Fiction under 250 words.
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She sneezed as the box slipped out of her grasp and fell to the floor with a loud thump. Fingers of thick dust squeezed past the bottom and swirled around her face.
Isabel dug into the back pocket of her jeans and produced a tissue. She was wiping her nose when she saw it, her old high school yearbook.
She crouched on her haunches and picked up the book. The plastic had a yellow tinge and the spine creaked loudly when she opened it.
She spent several minutes slowly flipping through the pages. Images flickered past her mind’s eye like an old black and white film, colorless yet somehow vivid. Easing onto her bottom she sat on the attic floor, a specific face catching her attention and causing her to catch her breath.
Mike Stover.
He had been a tight end on the football team. Tall, beefy and with eyes so vibrant blue she remembered feeling immobilized and tingly when he looked at her, as if a streak of lightening had struck the top of head and zigzagged through to her feet.
They had been lovers. They had planned a future together. Everyone said they were perfect for each other.
But then she had met Troy, her husband, and her feelings for Mike had changed, Mike had seemed safe, even boring, next to Troy.
She had grown restless.
“Hey Red? Are you still breathing up there? Do I need to perform CPR?”
She smiled. She had made the right decision.
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(This short-short was inspired by Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken.)
Write From Karen 
I’m not going to debate you – this is neither the time, nor the place. But if you talk to your pastor about it, this is where I’m getting my information, if he/she wants to take a look.
The preordained part is correct,the Bible says so. You have freewill but our lord already knows the outcome. I will however ask my Pastor this weekend if I’m correct but as I know it and I should have the various quotes but this is a correct statement.
I have to disagree with you on the preordained part – God granted us free will – the freedom to make our own choices. Our future is what we make of it. God is there if we need Him (hence the importance of prayer), but ultimately, our life is our own. At least, that is what I believe. 🙂
I’ve always been fascinated with the road less traveled scenario. I think it illustrates how important it is to make wise choices to begin with. But even if we make wise choices, I think it’s human nature to always wonder, “what if.”
And I see your point about Facebook – since the program allows so many people from our past into our current lives, it really does open up all sorts of dangerous doors.
And the more I think about it, the more I understand.
Married for 25 years I think one would look to the past and wonder ( the yearbook thing).
Its that very thought or action that solidifies a marriage or a position in life.
A base or foundation to what will become.
God gives us a preordained end. What we see of it is truly is what life is about, I think anyway.
For me this story means just that.
The yearbook of past could be a kill or a killer depending on life’s moment.
Facebook tends to seek this out. Am I wrong?
After all Face book gives in site to the present as well as the mingle of the past. I wonder how many wish what was ..should not have been,or could have been? And were one feels they are at in life without facebook?