Every morning leads to a fresh reunion. Bittersweet. Your eyes, still sky blue but these days cloudy with uncertainty, widen with delight.
“What a lovely surprise!” you cry as you pull me in for a trembling hug. I breathe in violets as I kiss your powdery cheek. The girl in the photograph by your bed beams from her Harley Davidson. Her hair is long and tousled her eyes bright with mischief. She was born to be wild and wanted to die before she got old. Love eventually tamed her but she’d never been caged.
“What’ve you been up to?” you ask. Then, not waiting for an answer, “have
you come to take me home?”
I take a moment to gaze out of the window. Leaves are cascading from trees, scarlet, russet and gold. The liquid joy of a blackbird’s song subsides into silence.
I brace myself as I reply.
Author: Jane won Beaconlit Festival’s 2019 flash fiction prize. Her stories have been published in a variety of magazines, and online by FreeFlashFiction and The Wondrous Real. She’s been a LISP and Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award finalist and had pieces shortlisted by Retreat West, Writing Magazine and Flash500. She tweets @janeb323.