literature

The Gift

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mackwrites's avatar
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Literature Text

She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, facing away from her house.  The tree behind her whispered like the curtain of a theater, pulling away with the grace of a nightgown; the stage a dark map of old, crumbling cement.

Her jeans were faded blueprints and her arms were crossed like structural supports, holding up a pair of vacant eyes; haunted, almost… the color of dehydrated grass.

I opened my front door.  Light the color of old paper, no longer crisp, washed over my face.  

I went to her.

Recognition lit like fireworks--flashed and burnt out quick.

“They’re gone.”

I stood across from her, searched her overturned, pottery-bowl of a face.  Murmured, “Who?”

“The kittens.”  

Pause.  

“Had to give them away.”  

A strand of curly black hair corkscrewed across her face.

Oh.  The kittens. I swayed, unsteady.  Now I knew why she looked as if she’d just been fired from her last hope of a job.

#

From then on I assigned myself to the front window, a stage manager awaiting the lead’s entrance.  But she came when I went to make a sandwich--layered the ingredients onto the bread and poured myself a glass of milk, then walked to the window and raised the glass to my lips… but didn’t drink from it.

She was sitting over on her front step, her legs a triangle with the concrete and her hand running along Mama Cat’s back.  

I abandoned my lunch, deciding it was time.


I ran to my room, and grabbed her birthday present.  Four months to go; I’d have time to find a replacement.  She needed it now.  

“I have something for you…” I handed her the shoebox.  

She opened it and lifted out the photo album.  There we were, on the front--six and seven years old, on little tricycles.  Inside were more photographs of us.  A smile with the power of dawn billowed across her face.

For a moment, she was happy.

And that was enough.
It's maybe a bit melodramatic at times. I have a bit of trouble with that word usually. I think it's because I have trouble with plotting; I end up bringing stuff out more than perhaps it should be because there's not enough material most of the time to draw upon.

I'm a little bit proud of this one, though. I'm not sure why. Maybe because she feels so real to me, like I could lift her off the page, ink becoming flesh, and she could live here. She could know this place.
© 2008 - 2024 mackwrites
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theforsaken4's avatar
The story was pretty good. I enjoyed it. For some reason, I found the first paragraph really...I don't know...but I liked the imagery it presented in my head. I also liked how it felt like we, the readers, were dropped into a single moment of their lives, but got just enough info to get a general gist of their characters and the current situation they were dealing with. I wouldn't classify any part as really "melodramatic", btw.