Loveday Writing

The brief of the AWC Furious Fiction—August 2021 short story competition was as follows:

• Your story’s first sentence must contain only four words.
• Your story must include something being shared.
• Your story must include the words PAINT, SHIFT, WAVE and TOAST. (Longer variations were accepted as long as original spelling was retained.)

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The Next Chapter

The house is finished.

After six months of painting, shifting furniture, and fixing things, my house is finally complete. To celebrate and say thank you to all of the tradies who helped me, I invited them over for dinner.

I made a toast to them for their hard and incredible work on my old dream home. They in turn made a toast to me for giving them months of work.

As we shared dinner together, passing bowls and plates of food up and down the table, I couldn’t help but smile at the tradies who had become new friends of mine and how renovating my house helped me through my waves of grief and eventually heal from my divorce.

I called the local real estate agents days ago to let them know I did want to sell after all, to keep the house as neat and tidy as possible for viewings tomorrow, I decided to stay at a motel.

The night ended with the tradies leaving, the dishes done, and me walking out the door, turning the lights off, on my way out, finally ready to move on to my next chapter.