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"So Tired" ~ An Ultra Flashblast for #TheBeast

creatrPosted for Everyone to comment on, 5 years ago3 min read

"Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother."
- Beverley Jones -


I appreciate challenges.

Today's challenge is really nested challenges, one in aid of the other. I've been helpfully challenged by @laureate to write a story that will fulfill today's requirement to meet #thebeast challenge. How cool is that?

This short Science Fiction scenario takes place in the 19th century, not long before the advent of electricity changed the way world operates. One of the greatest beneficiaries of that shift in technology is the modern homemaker.

Have you ever imagined living two hundred years ago?

Life was hard in that day, particularly for women who could not afford servants to manage their households. As our story begins, one very tired homemaker responds remarkably well to an unprecedented surprise.

So Tired

"So Tired" ~ Prompt supplied by @laureate

~So Tired~

by Duncan Cary Palmer

The mantel clock finishes its Westminster carillon. Quarter of two, already exhausted in body and soul, I have yet to finish the ironing.

"Mary."

Am I hearing things? Baby Jayne calls me "Mama." She's napping, and Roger is working the field.

"Are you alright?"

I rise from the table and turn toward the voice, only to be taken aback by a glowing apparition on the mantel. "What manner of demon are you?"

"A descendant of yours, no demon. What's wrong?"

Ever curious, I reach out to touch the animated figure, but my hand passes through. "Are you a spirit? How stand you on my mantel?"

"You see but an image of me, from the year 2037. But why so distressed?"

No tippler, I dismiss any notion that I'm hallucinating.

"My life is naught but labor. Jayne wakes me by night. I rise before dawn to set a meal before Roger. Then unpaid char work, sweeping, mopping, tending fires, slopping, butchering, rug beating, canning, doing laundry. Surely, there is more to life! I despair to think poor Jayne must repeat this."

"Take heart, Mary. I came to tell you your children have been liberated by scientific advances. Machines now bear those burdens. Your female descendants are artists, researchers, inventors."

Truly? The band around my heart loosens.

"I developed this means to .woa.doktccc..."

No! The image is flickering. "Wait! What is your name, grandchild?"

"..ctch...a..umph.. Sarah..yra.."

I know not what may have failed, but Sarah has left a song in my heart.


~FIN~


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Modern labor-saving conveniences. ~ Image courtesy of pkamiini

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