The Painting

Word Count = 529

The Painting

Friday was a long day in Paris for all of us vacationers. We'd completed all the tourist's usual activities - seeing The Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomphe, The Cathedral at Notre Dame.

Visiting the Impressionist Gallery was my contribution to the itinerary. By the time we arrived there, I was exhausted and quite frankly disappointed with the entire trip, that was until my eyes beheld the painting that would haunt me from the moment I saw it and still haunts me to this day - The Lady With a Parasol by Claude Monet.

Overwhelming emotions of days long past, flooded through me as I closed my eyes.

My spirit was transported back to the South of France in the late 1800's, back to a windy Spring day on a hillside covered with flowers. My white dress billowed around me as I struggled to smooth it and hold onto my parasol. The parasol gave me the illusion of being protected. I knew I needed protection from more than the sun, but it was no use.

I had just said goodbye to the love of my life, watching him ride away, knowing in my heart I would never feel so much for anyone again. I also knew that I would never see him again in that life, but I was determined to hold my head up and that's what I did.

And that is what M. Monet captured on that day - a moment that changed my destiny. For I never did see my love again. My love, so young and vibrant, gave his life to a meaningless struggle on another continent, deep in the interior of Africa. He was not the first, or the last, life to be sacrificed to the whims of those in power.

Throughout that life, I was haunted by regret for the loss and regret that I did not swallow my pride and beg him not to go. Instead, I held my head up bravely, trying to disguise the fear and the loss I already felt and can feel even now.

All that remains for all time, is a shattered shell of a French girl, standing on a hillside, holding a parasol, captured forever in a painting.

That painting that calls to me even today, more than a century later, as surely as if the loss of my love happened yesterday and all I need do is ask and he will stay. But trapped am I by my destiny as surely as the woman in the painting is captured for all time - sad, yet proud, standing on a hillside, accepting that which cannot be changed.

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This was an entry in

FORUM

The Writer's Cramp  (13+) Write the best poem or story in 24 hours or less and win 10K GPS! #333655 by Sophurky

The object of the contest was to write a story in less than 1,000 words that fitted the prompts given that day.

The Prompts:

You are in a museum looking at the various displays. All of a sudden, you see a magnificent historical object, and it carries you back to view a story of one of it's owners. The story is tremendously emotional.

What is the object, who were its owners, and what is the story you see?

For more of my short fiction see "A MOOveable Feast"