Friday, February 24, 2012

Five Sentence Fiction: Yearning


Architecture
You're walking through an outdoor mall; one of those so charmingly designed monstrosities that all have a Sephora and an Anthropologie and a train on a circular route to transport you from Starbucks to Coffee Bean, but it does create the illusion of a community where teenagers have lover's quarrels in front of a fountain, and families go at Christmas to watch a tree lighting or sit on the perfect squares of lawn to eat from gourmet food trucks and watch 80's flicks on movie nights.
It's almost a place.
You're walking down one of those faux cobblestone streets outside the multiplex when you see a woman wearing a certain kind of quilted jacket -the sort of thing hand sewn by an artsy type who grew up in the 60's and makes jewelry out of polymer clay- and maybe she has long salt and pepper grey hair so you slow your pace and squint a little.
She might be too tall or too thin, but for a dizzying moment you come close to shouting for your mom as you imagine this woman turning her head to grin with a big overbite, eyebrows raised in amused expectation.
It's almost real.

7 comments:

  1. Erin, you have done it again...though this one ultimately has the twinge of sadness that yearning can bring at any moment. Wonderfully done!

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  2. I like the overall effect, but for me, you've crammed too much into single sentences to get to that effect. Great imagery in there, though. :)

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  3. Totally fair criticism. I should probably try some flash fiction exercises with word limits. Teach me to write a bit cleaner.

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  4. Ah, so fun and quirky-unexpected. Awesome, Erin!

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  5. Love the way you captured 'yearning'... sometimes Moms are all you need to make everything okay.

    And the description of the mall is pretty spot on. ;)

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  6. Came back to read it a second time. About 3 months after my Mom died, I saw her everywhere...so many women of the same age, same hairdo, same coat. I get weepy even now, 20 years later. I'm so glad you wrote this Erin.

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  7. Aww, thanks. I'm glad it meant something to you. My mom passed a couple years ago and I had one of those moments a few weeks ago.

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