Muffin, Cousin, Cliff

In the interest of keeping this page active, here is another mystery micro-fiction, using the words Muffin, Cousin and Cliff

I sat on the edge of the cliff, with my legs dangling over the side. I stared out towards the ocean, not really seeing it. Someone mentioned later that there had been a pod of whales playing in the waves, but I didn’t notice any. I wasn’t looking, I was mentally and emotionally distracted, to say nothing of the flood of tears that would have obscured my view if I’d been interested in looking at all.

“Oi! Matilda!” I heard my cousin, Sienna calling out behind me. Please go away, I begged silently.

“I thought I’d find you up here. You don’t think you overreacted back there?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, Craig thinks you did.”

“Craig’s a pig.”

“That’s true on so many levels.” Please please go away.

“Listen, Tilly, I know you were close to Gran, but it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Listen, Sienna. Gran’s blueberry muffins were one of the most special memories of my childhood. She specifically made exactly twenty-four because she knew she was dying soon. She made enough for one each for her children, children-in-law and grandchildren.”

“I know that.”

“Craig knew that too.”

“Of course he did, everyone knew that. We’ve been listening to her talk about death for days now.”

“I’ve been listening to her for years, Sienna. I looked after her.” It was the first time I’d said those words out loud and I immediately felt bad for sounding ungrateful; my Gran was the whole world to me.

“I know that too, Matilda, we all know how much you sacrificed.”

“It wasn’t a sacrifice. I wanted to spend my time with Gran.”

“Ok.”

“He ate my muffin!” I heard my scream echo down the cliff and my cousin leaned back in shock.

“I know honey, but you didn’t have to knock him out.”

Mystery Micro-fiction: boot, photographer, mountaintop

Yet another mystery micro-fiction. The parameters - write a story of between 250 and 300 words based on the three words: boot, photographer, mountaintop.

It had taken over four hours, but Eliza had finally reached the summit of Mount Warning; she’d left at 2am to be there in time to see the sunrise, and pulled herself up the last hundred metres with the chains that were bolted into the rock face. She knew she wouldn’t be disappointed and she was right. The view was more breathtaking than she’d imagined, and for a moment, she forgot all about the resentment she felt for Charlie, who’d told her she could never do it. It was that anger that had fuelled her determination to work so hard.

Charlie had never believed in her, he'd laughed when she said she wanted to be a photographer, rolled his eyes when she said she wanted to make a book of mountain-top sunrise photos and shook his head when she spent five-hundred dollars on a pair of hiking boots. Well, she’d shown him alright.

She sat on the precipice, camera in hand, boots resting by her thigh to allow her aching feet to cool, wriggling her toes in the breeze, amazed that she was looking down at birds in flight. She reached behind her for a drink of water. As she brought the water bottle to her mouth, her arm knocked a boot and sent it falling into the bush below. Her body’s reaction overtook all thought and she instinctively jerked forward to catch the falling boot. She felt her heart jolt in the same way as it does when you lean too far back on your chair, when your equilibrium tilts too far the wrong way.

Eliza’s arms scrambled to find something to hold, some way of regaining that equilibrium. She remembered something a friend has said the day before.

“It’s always faster coming back down than going up.”