Short story: After the lights go out

/ Claire Fuller

lampsI don’t remember the lights going out. I was three. Fifteen years of living in the dark, with only our dwindling reserves of lamp oil to illuminate the night.

“Emergencies only,” Papa always warned. I worried that I wouldn’t recognise an emergency: Ants in the honey? A full slop bucket? Losing Grandmother’s wedding ring under the bedcovers?

Papa fell from the ridge beam while fixing the roof. Coughing blood, he took to his bed on Saturday, the same day that Judith went into labour. That night, I lit two lamps; the night that baby Elinor was born and Papa died.

***

This piece of writing is part of the Friday Fictioneers writing group. Each week writers from around the world attempt to write 100 words (or so) starting with a picture, this week from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

I’d love to receive comments and constructive criticism. Click here to read other people’s stories inspired by this picture or to join in, with the group hosted by Rochelle Wishoff-Fields.

61 thoughts on “Short story: After the lights go out”

  1. I liked the bit where she was worried that she wouldn’t recognise an emergency, and the examples given. I wonder how our views on emergencies would change in a post apocalyptic world. Good story. 🙂

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    • Thanks. I guess our views on emergencies would change dramatically – we’d probably worry about things that we haven’t even thought of now.
      Thanks for your comments.
      Claire

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  2. What an interesting take, Claire, and I mean that in the good sense of “interesting.” I like what you saw as an emergency to a young child because those small (to us) things are things that loom large in a child’s life. I also like the cycle of life you pulled in.

    janet

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  6. There’s always at least one bit in your stories where the ‘human-ness’ of the character comes through. This week it was the line “worried I wouldn’t recognise an emergency”. Well done, a lot in one story.

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  10. I like the way your narrator has a question about a real emergency. For those of us with everything at our fingertips the emergency may be a lesser inconvenience than portrayed in this story.

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  21. Incredible how you bring up so much in a short short story… I wondered what happened to make the lights go out in this apocalyptic future… the birth and death happening together brought the visuals of the lamp fires back: one with the future of the baby, and the other with the memories of Papa.

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    • Thanks – I’m really pleased that you enjoyed my story. Sometimes ‘full circle’ in a story can be cheesy, so I’m glad if you think this one didn’t go too far in that direction.
      Claire

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  22. For me, this is your best story yet, Claire. I loved the uncertainty of the child and I felt the anxiety around protecting the oil reserve. The two lamps lit at the end were lovely. Great job.
    Denmother

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      • Yeah, sorry about that. I tried to edit it following some feedback, but we were travelling, and the 3G was so bad it got trashed somehow. I ended up deleting it and enjoying my week away Wi-Fi free rather than fixing it! So much for a burning desire to write! I might put it up again……. if I can find a draft.

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  28. I liked the way the things considered to be possible emergencies were so small compared to the real ones. Great story – so much said and yet so much more for the reader to imagine.

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