Entry - flash fiction

Decision



She hummed tunelessly as she diced and chopped, her mind on other things while her blade worked its magic on what would soon become her dinner. She just couldn't wrap her mind around it, the enormity of this decision, and her emotions were running amok with fear and excitement and...hope. Yes, there was hope mixed in there, but mostly there was fear and it gripped her stomach and clouded her mind. She chopped and chopped and chopped at the hapless spice on her cutting board, until, inevitably, she felt a sharp pain that jolted her out of her daze.



Looking down, she saw a slash of blood well up and slowly start to slide down her knuckle from where she grazed it with her super sharp knife. Usually, cooking helped to clear her mind, but not this day.



She quickly stuck her bleeding hand under cool running water from the tap, and watched as it turned the shade of cranberry juice and splashed like a shower scene from a horror movie all around the inside of her white ceramic sink. She focused on the wound, looking at it closely in the bright light of her kitchen and suddenly she knew. She just knew what she must do, what her decision must be. She chose, right there at that moment, pressing a bloody cloth tightly to her painful knuckle, that she would say yes. She would say it, that one tiny little word that made her feel like she was jumping off a very high cliff, jumping into the wildly tempestuous ocean below, unsure if the rocks would kill her when she landed, or the sharks, or the freezing water. Or maybe, just maybe, she would wash up on a fresh new beach, filled with sunshine, warm caressing breezes… and hope.