This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back Rebecca Birch with her story Simple things. Rebecca first appeared in Futures with her tale Are you receiving? and later with Ice and white roses. You can find out more about her work and keep up to date with her activities on her website. Here, she reveals what inspired her latest piece — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Simple things

Simple Things was inspired by a visual writing prompt — a tree standing alone on a cliff looking out over a vast forest.  It was clear that the tree would have to play a major role in the story, but I wasn’t at all sure what sort of role it would be until I decided that such a striking tree would probably be important to any folks who happened to be in its vicinity.

As I delved into the story, I found I wanted to explore how people, who had been marooned by science-fictional technology gone wrong, dealt with their solitude.  How the tree became a beacon for one man, the physical manifestation of his hope and optimism.  How the other man, who had lost his hope, managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, his survival dependent on those simple things, and how he would face his life when he was finally, truly alone.

I hope that through writing this story, I’ve reminded myself of the importance of having an Old Lookout of my own, so that when things get hard, I’ll remember that tenacity and old-fashioned stubbornness can see a person through a great deal — even if that stubbornness is as basic as one step following the next.

Never discount the importance of the simple things.