Her mother is an artist. Even in the recent months, after the accumulation of cataracts had taken her sight, she still paints. On sunny days, it’s her job to guide her mother to her canvas somewhere in their two-and-a-half-acres garden.
There, she’d paint until dinner. Sometimes, she would even paint through dinner. “I’m like Sherlock Holmes sometimes,” she once remarked. “When he’s on a case, he wouldn’t eat or sleep until he solves the mystery. Me, too. I can’t do anything else until my masterpiece is complete.”
“Mom, time for dinner,” She called one day walking through the gardens. As she approached, she heard sobbing. “Mom?”
There she was, sitting on her chair, crying into her hands. “Who am I kidding? I can’t see a thing. Let’s face it, my life is over.”
She wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders, “Oh, your life isn’t over. You just have to do things differently now that you’ve lost your sight.”
“You really think so?” She sniffed.
“Just think about what Sherlock Holmes would do.”
(~175 Words)
How true we just need to have the perseverance to learn how to re adjust how we do things to accomdate the change. Just wondering though….can’t cataracts be removed
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I think it just depends on the kind of cataracts. Some people’s cataracts cannot be removed.
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omg this is my new favorite saying. WWSD? Perfect.
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🙂
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I was wondering what her painting were like after she lost her sight? And What would Sherlock do? Probably use his other senses. Great take on the prompt.
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Me too, he’d probably think of a genius alternative. Thanks for reading. 🙂
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This is great, Yinglan. I love the question, ‘What would Sherlock do?’. I hope Mom finds her answer. 🙂
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Thank you. I am sure if Mom is bold enough to compare herself to Sherlock Holmes, then she will eventually figure it out.
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Don’t give up! There’s always sculpting.
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Very true.
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This is a lovely story! And, using “What would Sherlock” do helped to calm her mother so she could see it in a different and clearer perspective. Her mother sounds like a very wonderful woman. In paragraph four shouldn’t “into” be “in?” IMHO. Thank you for participating in Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers Challenge!
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Yes, you’re right. I don’t know how that “to” managed to sneak in there. Thank you for reading.
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typo. Our minds say one thing and our fingers say another. LOL
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You do a wonderful job of hinting at all the fears of this woman facing this terrifying loss in her life, and her perseverance and fortitude — even if she breaks down and cries about it now and then. How wonderful that she has her daughter there.
And I echo the others: “What Would Sherlock Do” is brilliant! Especially because this picture keeps reminding me of Agatha Christie’s characters, pretending everything’s normal in their lovely English gardens, while someone’s covering up a murder somewhere else in the village. So now I’m thinking of Miss Marple asking, WWSD?
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Thank you so much and now, you have me wondering too.
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Losing your sight must be a terrible thing. We rely on it for so much, and it must be so hard to adapt to doing things by tough or hearing. The story really shows the woman’s realisation that her sight has gone for good. The question at the end gives us hope that she won’t give in to despair and will look for ways to cope – just like Sherlock would do.
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