This week’s one word prompt from Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction was … ‘inspire’. Of course inspiration can be something other than positive …
Amelia Sinclair was everything my daughter wasn’t; and more crucially she was everything Sarah wanted to be – slender, pretty … and complex.
Sarah didn’t make friends easily, so it was something of a relief when the pair gravitated towards each other, and before long they were inseparable, with Amelia inspiring Sarah to open up, to try things she would normally never have contemplated.
When they were discovered shop-lifting from Woolworth’s, I tried to curtail their meetings; I’d been worrying for some time that Amelia seemed to hold some kind of influence over Sarah, and that her mood swings could mean the difference between Sarah’s happiness and her despair.
I once said to Sarah “If Amelia Sinclair told you to jump off the outhouse roof you probably would, wouldn’t you?” and to my consternation there was an infinitesimal pause, before she flushed and shook her head.
But she obviously didn’t think about it long enough, because one August afternoon the pair of them climbed up onto a bridge spanning the River Tyne, and left this life together, tightly clutching hands.
castelsarrasin 
A beautifully told and sad tale… inspiration can be evil… 🙂
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Thanks for commenting Honore.
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wow…
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🙂 Thank you for reading.
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I repeat that wow. There are people with friendships that close. Scary close.
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Well done by the way
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Sadly there are. And people who can be so easily influenced too.
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Marvelous write!
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Thank you!
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You are right about there being two sides to the inspiration coin and this is one side I wouldn’t want to lay my eyes on too often. Great take on the prompt.
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Thanks Andy.
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Great use of your five sentences! At first I thought I’d missed something because the story was so long and I’d seen the five-sentence line. But there were only five; however, with an impact much larger than their simple numbers.
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Thanks Janet. It’s a different kind of restriction than word count, but I enjoy the change.
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There, but for the intervention of parents! Close friends can have a terrific or in this case an horrific impact. Your mind set is so personal and honest. Another story well done Sandra
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You can influene your kids in so many ways, but their choice of friends is something you can’t control; sometimes you don’t even know about it. Thanks for reading and commenting Sue.
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That’s ‘influence’ : duh! 😦
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A sad tale which is as much about the pitfalls of growing up as it is about the power of friendship.
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Yes, inspiration can be something other than negative. I love it when there is a twist. Great response.
P.S. I think talking to yourself is required if you are a writer!
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So sad, yet devotion is something you cannot control, worrying when your loved one is inspired by something so wrong. Beautifully and sensitively written Sandra.
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Very sad, and you made it too realistic.
Cheers!
JzB
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Oh how very sad to be influenced to such a degree. I really liked the way you told this story, showing that at times inspiration can come from the darkest places. x
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