Friday Fictioneers – Homesick

~ neilmacdon
image
PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

Inside the dome, we have beauty and abundance, lack nothing. Imagine a thing and you need only stretch out your hand to claim it. There is no hardship, and really all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

At night, I press my cheek to the glass wall, seeking that one pinpoint of light high in the sky. I reach out a hand. But I cannot touch it.

Oh, why would you insist on staying behind?

 

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here

 

59 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – Homesick”

  5. You’ve written this very nicely, capturing some important emotional truths. The statement “really all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” is a very clever piece of writing, making us suspect immediately that the first paragraph is, at best, only partially true.
    I could imagine this scenario for early settlers on Mars. Earth would be visible as a star, but it would be almost impossible to return.

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  11. This post has provoked a maelstrom of thoughts for me. Hard to sort out just one. No worries? No challenges. No hardship? No strength. I, too, would rather be a distant star than a being locked into someone else’s idea of a perfect world.

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  12. As I read the beginning ominous undertones presented themselves. A bird in a gilded cage came to mind. Is the writer a subject in a Martian zoo? Just one scenario, but I think the person who stayed behind is looking at Mars and wondering why he had to go…

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  13. I love being out, studying nature. But your story ask the question, and makes one think. I am sure many less fortunate than me, could/will be tempted

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  16. It’s always the same. When you don’t go, you regret it. When you do go, you get homesick, might get killed, might experience hardships. But staying behind is more difficult, I think. Great story.

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  21. The whole idea of living in a glass bubble is such fertile ground. It describes the private and unreachable nature of human consciousness, and at the same time reminds me of the children who had no immunities and had to live in bubbles for their own survival.

    Our choice to join certain groups may wall us off from access to certain other people. This is most evident in religion and politics these days.

    And the separation is at its most tragic when those outside the glass are beloved. Your character seems right on the cusp of realizing what his predicament really means.

    And next, I would expect, would follow self-doubt and regret… but your choice of cheery words, casting blame only on the outsider, make the narrator’s predicament seem “positively”cult-like.

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  22. The idea of living on a distant planet in a self-sustainable atmosphere in a dome really does not appeal to me and it appears your character is homesick and missing his/her friend. Loneliness and yearning come across in such a few words.

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  24. It’s said that this world lacks nothing, but the protagonist is longing for someone back home, and I suspect he/she is not the only one feeling that way. I imagine a lot of hand and cheek prints on the glass wall.
    I like the understated style of storytelling.

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