The Twilight Twenty-Five
thetwilight25 dot com
Prompt: 25
Pen Name: Chocaholic123
Pairing/Character(s): Bella / Edward
Rating: M
Word Count: 495
Photo prompts can be found here:
thetwilight25 dot com/round-eight/prompts

This one is based on a photograph of a guitarist sitting on train tracks, and is my final flash for the Twilight 25. For those of you that can bear it, there's a hugely long author's note at the end.

"Do you know when the next train is due?" The girl is breathless; her chest is heaving up and down. I stop strumming my guitar and look up at her. My eyes are drawn to her feet; she's wearing odd socks. For some reason I can't take my eyes off them.

"The next one's cancelled," I tell her. "They say there'll be one in about three hours."

"Three hours?" Her eyes widen. "Damn."

"In a hurry to get somewhere?" I feel my lips twitch. I've been sitting on this bench since this morning. Two months of playing in hell-hole dives and dingy bars has made me yearn for fresh air. I don't mind the wait at all.

"I just like to watch 'em." She waves at the iron tracks. Her nails are bitten and short, black polish peeling from the surface. "I pretend I'm gonna get on them and run away somewhere."

She sits down next to me, crossing her leg over her knee. I notice they're grubby and scabbed. "You play that thing?"

"The guitar?"

"Uh, yeah."

I run my fingers down the strings. "A bit."

Tipping her head to the side, she starts to scrutinize me. "You aren't from around here, are you?"

"How can you tell?"

"You don't have that desperate look like the rest of us."

"Desperate?"

"Ya know, desperate to get the hell out of here." She gestures at the farmland beyond the station. "I can't wait to leave. Just as soon as I hear back from one of those agents I've written to, I'm on the first train out."

I frown. "What kind of agents?"

"I want to be an actress."

"Really?"

"Hell, yeah. It beats working on the farm." She screws her nose up. "I swear I smell of pig."

I start to laugh. "There's worse things, you know."

She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head. "Nothing worse than stinking of bacon."

My smile threatens to burst out and I bite it down. There's something sweet about this girl. She's feisty, forward with a pretty face to match. "I happen to like bacon."

"You wouldn't if you had to clear the pigs out day in, day out." Her shoulders droop. "Where are you going, anyway?"

"I'm from New York."

Her eyes widen. "For real?"

I nod. She leans toward me. "What's it like there? Have you ever been to Broadway?"

"I've seen a few plays."

A man steps onto the platform, scanning up and down. Spotting the two of us, he strides over, an angry look on his face. "Bella Marie, you get your heinie back home right now. Your brother needs help with the pigs."

"Already?" She sighs and stands up. Flashing me a wink, she follows him back up the platform, wriggling her hips so her skirt sways.

As soon as she's gone, I pick up my guitar, strumming chords and singing softly. I'm still thinking about her when the train arrives.

LONG ASS A/N

So this is it, the end has come. When I first started writing these flashes, I thought they would be easy. Then inspiration dried up, and sometimes I was grasping around desperately for ideas. Some worked better than others, and some were received better than others. That's all good. Hopefully it's given a little insight into how my brain works. I have these sorts of flickers most days - all the 'what ifs' ... what if Bella got stuck up a tree, what if Edward played in a band but suffered from deep depression, what if I wrote a medieval story ... Most of these things get consigned in my mind to the 'do not bother' pile, but this time I got to share them with the whole world.

There's a few people I need to thank. GemmaH for being my writing buddy and for putting lovely comments on my docs. We both finished our flashes today - if you haven't read hers yet, go take a look now. Google gemmah fanfic - she'll be there.

I'd also like to thank SparrowNotes for making me sign up, even though I may have been under the influence at the time. I love you, sweets.

To the organizers of the Twilight 25. Nobody ever sees the amount of effort it takes to arrange things like this, but I know just the sourcing of the photographs, the writing of the blog, the listing of the names ... that all gives somebody a lot of work to do. Thank you, I appreciate it.

Finally, to you-readers and reviewers. I can never say enough times how much I appreciate your support. I love getting reviews (meh, who doesn't?) but I also appreciate those of you who just read and close. Because I used to be a reader to (still am, sometimes), and I rarely reviewed. It didn't mean I didn't appreciate the work, though. But ... yeah ... still feel free to review lol.

That's about it. I told you it would be long (probably longer than the flash, to be honest.) But I want you all to know I heart you very much.

Choc xoxo