We lived in Gothic House, seven squeezed in students. My room was the smallest, a cupboard really, barely space for the slatted single bed, but only a tenner a week. I kept my suitcase under the bed, wide open. When I needed anything, I’d sit at one end and roll up the mattress to get to my things. For a really good rummage, I’d drag the whole suitcase into the hall.
Now I wander through my country house, with its marble floors, balconies and double bedrooms, and I wish I could peel the mattress back to those Gothic House days.
(100 words)
Photo prompt © J Hardy Carroll
Another Friday, another fiction. This one’s less ha ha and more wistful aah. Click the link below to see what other Friday Fictioneers did with the prompt, or click here to head over to Rochelle’s place and join in.
EL Appleby: Brain Fragments 
The grass is always greener in the valley we’ve just come from?
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Oh for those simpler days, those happier days, if only we’d known it then… now…
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Downsizing has a lot of attractions, leaving a lot of baggage behind.
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Very thoughtful story, I really like it.
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Thank you. I was in a nostalgic mood this week 🙂
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Liked this thought provoking take on the photo prompt. A simpler life is often better!
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Thank you. Glad I provoked some thoughts!
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I definitely experienced that wistful pang, though my marble floors may not be, well, marble, and my country, well, to be honest, suburban, house may not be as spacious…😊
The things we miss are not the furnishings, but the memories that flood back at the thought of them. Well done!
Love how she peels back the mattress like peeling back time. And “gothic house”. Both lead back to the prompt.
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Sadly, I am still waiting for my country house too. Maybe one day. Thanks for commenting 🙂
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Lovely,
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thank you 🙂
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Wealth doesn’t bring happiness does it?
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Dear El,
There’s more to true happiness than a big house. I loved the wistful tone of this piece.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Reminds me of my second year university room. Except it wasn’t Gothic and it was decidedly more than a tenner a week!
I often think back to bygone days – poorer but happy and carefree(ish).
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The story is actually partly true. I genuinely spent a few months living in a ‘cupboard’ for a tenner a week as a student. And spent the cash I saved by renting cheap on beer at the SU bar of course!
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Very thought-provoking piece.
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Peeling back the mattress again? Sad story and reminds me, like another FF piece a few weeks ago, of ‘Silver Threads and Golden Needles’. A song about loneliness and loss in opulent surroundings.
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Now that really was a small room. It ought to have been easy to keep tidy, but I’d put money on it not being tidy. Nice one.
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It sounds like the money made or inherited didn’t carry with it the happiness of those early years. A lovely insight into the early cramped and contented independent living.
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Great. All that studying seems to have helped. Although no happiness. Wrong degree maybe.
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A perfect example that having things can’t compete with having a life. And being young and carefree makes up for a lot. But looking back at my own youth–would I really want to be that poor again? No, not really. 🙂
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Nostalgia palatable in your story. Life is full of contradictions. Nicely done.
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