Welcome to the one hundred and twenty-eighth in this daily series that is ‘5pm Fiction’.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. I put a load of prompts on the 5PM Fiction page and today’s was to write a story including the following keywords: pocket, borrow, meaning, steal, lack, so here is my 159-worder.
Something borrowed
It was the ‘something borrowed’ that meant so much to Laura. She’d had a pocket especially sewn into the wedding dress to keep it safe. Her grandfather’s pocket watch. Nothing special you might think and it wasn’t at the time he’d given it to her, just sentimentality but when her mother died it took on a whole new meaning.
It had been sitting on her mother’s kitchen table when Laura had collected the dress and taken it to her for safe-keeping. Only now it was her mother she wanted to keep safe; buy her a new heart, steal one, borrow one.
Remaining on her bedside table or in her jeans pocket for the three week’s between her mother’s death and the day she became Laura Elliott.
As the music started, Laura turned to her father and they both stepped forward. She wasn’t sure whether it was his lack of emotion that was holding hers back but she was grateful.
***
Photography courtesy of morguefile.com. You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I also now have a new blog creation service especially for, but not limited to, writers.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) 
on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are fortnightly episodes, usually released on Sundays, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
