Unanswered Prayers

Lace curtains fluttered on the breeze of a warm summer’s night.

News arrived and the window was quickly closed. A mausoleum stillness then descended, captured in the mirror’s surface.

Out of view, a lone figure knelt by a bed, fingers flying over a string of beads. Soft entreaties drifted skyward, searching for love and comfort as each bead touched fingertips.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us…

Nearby, a body lay in a morgue.

She’d told him easy money was a lie.

She continued fingering the beads, once shiny and new, now worn dull from a mother’s troubled prayers.

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Word Count: 99

Author’s Note: This piece was written in response to two challenges.

The first challenge was to write a 100-word story based on the above photo prompt. The challenge was issued on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ blog, Addicted to Purple. This is part of Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers challenge – found here.  Photo credit:  Janet Webb.

The story was also written in response to ‘My Weekly Writing Challenge’ hosted on the Esther Newton Blog (found here). Her challenge was to write a story based on the words or the theme of money, new and operation. I couldn’t fit ‘operation’ into my 100 words, but I was able to craft a story around the words ‘money’ and ‘new.’