#5MinuteFiction, Week 95!

I participated and I'm super stoked that I did! *big grin*

It was totally nerve wracking and by the end of it I was shaking (because I'm that much of a freak), but I did it. Yay! The guest judge this week is Liz Norris, who has her already-super-famous debut, UNRAVELING, coming out in just two weeks! So exciting! I can't wait to read it!

Anyway, you can check out Nicole Wolverton's blog HERE. You can read a little more about what #5MinuteFiction is, where it started, how to play along, etc. You can also read all the wonderful entries, because I know you're not biased and aren't only interested in mine.

In the meantime, I'll share my entry with you. I know you're just dying to read it, right? DYING.

Ok, ok, simmer down. I'm getting to it.

The prompt was this: "The delights of knowing the end," and it had to be the START of the writing piece. And, as you may have figured out by the title, you have only 5 minutes to submit your work. {Read: 15 minutes)

So, without further ado, my submission:


The delights of knowing the end, have come at a terrible price.

Had I continued on my wonderful path of ignorance, I would have lived forever blissful. Forever content in the unknown. I would have lived with the careless mindset of the young, never knowing that yes, it can happen to me. My imaginary bubble of goodness would never have popped. I would never have had to face the ugly truth of my disease.

The delights of knowing the end have brought me nothing but sorrow and pain.

“But, now you know,” they say. “Now you can mend fences and rebuild bridges. You can tie up loose ends.”

I have no nails to mend fences. No planks for building bridges. I have no string with which to tie up loose ends.

My decisions have left me alone. Utterly forgettable. Easily forgotten.

Each brief encounter that led me here, a distant memory on the pillow of a stranger’s bed.

I spend day after day in treatment. Medications tinge the color of my skin, the scent of my breath. Chemicals flow through my body the way youth once coursed through my veins. My beauty has been destroyed, both on the outside and inwardly as well. For the beauty of my soul, the spark of life that once drove me through life with reckless abandon has been extinguished.

There is no abandon now. There is no carefree existence.

It is just me. And the disease.

Yes, I know the end. I know the HOW of my death. I even know the WHY.

My disease is the how. The reckless abandon I spoke of? The cause.

As I tore through life, loving and relishing in every moment of blissful stupidity, I threw caution to the wind.

There is no delight in knowing the end.

It changes nothing.

All I have left is this: Its just me. And the disease.

There is no delight.

By Jessa Russo
(C) Copyright Jessa Russo 2012. All rights reserved.