A quote: “I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.” ~~ Sylvia Plath
I’ll start with a story …
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The first rain of autumn, cleansing from heaven after a long, hot summer. I walk in it, reveling, deep into the park.
I’m usually alone. These last ten years I have hoped for, even prayed for, it. This is my cathedral of bending grasses and endless tears. I cannot share it.
I stop. It must be a ghost, the girl down the path with the ginger hair and long strides. My heart tries to escape my chest as I start towards her.
She turns, a guileless smile and I relax. Not mine.
Mine are secure at home, under the floorboards.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Cameron says: She looked at me as if I was crazy. “Just go? Leave here?”
I shrugged. “Why not? We don’t have any ties here. Our friends have lives and our parents can contact us easily.”
She turned as the rain hit her at that perfect angle. The smile is still as fresh a memory as the day I saw it. “We’ll get told we’re making a big mistake.”
“Isn’t that what our twenties are about? We pack only what we need and we can be on the road in an hour.”
Fifteen years later and we’re still enjoying that big mistake.
Dupin says: Her friend who introduced us said she has a wild streak. We’d met for coffee, sitting under the awning listening to the rain. I liked her smile.
I guess she liked me, told me to come with her. We ran for her car, drove out to a forested park. She handed me another umbrella.
“Come on. We’re going for a hike.” She flashed that smile. She’s crazy, I thought, but opened the door. Opened the umbrella, hearing the rain pounding on it. Squished behind her on the trail.
My shoes are soaked, but I follow, just to see that smile.
Navig8r says: “Welcome to surveillance and counter surveillance class. Watch the video and chime in with your observations and inferences.”
“Good looks worthy of a 007 movie.”
“Nice smile. Be good to know who she’s smiling at.”
“Coat looks brand new. She’s well financed?”
“Or it’s shoplifted?”
“Red hair with brown eyes. Dye job, and/or colored contacts?”
“Good. Usually the ladies are the ones to catch that.”
“A disguise?”
“Or her regular look?”
“Those are all good observations and logical inferences. You missed one though.”
“Important?”
“Maybe. While you were all ogling the eye candy, your primary subject went the other way.”
I still remember when I was in fifth grade and clear plastic umbrellas were all the rage. All the girls in the in-crowd had them, and they mocked anyone who didn’t. I wanted one so badly, but Mom and Dad said that my black fabric umbrella was perfectly serviceable and could hold me for another year. Not to mention that the plastic was far more fragile, and couldn’t be mended like fabric.
How could I possibly lay hands one one? With my paltry allowance, it would take years to save up enough to buy one, and jobs for someone my age were scarce on the ground in our rural community.
Pretty soon I was dreading every rainy day, the mocking voices of the cool girls as I trudged to school under that ugly old thing my folks made me keep using. All I could think of was getting a plastic one, the key to that inner circle.
In mid-October my birthday rolled around. I knew it was too much to hope I’d be given a new umbrella as a birthday present. But Aunt Mabel always gave us each a crisp twenty-dollar bill as our birthday present. The minute I saw it, I knew how I was going to use it.
Of course my folks tried to talk me out of it, but they didn’t understand what it was like to be mocked and ridiculed every day at school. So when we went to town, I bought my new umbrella with my own money.
The next rainy day, I was so proud to arrive at school with my new umbrella. The cool girls would have to accept me now.
Except there was something just a little odd about their voices and their smiles as they complimented me. I should’ve been wary, but I didn’t give it a second thought as I hung up my raincoat and umbrella in the coat closet.
When school let out, I went to retrieve it only to discover it was missing. I was so upset I burst into tears like a kindergartener. So of course Mrs. Toland noticed, and she started looking until she found it in a corner under the sink, smashed to pieces.
Nobody would confess, so the next day the whole class had to sit in at recess. And of course everyone blamed me for getting them all punished.
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