Flash Fiction: Balance at Least

The image  was created by Lester Names Beall. It can be found at Library of Congress on Unsplash.

The lamp beside her flickered softly, casting long shadows on the walls of the small room. Agnes sat in her rocking chair, its familiar creak accompanying the rhythmic motion of her hands. A needle threaded with cotton moved in and out of fabric, stitching together a patchwork of years, of memories. The room smelled faintly of dust and lavender, a combination of the earth and time.

The poster on the wall, with its faded edges, had been there for as long as she could remember. “Now I’m Satisfied,” it proclaimed, the words slanted like the life she’d lived, full of hard work and quiet resolve. Beneath the orange rectangle, the emblem of the Rural Electrification Administration seemed to glow faintly in the soft light. She had been one of the first in the area to benefit from the new power lines—her home was one of the first to hum with the steady pulse of electricity.

She had been skeptical at first. Who needed a shiny new world when you had one that worked just fine? But now, as her fingers nimbly stitched together the fabric of a quilt that would never quite leave her hands, she realized that she had been wrong. The electricity hadn’t taken anything from her. It had only added to the peace.

The light from the lamp above her softened the room. It illuminated the threads of her life—the quiet moments, the long nights spent alone but not lonely. Her life was simple now. The wind outside hummed through the trees in the same steady rhythm of her chair’s creaks. The world outside might be changing faster than she could keep up with, but in this room, she was anchored.

“Now I’m satisfied,” she whispered to herself, and for the first time in a long while, she believed it. The world had taken, but it had also given back, and she had found her peace in the balance.

Thank-you for reading.

Much Love and Light,

Brenda Marie