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It was his tenth anniversary. Ten years since her husband died from an unexplained gunshot.
Janice stared fondly at the negatives of her and her husband that fateful day. They were having a picnic with a few of their friends when her husband, out of sheer mischief, decided to force feed her a dish she hated – sashimi. One of their friends, Dennise, was an avid photographer and she thought it would make a memorable photograph.
She whipped out her SLR camera and took eight burst photos of Janice’s husband chasing after Janice. The first seven were Janice escaping from her husband’s outstretch hand holding the sashimi with chopsticks. The eighth was him falling forward without warning, right in front of Dennise’s camera.
Everyone were laughing at his antics and Janice’s helpless screams of “Get away from me!”. At first, they thought he had tripped over himself – he had a knack of tripping over flat surfaces – and they laughed even harder at his awkward fall to realise something was wrong. By the time they realised there was too much blood from a simple fall and he was not moving at all, he had stopped breathing. There was a nasty exit wound on his chest.
Tears immediately welled in Janice’s eyes and she put the negatives away. The police never found the murderer and Janice still did not understand why anyone wanted to kill her husband. The police did not have any suspect at all – both Janice and her husband were just an average couple and well liked by neighbours as well as colleagues. The only suspicion they had was, the murderer had used a silencer.
The series of photographs would only serve to remind Janice what she would never have so the photographs were never developed. Dennise still passed the negatives to Janice, in case she changed her mind one day.
If only Janice decided to develop the photographs, it would reveal, at the far right of the photograph, a woman firing a gun. Not at Janice’s husband, but at Dennise, for having an extra-marital affair with her husband.
If you are interested, the prompt is linked below.
Welcome to “Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.” Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or poem inspired by the photo. There are no style or word limits.
For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows a woman holding up to the light and looking at a strip of film negatives that seems to show images of two people outdoors.
If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post. I hope it will generate some great posts.
Thanks to all of you who have participated in these challenges so far. Your posts have been very creative. Please take a few minutes to read the other responses to this photo challenge.
Please create a pingback to this post or manually add your link in the comments.
Prompt: Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #51
From the Window Seat 