Don't Tell Me

Not that long ago, I discovered a website offering a weekly writing competition - Write-Invite. But this wasn't your ordinary 'pick a theme and get back to us by Friday' sort of a comp. This was writing with a difference.

It all happens at 5:30 on a Saturday. You log yourself on to their website, and on the dot of half past, three themes pop up. You pick a theme, pay your money, and half an hour later (yes, I said half an hour), you submit your little work of art and walk away a happy person. An exhausted, happy person. Then, over the next week, the entries are read and judged by a panel somewhere, a shortlist is drawn up, and everyone who entered then gets to vote on their favourite piece. I've now tried it twice, and can say that it's one of the most difficult things I've ever tried to do.

Did I say twice? Maybe once and a half would be better. I wrote my piece today, but like a clever clogs, decided I wouldn't enter until I was sure I had somthing to submit - this is obviously a bad idea, as the website gets so busy towards the deadline, that it became impossible to even reach the site, let alone enter the comp.

Anyway, the point to my little rambling tale is that I didn't get to enter this week, but I do have a piece. For all of its short little life, it assumed it was going to be read, and since I'd hate to disappoint it, I figured I'd post it on here and give it the attention it always knew it wante. Enjoy.


Theme: 'Don't Tell Me'

There was a rocky precipice, way up in the Scottish Highlands, and Lucy sat on the edge of a sheer drop, looking out over miles and miles of scenery. There wasn't a soul in sight. It had taken her all morning to get out here, starting before the sun had risen, and finally reaching her current point in time for a late picnic lunch. Her feet ached, but that was fine. That was part of the plan.

Two years ago, Lucy had lost her sister. It had been an arduous few months leading up to her death, and somehow more difficult in the months after. Plunged into an existential crisis of sorts, Lucy had swerved from religion to science and back again, trying to figure out the whats and whys of why she was suddenly that little bit more alone in the world.

It was a friend from a walking group that had got her onto this idea. They had been in the pub after a practice run for the Three Peaks challenge, and the tired participants eventually turned their minds to that staple of all pub-talk - philosophy.

"There is no way," Someone had argued, "That a little man in a robe can sit and starve in a cave up some mountain, and suddenly know everything there is to know about everything."

Monks in a cave up some mountain. The idea had stuck with her. That was the stereotypic idea of enlightenment, wasn't it? Sit in a cave for months at a time, and come out knowing the secrets of the universe?

It was worth a shot, at any rate. She had tried just about everything else.

And so she had visited all those secluded places around Britain, looking for somewhere to be properly alone. And in time, she had found the Scottish mountains. Staring out over the shining, green and grey landscape now, the answer suddenly came to her. Or rather, the lack of answer. Because she might not know why her sister had been taken, but the world was a wondrous place, and if this was the path she was treading trying to find her answers, then it could take all the time in the world. It was worth not knowing.