The View from My Window
I can tell just by looking at the sky that it is a perfect early summer evening.
My mind drifts from the droning conversation in the room – group sharing or something equally ineffective – and leaps instead to the tree branches the wind jostles playfully just outside the second-floor window. I can guess the air feels warm at first, but after a short while the slight chill of evening will tickle the underside of the still-small leaves of June and make anyone walking outside wish they had remembered to bring along a light windbreaker or sweater. I recall such nights during my childhood in Perfectsmalltown, USA, where fireflies danced like angels at play in the air above front yards and we kids danced along the sidewalks devilishly tugging at our parents’ sleeves, punctuating the dusky stillness with the sound of our pleading for just a few more minutes to walk and play outside tonight before we have to sleep.
But I won’t be walking outside tonight or any other, so I won’t know for certain how warm or cool the breeze, and I won’t be able to walk alongside this building to discern what strangeness caused a young green tree to grow just outside the window of this stale ash-gray room on the second floor of Purgatory.
Nothing young and green grows within the confines of chain link fence and barbed wire that enclose my sky view.
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20 Comments
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Heartbreaking! But this line “where fireflies danced like angels at play in the air above” is amazing writing.
Thank you, Paul.
“But I won’t be walking outside tonight or any other, so I won’t know for certain how warm or cool the breeze”
Nice pivot!
Thanks, Liz!
Sigh!!!
Such a moving story . I have read it a few times , already. You write so tremendously well .
Thank you so much, Moon. ♥️
I just moved to Florida, but I miss the cool summer nights of Small Town USA and their enchanting whimsy of fireflies scattered in the air much like pixie dust.
Sounds positively enchanting! I suspect Florida summer nights are very different?
Hot, muggy, and replace all the fireflies with a double dose of mosquitos and chance sighting of a gator.
I’ll pass! 😃
This was a very powerfully written piece, Lisa! It started out so softly with memories of evenings long ago, and then took us to the place where not only are those evenings long gone, but also the freedom to make new memories on summer evenings. It brings sharply to mind an experience in time where I watched leaves turning autumn colors from behind wire-covered windows, and how sad that felt.
Thank you, Josie. I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of the two experiences, and inspired by an actual tree in the breeze. Well, plus the prompt. Obviously. 😃
This is so sad, but a reminder that those inside prison walls were once children, are someone’s son or daughter, and may be a father or mother who made a wrong decision or choice, or perhaps had been falsely accused and sentenced. They live with memories that may haunt them and just wish for sweet release.
Great SSS!
All such true possibilities, Pat. Everyone has a story that hasn’t been told.
Well done, that.
Thanks much!
Wow, Lisa! I was not expecting that at all! What lovely imagery and then the end – boom. Great job!
Thanks, Kristi. xo
What I love about the 6 sentences is how I can begin to read the first sentence or 2 and then find myself smack dab in the middle of a scene without the slight idea of how it will end 🙂
I was not quite expecting this type of endingto your story! (projection on my part lol) Sad. Made me sad. I had not scrolled to see the picture and so, no give away. The words read one into the other easily and until they led me to the stark reality ending.
Well done.
Oh, Girlie, that is great feedback. Thank you. It’s so hard to know if what you’re doing is effective, gets the message across, until someone reads it and has something to say. So yay. Thanks! xo