He left his shoes on the dock, laughing that he wasn’t a chicken to jump into the freezing autumn lake.
(Inspired by; https://flashfictionforthepracticalpractitioner.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/flash-fiction-for-the-purposeful-practitioner-2018-week-41/ with thanks.)
The seasons where turning, Rachel noticed. The mountain which had been green all spring and summer was becoming a dull brown. In two or three months, Rachel knew it would turn white with snow. A foreshadowing for the other mountains, valleys and the towns within them.
The leaves on the trees were switching colours; the reds, yellows and browns like a dappled painting, framed by windows. Soon, those trees would be bare and Rachel disliked looking at them then. Maybe, someone would hang Christmas fairy lights in them like last year and make them pretty again?
Rachel really hoped that did happen as she spent yet another morning looking out of her bedroom window. It had become something of a habit for the eight am to twelve pm nurse to wheel the chair there and leave.
‘You have a lovely view here! You should enjoy it!’ the nurse might say or else it was, ‘Here, look at the rain,’ or ‘watch the sun light up the mountain this morning.’
Then the nurse would go off to do the tasks on her or his list; changing the bed, preparing the medication, cleaning the equipment etc. Sometimes they would come back to check Rachel was okay, do some vital checks, take some blood, change her tubes if needed.
Most of the time though, Rachel was left staring at the mountain, not being able to move herself or ask the nurse to. And how she wished she could! She hated that mountain and wanted never to see it again but it haunted her.
At night, Rachel would dream of the accident. She was climbing with friends, they were laughing, enjoying the first spring hike up the side. They were camping, cooking, singing, drinking, friends being together. They did this every year, it was normal but this time something was different. The snow hadn’t melted all the way, there was an avalanche. Everyone was screaming, running, falling, flying, dying.
The doctors said Rachel was lucky, she alone had survived somehow but she would never move again.
What kind of life is this? Rachel always thought, I’d be better off dead. I wish I’d died too. God, how I hate that mountain! I can’t bare to see it any more!
She would shut her eyes and try to moan. Sometimes that work and the chair would be wheeled away to another part of her bedroom or other part of the house.
The image of the mountain was burned into her eyelids and just like the sounds and sights of the accident, she could never escape.
(Inspired by; https://scvincent.com/2018/09/06/thursday-photo-prompt-turning-writephoto/ with thanks).
Runnel; a small stream.
The largepainting had always hung in the guest bedroom of my adopted grandparents house. The girl in the frilly red dress was their ten year old daughter, who had died a two years later. She was playing in a runnel which ran through an spring dappled woods.
‘She’s catching fairies,’ gran said, ‘she always loved doing that.’
That use to fascinate me as a child and when I couldn’t sleep, I would study the painting for the fairies. I never saw any though. As an adult the painting still interested me and I guess that’s why my grandparents left it to me when they passed.
There was one swing in the playground that no one ever sat on. Sometimes flowers, teddy bears and cards decorated the swing then were gone. Despite all the stories, one stood out the most; a little girl fell off the swing to her death. But no one knew the truth for sure.
We had been gathered around the new grave in silence for sometime when granny spoke out, ‘well it was a stupid thing to do.’
We all looked over at her, a few of us even gasping.
‘Granny!’ Isabella scolded and squeezed the old woman’s hand.
Great grandmother and great granddaughter looked at it each other then joined us in silence once more.
Slowly, people began to drift away as they do when a funeral is over. Their whispering voices commenting on the flowers and service drifting across the cemetery.
I looked down at my older sister’s grave. It was but a hole in the ground with the edges of a pink coffin peeking through the dirt and no headstone to name her yet.
Granny had been right though. My sister should never have trusted that flashy magician or his Amazing Invisible Sword trick.
Mini had to send the shoes back. She had no choice in the matter, she really couldn’t afforded them. Placing them back into the white glossy box, she sighed and wondered if she would have to do the same with the dress. Putting the lid on top, Mini heard the rolling grumbling of thunder and rain hitting against the window.
She went to look outside and saw that her small back garden had become flood and the water was almost at the door’s ledge. Luckily, the weather forecast had given her a heads up and she had already sandbagged the doors and window sills. Mini went back to her bed and the shoes. Taking the plastic parcel bag they had come in, she put the box inside and grabbed the duck tape to seal the end.
Her sister wouldn’t be happy, she thought. The wedding was only two days away and even if it did stop raining there was no way the water would have gone down. A lightening flash came in the window behind her, lighting up the room and showing Mini what she’d rather not see – the emptiness.
She took the parcel downstairs and placed it behind the front door. Her fist tightened on the plastic before she let it drop and turned away. The living room was dark like the rest of the house and an uneasy feeling hung everywhere. Mini turned on the light and sat on the sofa. The storm raged on over head as she looked around the nearly empty living room.
Marks on the floor and walls showed were things had once been. The shoe scruffs in the carpet added to all the other hints that she was moving out. Mini pulled the paperback novel she had left of the arm of the sofa over to her and began reading it.
Sadness and tears covered her face and she thought of the irony of her marriage ending and her sister’s just beginning.
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