A sweet moment

I wanted to share this with you…

I was in New York City today running some errands. While I was walking back to the train to head home, I walked by a young Spanish woman on the phone, and she was holding her one and a half year old daughter’s hand. The little girl was so cute, I waved and said hi to her. She was adorable with pink bows in her hair, pink pants, baby-sized sneakers…

…and as I walked by, and waved, the little girl reached up and grabbed my finger. She didn’t let go. Her mom was on the phone, and I found myself laughing, walking alongside this girl holding my hand (by way of her teensy fingers wrapped around my finger) while her mom smiled at me.

As incredible as it sounds, we walked like this for several Manhattan blocks. The little girl was happy, and oblivious that anything unusual was happening. What made me smile was her absolute innocence, her willingness to grab the hand of a stranger and walk beside her, without a care in the world.

It made my day.

Flash Fiction: Love in Reverse

Love in Reverse 

 

In the end, it was an exhalation of breath, a cooling of his body. A marble headstone said father and husband. Before that, it was high blood pressure from yelling at the neighbor’s dog. Or cursing at the driver who cut him off in traffic. Or screaming at the television when his football team lost.

The wife was in the other room doing laundry, washing dishes, or cooking. They didn’t talk much. Some called them old fashioned, because they’d been in an unhappy marriage for a long time. That’s how they did it back then, whether your misery overwhelmed you and the wife cried into the green beans and had one too many glasses of wine with dinner so she could sleep, or not.

Before the house was empty, there were two children. A boy and a girl. The boy wanted to be a singer and went off to study music. The father told him he was no good and lazy and should study computers. The mother didn’t say anything, but pressed a hundred dollar bill into the boy’s hand when the father wasn’t looking. The girl loved her father and did what she thought he wanted. She studied to be a teacher, and married a boy just like him.

In the beginning, the father and the mother weren’t parents. They laughed at everything together, even themselves. She swooned over his green eyes and muscular physique. He was on the football team and other girls liked him, but he liked her. They fooled around one night and she got pregnant with the boy who would be a musician. Before they kissed for the first time, he said he loved her more than his own life, and she knew he was the one.

Flash Fiction: Fallen

Fallen

A wind storm thrashed the leaves, creases down. Veins throb red inside yellow. Fall. Fallen. Who said a bed of leaves? You left me in Spring when buds stuck to the trees like unfurled love notes awaiting a green lover. Not me. The leaves are down and I’m ready to lie in them. All orange. Make my bed. I’m brown and curled at the edges.