Flash Fiction Friday

Doorknobs & BodyPaint

Guides & Prompts
from the archives issue 61 theme love

Mad about the boy or girl.  We’ve all heard the expression.  But, what does it really mean?  Has the person really gone over the edge?  Have they really become mad as a hatter?  Or, is it just an expression that we use to suggest infatuation?  Is it just a symptom of spring fever soon to dissipate? Or, is it something much more serious. You choose, then write your story within the limits of our contest guidelines (hoops):

DORSAL CONTEST 

Curious about Bronte's mad wife in Jane Eyre, author Jean Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea, as a "prequel" to Jane Eyre. Rhys' novel reveals the tragic life of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who enters a loveless marriage with the coldhearted Englishman, Mr. Rochester. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the author provides a haunting portrait of the fine line between love and madness.

Mr. Rochester describes his distrust of the West Indian people and, in particular, his disgust of his own wife:

It was at night that I felt danger and would try to forget it and push it away.

'You are safe,' I'd say. She'd liked that — to be told 'you are safe.' Or I'd touch her face gently and touch tears. Tears — nothing! Words — less than nothing.  As for the happiness I gave her, that was worse than nothing. I did not love her. I was thirsty for her, but that is not love. I felt very little tenderness for her, she was a stranger to me, a stranger who did not think or feel as I did.

In 450 words or less, write a story, using external and internal dialogue that reveals the narrator's hidden feelings about a friend, lover or spouse.