I Don’t

~ Kim Witbeck

The bouquet bit Tina’s palms; the sun burned through her veil. At the altar, she remembered the lipstick stain and unfamiliar phone number, discovered in last week’s laundry.

“I do,” he said, too lightly.

Her mother swooned at her reply.

Photo by Shardayyy Photography on Unsplash

Published by Kim Witbeck

Writing, wondering, procrastinating, supporting!

17 thoughts on “I Don’t”

  2. I liked how you’ve given the backstory in a few words and shown his personality. I think the season definitely came through with the sun burning. I wonder whether there was a different way to show her response – when I first read ‘swooned’ I interpreted it as her saying ‘I do’ instead of I don’t. I’m still trying to figure out why. But I do think you’ve captured an entire story in few words!

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  3. For such a tiny story this evokes a lot of emotion. I’m on the fence about the last line. Extra characters are hard in micros, but also I’d like to see his face when she says it. Might just be me. 🙂

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    1. Thanks! I added in the mom because I planned to do something with her fainting from the heat, or the words? And to indicate this was an actual wedding with other people there. But, word count and poor time management got me again! I agree it’s probably not the best way to end it.

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  4. I personally liked the last line. Something about the opening paragraph made me believe she’d say “I don’t” (I really need to get better about reading titles!), and the swooning made me pause a bit and consider. It was a nice way to keep me in the story past the 40th word.

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  7. You definitely evoked the season here, so no worries about that! I really loved the way you used almost violent words (“bit,” “burned”) in a situation that should *not* be violent to demonstrate Tina’s mood without explaining it to us. “Swooned” felt a little out of place – I usually associate that with positive emotions – but it worked well enough. I like that the reaction was the mother’s, not the (ex-) fiance’s – as thought Tina had already dismissed him.

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  8. I too liked the use of the words “bit” and “burned” to hint that all was NOT well. And “swooned” means positive things for me too, I would have understood better if it said “fainted.”

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  9. The contrast of sharp and soft in the first sentence worked really nicely. Especially because you reinforce it with the heavy/light contrast in the way the groom responds “too lightly” to the heavy commitment he’s entering into. I like that she’s been stewing on this for a week, but it takes his “too light” declaration to confirm (for herself) what she wants to do. The mother fainting was a nice touch too — I’ve been to so many weddings where there’s some major drama that results in one of the wedding party fainting. All those heightened emotions, all that stress — it’s got to be released somewhere!

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