Posted on by Sonia Dogra

Tomorrow is Another Day – WEP Challenge

Hello!

Welcome to the first WEP Challenge, 2023. This month we would like to know what inspires you about the iconic film ‘Gone With the Wind’.

Here is what you have to do,

FLASH FICTION, POETRY, NON-FICTION, PHOTO ESSAYS…
POST 15 – 17 FEBRUARY 2023

  1. SUBMIT your name and URL to the list below starting February 15 to the 17th
  2. POST your entry according to February’s prompt “GONE WITH THE WIND“
  3. USE WEP in your Title and the Poster on your page. Post your word count.
  4. STATE feedback preferences and give positive feedback as requested. See WEP Critique Page.
  5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog.

Open to all genres – 1000 words maximum 

To join, click here

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I’ve chosen the themes of love, regret and hope from the movie. Just like Scarlett, the protagonist of my micro fiction falters in love but waits with hope in her heart. I’ve chosen the famous, tomorrow is another day as the tagline of my story.

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She no longer sleeps with her back to him. The war has mostly been amorphous, except for the sound of distant explosions, loud and clear. The rest has been left to her imagination. Some have died, others would. Maybe all of them will die.

When the siren had wailed, he’d jumped off the bed, worn the camouflage – his thirty-second training at its best – planted a kiss on her lips and rushed out of the front door. It had been the only physical contact between them in over a week.

The previous night he had ghosted her. And on the nights before that. Not that her cavalier attitude had been any different. She had refused to call him up even when a ten-minute drive home had taken him twenty. He had started to ditch the shorter route for the one that drove past the barracks. At the table they’d let the cutlery do the talking, cancelling each other with silence. In bed, their backs signed off for the day. She’d lain awake for hours before dawn and wondered about the possibilities from yesterday that had been wasted. Suitors with common interests, a gentle conversationalist now taken by a cousin, an old friend whose gaze hardly left her.

Resigned to ignoring week-old dirty socks lying aimlessly by the boots, his casualness irritated her.  

She wonders how it would have ended for them had the siren not blared in the wee hours that morning. She’d wanted to pull out a fresh pair for him. Instead, she gulped from the bottle on the night stand. Words swiveled inside her, changing their shape, bumping into each other and rolling back into the pit of her stomach. She was still forming them when the kiss had happened. Brief, rushed. It was the last time she had smelt him.

Now she sits in the verandah under the thatched roof where they sometimes talked about the past and their future, and waits patiently for his car to swerve around the corner, an endless routine that fails to tire her; she inhales the salty mud that grows his favourite petunias and sips the incredibly expensive wine from his collection. She checks the phone for the dial tone and late into the nights, launders his washed socks.

When she puts them out to dry, she repeats to herself, tomorrow is another day.   

(Total Words – 393; FCA)

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32 Replies to “Tomorrow is Another Day – WEP Challenge”

  2. Such a poignant take on the prompt. Very well written, Sonia.

    ‘Words swiveled inside her, changing their shape, bumping into each other and rolling back into the pit of her stomach.’ How beautiful.

    Hoping for a sequel; maybe distance makes them realise how precious their closeness was.

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  3. I love the “tomorrow is another day” theme. So much in my life goes unsaid, undone, simply because I’m waiting for the right time, circumstance. Once you lose someone though, you also lose all the opportunties for better things.

    Excellent entry Sonia. Welcome to WEP.

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  4. It’s always the inconsequential things that stay with us. The fights over nothing, the silence even when words are bubbling to be released. Oh, the things that don’t matter and yet mean everything. So well done!

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  5. Hi Sonia – yes tomorrow is another day – but today is a beautiful one too – but the way we react can make today sour, which needs then to be rectified – I do so hope it’s a love story. Looking forward to April’s entry … cheers Hilary

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  6. Hi,
    the saddest thing is to establish a distance that cannot be overcome. Even if he does return, the problems that the distance caused will still remain between them.
    Very well written.
    Shalom aleichem

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  7. Somehow that image of her rewashing those clean socks over and over stays with me, a testament to the power of her tenacity for the one she loved, despite war. I read this twice, once thinking of the war in Ukraine, knowing that each generation faces a war somewhere. Thank you for this story that brings the reader close to understanding the effects of war. Beautifully written.

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  9. Beautifully written, Sonia. War is so hard on relationships. A poignant interpretation of the prompt.

    I always enjoy reading your posts. Particularly loved the line on cutlery doing the talking. Evocative.

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  13. Beautiful Sonia. Wartime is so hard on everyone, lovers too. But I’m hoping all will work out in the end. I especially loved this: “Words swiveled inside her, changing their shape, bumping into each other and rolling back into the pit of her stomach.” I felt those words.
    I hope you enjoy your first WEP challenge as a team member. (I took the liberty of adding you to the list already.)

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    1. Thank you, Denise. I wanted to do it but I wasn’t sure how. I am looking forward to reading and contributing to my best. I am glad you could relate to this piece.

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