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today's photo writing prompt speaks for itself. my take on it - part memoir, part fiction (what do you call that - miction? femoir?) follows below. does the photo inspire a story, poem or creative non-fiction response from you? i love reading what you write, so click on comments below and come write with me! 250(ish) words or less. -
Dozens of people in exercise clothes mill around the field. I spot a card table and a lone balloon taped to a handmade sign. The 5k organizer is the survivor of a terrible car accident. I'm here because of a flyer she posted in the library. Reading the story of her loss was excruciating, and I never would have come to the park today if it weren't for the miracle after the accident. As she lay waiting for help, crying and confused in her family's smashed up car, an angel appeared and told her that her husband and two of their three children were not going to survive. The angel said that someday they would all be together again and that each of them was deeply, divinely loved. One day, the angel told her, the woman would gather people together in the name of that love. Two years later she's hosting this walk. No agenda. No fees. She just wants to remember her family and fulfill the vision. As she thanks everyone for coming, I search her face and find in it peace and contentment, joy even. Through the streets of our neighborhood, the crowd walks with her. When we've circled back to the park I linger as she begins to pack up. Her son pulls the balloon off the sign and asks if he can pop it. When it bursts against the tip of a pen, he laughs the laugh of any six year old. The angel was right, I think. He's okay. He and his mom are going to be okay. Maybe I will be too.
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i'm interested to see where this popped balloon takes you. write away...
He stood beside her, silent, unseen, staring down with her at the ragged strip of orange rubber from an exploded balloon that sat so innocently on dusk-darkened blades of grass. Tears tracked shining lines down the centers of her cheeks and dripped from her jaw. She lifted her head, stared sightlessly into the darkening trees standing around her, and swallowed. Without another glance to the balloon fragment, she started walking.
ReplyDeleteHe followed her like a shadow.
The night summer breeze kissed her hair and scattered her brown bangs across her forehead. She didn’t reach up to fix them as she walked through the darkening park and towards the river churning a couple dozen feet away. Her hands curled into the wire fence dividing the park from the water and she stuffed her sneaker toes into the holes as she began to climb.
He was waiting on the other side when she dropped to the ground and followed her as she followed the water. Ahead, it was louder, dropping over the side of a dam. They stopped together and stared down at the shimmering water, one of the brightest points of the park in this semi-darkness.
Don’t do this, he told her. Just wait. Your life can be like those happy peoples’ lives someday. You just have to make it that way.
“I am the balloon,” she murmured to the thickening darkness and climbed the fence that denied the dam to the public. Without slowing her steps, she stepped off of the concrete ledge.
A short while later she stood beside him and they stared together at the shining, tumbling water, and the dark obstruction broken against the rocks below.
Looking down, we all stared in disbelief. There could not have been more downtrodden faces in all the history of childhood. It wasn't the end of the world, but we thought so. I don't think anyone was breathing. Then Billy, age 6, asked that ageless question that we still tease him about, "Hey, we can just tape it or glue or something, right?" That world where tape or glue can fix almost anything is long gone. But I think the young person inside still yearns to have that simplicity and solveability at our finger tips. As a group of friends, we have aged and grown and lived diverse full lives. Full of all the knocks and triumphs you would expect... tape and glue are but a wistful memory.
ReplyDeleteI picked orange because I like orange.
ReplyDeleteI don’t care if it looks like a weather balloon
or a warning signal on electrical wires for low
flying planes.
It looks polite against the aloof heaven;
peach flesh on stones,
hope on defeat
I found this combination on invitation postcards;
bought them,
sent them out,
waited
Everyone came, except . . .
The popped balloon symbolizes popped dreams to me. Once so full and joyous, a beautiful thing--bringing smiles to all who see it. Then poof, the dream is gone, shattered. So here's to all the balloons and dreams we have--may they always be renewed and made beautiful. When one pops,may another one float our way.
ReplyDelete