feel, you’ve not even written this letter yet, this letter that is fading before my eyes. 

At first I think it is just the ink running, words smudging in the wet but as I look closer the blue script is not running but erasing line by line. I trace the disappearing words with my finger until I have nothing left of you.

I feel wobbly as if my legs will no longer hold my weight.

Time is being re-written.

And then the rain stops, at least it no longer drips on my head or runs down my face.

I look up to see the shadow of a big black umbrella and your smiling face.

“It’s all been a mistake,” you whisper softly, “I’ve decided to stay!”

360 words