Your Story #121

Prompt: Write a drabble—a short story of exactly 100 words—based on the photo prompt below. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

Email your submission to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line "Your Story 121."

No attachments, please. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address with be disqualified.

Unfortunately, we cannot respond to every entry we receive, due to volume. No confirmation emails will be sent out to confirm receipt of submission. But be assured all submissions received before entry deadline are considered carefully. Official Rules.

Entry Deadline: CLOSED

Out of over 120 entries, WD editors chose the following 8 finalists. 

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.

“Here, Susie, read to Charlie.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Susie opens her book and begins chattering at her goldfish. Sarah walks over to the kitchen table. Tears threaten to fall. She takes a shaky breath and looks past Susie through the window at the activity outside. A small giggle draws Sarah’s attention. Susie is pressing the book against the fishbowl.

How long before she forgets Mark? She’s only four.

Their eyes meet. Susie grins brightly. “When’s Daddy coming home?”

The question hangs in the air.

Susie tries again, louder this time, “When is Daddy coming home, Mama?”

Sarah swallows hard and smiles.

Mom said she is working from home. When she says this, Mom uses her desk. I will work at home too. I have my toys, books, fish, and pillow at her desk. When Mom is done with coffee, we can work together here. I will read stories from my book, and she can type and look at her computer. She will have more coffee and I will have hot chocolate. When she is on the phone, I can be so quiet, but when it rings, I know what to say, “Lu residence, Sophie speaking.” Won’t Mom be proud of me? 

Anna crawled onto the stuffed cushion with her book, several feet away from the hospital bed where her languishing mother lay. This ritual had taken place over the past several months—she would read to her mom until she quietly nodded off. That night, she was asked to read their special prayer. The innocence of her voice, the unawareness and the coming of a passing in the night, as she read, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to..."

Not all the time, but now Pema’s focus appeared absolute. When the talking was brash and the house was not well, Pema would embrace a guise of singularity like when she was looking outside, peering at her toes, or watching her pet fish. Redfish was settled in sunlight as Pema sat the tablet before her. Her grandmother knew Pema’s way of making things right, the understated appearance of doing a simple thing. Granny saw the stillness and energy, the meditation and creativity. Studying the colors and words on the screen before her, Pema ever so quietly lilted her favorite tune.

The agreement had been simple: Trade bodies with her owner for one hour, then read the reversal spell aloud and return back to the fish bowl.

The hour was just about up, but thinking about returning to a life of swimming ‘round and ‘round in such a small prison—alone except for her reflection—made her cry.

She studied the spell but could not bring herself to recite it. She was breaking a promise, but having only lived briefly as a human, had no real understanding of what that meant.

Closing the book, she went off to explore the room.

When they bring him home from the hospital, Emily is upset. He is not at all what she wants. The second her mother leaves the room, Emily points a finger at her brother and says, “You are a puppy.”

But Emily is only three and has a lisp. Suddenly there is a guppy in a bowl beside her.

Her parents will be angry and might take away her magic book. She opens it, reads the unfamiliar words, then again points her finger. The word ‘brother,’ forms on her lips. A feather flutters in the air, then floats out the window. 

Our daughter starts at the end. When she reads, she starts at the last page. When learning to tie her shoes, she started with the knot.

An album on shuffle makes her crazy.

We brought home a goldfish. She took it out of the water, it died, she put it back in the water, it did not revive.

“I will build a time machine, so I can see the end of life,” she said.

We thought she meant the goldfish.

She came back, she said she saw her forty-year-old self. Unhappy; bad parenting.

We’ll do better.

“You tried.”

Trixie paused in the hallway outside of Jacob’s room. Her youngest boy was sprawled on the floor, his new picture book propped open on a pillow in front of him. Next to him on the floor Sam the goldfish swam around in his bowl.

She stopped herself from scolding Jacob for moving the fishbowl from the windowsill. Never mind that he could have spilled the water and fish or broken the bowl and been injured. In a flash of motherly wisdom, she decided to savor the moment.

Jacob was reading to Sam. There had never been a more captive audience.