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A quote: “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ~~ Lloyd Alexander
I’ll start with a story …
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I walk more slowly up the stairs now. Years have rolled by like the endless waves I watch from the widow’s walk.
This broken-down cottage I fled to after Mark’s funeral, escaping his suffocating family. It was never for Mark that I kept watch. This house called to me, gently mocked me for settling for a loveless marriage, little Sarah being the one good thing that came of it.
Slowly, I put this home right, my hands guided by another until Sarah was grown & married.
Tonight he comes out of the fog and takes my hand. I’m going home.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Sheila Garrett says: Things had been different since the end of the war. Now that the new people came with their superpowers, running everything, she had to search for a place where she could live with only the few people who had survived. But she had done it and even found love in the tiny village on the edge of the sea.
Now she walked with him, watching Ariel far down the beach, and trying to explain how his little girl needed a mother and that she loved her so much and him too. But his face was growing grave and his beautiful blue-gold eyes looked away from her.
Suddenly Ariel screamed out “Maw-Maw!!” and the woman watched as a sailing ship appeared from nowhere and settled gently on the sea, a shining woman waving at them. And the man she loved and the child he cared for ran across the sea to greet their loved one.
Cameron says: “Really? This is what you wanted me to see?” the reporter asked in disbelief. “A couple walking on the beach?”
I shook my head. “You still don’t get it. Five years ago, what they are doing was unthinkable. Two legged animals would have attacked them, garbage littered the shoreline and they dared to be outside without masks.”
He gaped at me in shock. “But that was-”
“Put to an end by violent people like me. We forced normalcy back on this country. You hate us for it but people like that can be out safely because we did our jobs.”
Cameron says: (Darn it. Missed that tag. Can someone do that if this doesn’t work?)
The autumn sunlight was just the right golden shade, and Jenn Redmond was glad her husband had brought her down here to Galveston Island. One last walk along the beach, a memory to treasure as they moved to a world where every drop of water, every breath of air had to be provided by artificial means.
Although she was sad to leave Houston behind, she understood Ken’s reasoning in accepting the position as Chief of Engineering at Shepardsport on the lunar Far Side. The shift of attitudes had begun slowly, with little slights and annoyances, the boys getting into fights with classmates and being singled out for punishments. And then Brenda’s friends had started ghosting her. When she’d been dumped by her best friend, who then revealed that her parents had ordered it because they didn’t want their daughter hanging out with the daughter of a clone, even one of the First Man on the Moon, it had been clear that their days here were numbered.
Dupin says: “A beautiful sunset,” she said.
“The end of an excellent day,” he answered, “and just us for a wondrous night.”
They walked on, the surf brushing their feet and tickling their shins.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “It is low tide.”
“And the shelf in the cave is well above high tide.” He squeezed her hand, quoting, “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread.”
“And thou,” she continued, “beside me singing in the wilderness.”
They were soaked to their waists by the time they climbed into the cave mouth. Guitar music and singing echoed from inside.
“Well, shit!”
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