Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge – Made Up Memories

Submitted for Sunday Photo Fiction

The Assignment: The idea of Photo Fiction is write a story of around 100-200 words (which is also called Flash Fiction) based on a photo as a prompt. In this particular photo fiction, the story must be based on the photo below.

Credit: C.E. Ayr

Tara slowed as she walked along the path. She could almost hear the laughter as her parents counted 1-2-3 and lifted her to swing her on 4. This memory from twenty years ago was the only memory of her parents she remembered in the sessions with her therapist. She knew what had occurred when she was four years old, but she didn’t remember. Always having an active imagination, Tara would often picture that time and form made up memories to block out what really happened. Eventually her imagination became her reality. In her reality, the small family lived on a boat in the middle of a river. They sailed up and down the river and used their little dingy to get off whenever they wanted to go ashore. Her dad was a fisherman and sold his fresh fish in a market on the wharf. Her mom would cook them meals often with fish and she and her parents had fun all the time. Tara stopped and looked out at the water. There was no boat nor its dingy and no family having fun. Alone in the world, this was the place she was left all those years ago.