Friday Fictioneers: Moving On

Posted on by Louise Bunting

This is my entry for this week’s Friday Fictioneers Challenge run by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s picture prompt was provided by David Stewart. The challenge is to write a story within 100 words.

david-stewart
Photo prompt – copyright David Stewart

Moving On

Edward watched enviously from the shadows, listening to the music emanating from the pavilion. The community band had consumed his whole life: every spare minute for years spent arranging music and preparing sets, his whole identity built around his role. Now that had been stripped away. He knew he’d been a hard task-master, organising frequent rehearsals and driving them hard. It was still painful to see them moving on with his youthful replacement.

At least he could still listen to them play. Had the heart attack taken him in any other place he would be unable to do even that.

Word Count: 100

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FIC

52 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers: Moving On”

  1. It’s hard to hand over the reins after so long, but it sounds like someone in the band or audience was able to help save his life.
    Your story has the same title as mine! It caused me momentary Inbox confusion 🙂

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    1. That’s the hazard of not looking at other people’s stories before I post my own – I would have given it a different title if I’d known!
      Are you sure someone managed to save him? I did leave it quite open to interpretation….

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      2. Thank you! I quite like leaving things open to interpretation. You’re quite welcome to read it as he’s still alive, just replaced. 🙂

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  2. It must be difficult to let go of something so dear, especially if it was once the reason behind your existence and purpose in life.
    Great story!

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  3. Poor Edward 😦 I had some mixed emotions when I read this. His connection to the music and the community band was so strong that that’s the place he went to after he died and I felt happy about that. But then I had the feeling that Edward was kind of a jerk when he was alive so I didn’t feel quite as happy for him!

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    1. He was very driven to make the band the best it could possibly be and he didn’t always think about other people in his determination to make it so. 🙂 Thanks for reading!

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  7. Mysterious. You do write that the band had taken his WHOLE life. Ergo, if taken literally, he must not have a life anymore. It remains to be answered why he would not be able to listen if he had had a heart attack anywhere else. Dear or alive, he’s still haunting. Nice one. 🙂

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  12. I had to read it twice just to confirm what I “thought” I read the first time around. I understood it that the heart attack killed him but left him where he was most familiar. Very nice Louise!!

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    1. Thank you. I actually left it quite open to interpretation – you can read it that he’s dead and haunting the bandstand or you can read it that he survived but was forced to retire. 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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  19. My interpretation of the story is that he died, which is sad as it would have been so much better for him to have departed this world doing what he loved most, like Louis Vierne, the blind French organist who died of a heart attack during his 1750th organ recital at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 June 1937.

    Your story illustrates so well that people who don’t learn to let go, die bitter. I have to admit that, as a singer, I find it really hard listening to other people singing when I get a sore throat and lose my voice, but I’d never get as screwed up as Edward about it!

    Well written.

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  20. It would be hard to move on, especially after what sounds like and unwilling resignation…I read this and it put me in mind of Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap books – the ghosts there have to remain in the spot they died for a year and a day before being able to move on…maybe that’s the case with this bitter chap.

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  24. Always a fan of ghost stories, this one doesn’t disappoint. I like the idea Ed is bound to the spot of his death, although it makes me terrified of dying at work one day!
    Cheers
    KT

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    1. Thank you! It’s a horrible thought, isn’t it? Though, I work with kids so I’d probably find myself bound to a play area – there could be worse places…

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