Dilemma

Dilemma
Form: Flash Fiction

Wicked Midnight knew the time was coming when she would have to make her life decision. The coming of age in Sara was nothing to celebrate.

For 25 years Sarans were raised in a family environment and well-educated by the government schools. From an early age, they knew they would have to make a choice between family and the new age of the Saran people.

Wicked Midnight loved her parents and her siblings. She was the oldest child and by tradition, she should opt for the new age. That really didn’t help much in her decision-making process. Her parents were keen for her to take the opportunities of the new age although it meant she would leave the family home and probably never return. Would any parent expect different when the future of Old Sara was dying out?

Her father had grand expectations of her, as he did all his children. When Wicked Midnight pointed out he had chosen to stay defying his parents’ wishes he had not answered. Did he regret it – staying with his mother until he met and married her mother and raised a family?

Of course, her father had been an only child and his mother a widow, the circumstances were a lot different. She had six brothers and sisters but still, it felt like she had to choose whether to reject her family or not. She had studied the books and magazines telling her about the new age wonders for the Saran people but was it true or idealist propaganda. “There’s only one way to find out,” her mother had said, “

Perhaps her parents are right, and she should go, but what if they are wrong?