Jane jerks awake, the dream still strong. She’s scraped her fingertips against the rough concrete floor before she remembers there is no lamp. No bed, no matching nightstand, no electricity at all. Just her sleeping bag on the cold floor of the abandoned house she squats in.
The dream had felt so real. Safe in her bed. Her roses outside the window. Her house.
Follow your dreams, they said; it makes life rich. Except when you end up losing it all. She’d moved here with such high hopes. Now she knows that sometimes what’s over the horizon should stay there.
Every week at the Ranch, Charli hosts the Rough Writers and Friends flash fiction challenge. This week’s prompt: “In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story using the theme ‘follow your dreams.'” More great flashes from other writers are at the link.
99 Monkeys 
I’m thinking of Shakespeare: is it better to have dreamed and lost than never to have dreamed at all? We dreamers are the risk-takers and sometimes the pavement scrapes our knuckles. Jane continues to deepen the meaning of her journey.
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…and I’m thinking the old, ‘be careful what you wish for’ saying.
(I’ve always had this thing about ‘the Monkey’s Paw Effect’ which, since, like junior high school when I first read the story, I was all, like, ‘so if there’s no such thing as magic, why so many stories about the bad things that happen if you mess with it?’)
enjoyed visitin’ with Jane.
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The Monkey’s Paw…one of the top five best short stories ever written!
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Powerful perspective on what’s over the horizon at the end.
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