FREEDOM

 I apologise for getting this up late, there are many reasons for this, mid winter holidays with all the family members home was the biggest distraction, computer problems, now sorted, was another, so please consider this as 28th July,

 My thoughts on the Christian Writers theme for July expressed in a fiction story

'This,' said Tracey pointing to the uneaten pile of chocolate biscuits and bars in the middle of Rebecca's bed, 'is not one of our better ideas, I feel awful.'  Tracey picked up a cushion and tossed it onto the top of the uneaten chocolates.  'I can't eat any more, if I do….'

'Yeah I'm about the same,' said Rebecca.

The two girls heard a knock on the door, they watched as the door opened, 'Just thought I'd offer you two girls a cup of hot chocolate.'

'We're okay mum' said Rebecca.

'Okay, if you're sure.'

'We're sure mum.'

Rebecca rolled her eyes, 'I don't have any freedom around here, I feel that I'm being watched all the time.'

'I know what you mean, but I would have said yes to a hot chocolate if I hadn't eaten so much chocolate.  I like your mum's hot chocolate,' said Tracey.

Rebecca agreed, her mum did make a mean hot chocolate, but the thought of more chocolate only made her feel worse.  She had been convinced that their chocolate purchases would not be enough for the sleepover feast; now not even half way through what they had bought, Rebecca was thinking that someone should have said something about too much chocolate.

'I wish we had hired a film instead of buying all that chocolate,' said Tracey.

'Yeah, but we planned a chocolate feast.'

'We need some sort of guide, to protect us from us,' said Tracey.  'Being allowed to choose what you want doesn't come with a manual does it?'

'I think mum hoped that we would buy clothes,' said Rebecca.  'Maybe doing something because you can is not a very good reason to do it.'

'Freedom has rules?' said Tracey

'Maybe it does.'

The two girls were silent for a while thinking about what they had said.  Feeling sick because you ate too much of a good thing wasn't good.  Buying a lot of chocolate wasn't bad if you were going to share it with your friends or brothers and sisters.

'If freedom has rules, we need to make some so we know how to work freedom?' as Rebecca.

'How about we start with the Ten Commandments?' said Tracey

'We can't do that.'

'Why not,' asked Tracey.

'Because that sounds like my mum,' said Rebecca.

'It does; scary thought to sound like a mum.'

'Maybe that's the secret, that a mum's freedom or anyone's freedom has limits'.

'Oooh I hope not, what's the point of getting older if you don't have freedom?' asked Tracey.

'We won't have a choice about getting older,' said Rebecca.  'But we do have a choice about what we do, maybe that is what freedom is, not doing something but choosing to do something or not to do something.'

'And you can make a good choice or a bad choice, we still need that manual,' said Tracey.  She grabbed a handful of eaten chocolate wrappers and said while she held them, 'was a bad choice, this many, we didn't need.'