The current writing competition by The_Bookshop challenges the creation of stories <2,000 words on one of the five photos presented.

I have chosen pic #1 - The Key. The written prompts that follow each pic are designed to help, but not necessarily be followed.

Accordingly, as creativity is the core of all art in its countless forms, I chose to take liberty with my interpretation of a key, and follow one of the more abstract definitions. In this instance, I chose the extension word 'keystone: something on which associated things depend: the keystone of one's philosophy' - and applied it to our long marriage and life together.

The_Bookshop will once again give their most thoughtful and thorough critique and suggestions to my original story, and give me another fortnight to 'polish' my words, and the resulting version will be up for judgement.

Here we go!