Fiction Prompt

The soothing sound of water pouring over rocks, the spray that mists your face as you stand at the bottom looking up--waterfalls have such power and grace. This week, write a short scene in which one of your characters discovers a waterfall on a walk through the woods. What's her first instinct? Does she dive into the pool at the bottom for a swim? Or does she stand back in awe? {from, "The Time is Now", Poets and Writers -------------------------------------- Jennifer came by the falls purely by chance.She was on a case, on the clock:  who had time for beauty and Nature?  The whole Preston case had been on her mind for weeks now, it seemed like she thought of nothing else.  How did Susie Preston die?  Was it really murder or just a very well planned suicide?  The thoughts plagued her day and night, so this morning she thought she'd try something than coffee and the newspaper to start her day.  It was 11 AM now, and Jennifer had come deeper into the woods than she thought.  The sound of the water lured her closer. Jennifer found herself planted at the bottom of the falls,fixated on the different water patterns that formed the flow coming down. Most of the water flowed freely over smooth, slippery rock. But other pockets of water met up with deep crevices in the stone, causing water to spray in different directions.  She thought about how even Nature, maybe especially Nature, seemed to make a more difficult time for some bodies than others.  No rhyme or reason, just the way things were made or came together.  One fissure was so deep, the water flow split neatly into two flows.  In that way, Fate seemed to work for the good. An anomaly, something wrong, had caused beauty.   Jennifer watched the two even streams of water branch off gently in two directions, like each had a purpose.   She decided to sit down and observe more.  Susie Preston had been an upstanding, moral young woman.  At least according to Jennifer's sources.  like a parody, it seemed all this woman could do were wonderful things, big things in the name of a better humanity.  It all didn't sit right for Jen.  There had to be some flaw - some fissure in her life that made everything turn bad for Susie.   Jen jerked around when she heard something rustle in the leaves.  She looked, hopefully, for a squirrel or some other animal just rummaging around.  These woods were foreign to Jen, even though she bought her small house right on the edge of them two years ago. Always on a case, always pulling the hours, Jen forgot what it was to take an afternoon off, to do nothing.   Her mind was always swimming with plots, schemes, potential suspects.  It all seemed like so much at times, though she loved being a detective.  Problem solver she was,and even Max had told her she wasn't happy unless working on a case.   Jen couldn't find any small animal to explain the rustling, so she slowly stood up.  She felt reassuringly the gun in her belt, that whatever or whoever was out here could be handled with her weapon.  Jen looked behind her and to the sides of the falls - nothing.  Then she heard it.  A voice, sounded like a little girl's.  She wandered to the side of the falls when she saw the young girl just standing there, crying.  It took Jen a minute until she matched the girl's face to the one in the photo.  The photo in the file of Miss Suzanne Preston.   Carol Clark 10/3/14

Cemetery Chat

We sat there a long time. Anna stopped crying, which meant she stopped shaking and moving around.  Only problem then was, she laid there still and quiet - like she was dead.

"Anna!"  I had to yell, because we were in a cemetery and for all I know she just became dead.  I didn't really know all that worked:  death and dying, where you went and where you stayed.

"What?! My God, Missy, where's your respect? " She waved around in every direction.  "There's dead people everywhere you look.  Some have been dead for centuries maybe, some for fifty years... hell, there could be someone right under us who's only been dead a week."

I jumped straight up at this, thinking that the soil touching my ankles felt a bit fresh. My fear quickly turned to anger, like it usually did.

"Damn it, Anna!  Why do you always have to ruin a day?  Yeah, we're in a graveyard, but look at the sun."

I did.  It really was full sunshine today, what felt like the first day of summer.  And it was only March.  It seemed like just the beginning for the two of us.   Just getting to know each other in the seventh grade, we'd hit it off instantly.  Neither of us was real interested in boys, at least Anna never said anything.  Me, I'm a bookworm and explorer.  Love to read things and do things other people don't - maybe just for the sake of being defiant.  My mother's always saying I'm defiant.  But then she hardly knows me.

I was here to see my brother. Or his grave anyway, one year after he died.   Anna offered to come along with me, I think she was worried about me.  She met me a few months after David died,  and it occurred to me in some strange way that she might have been attracted to my darkness, my sadness.  She cried an awful lot herself.  Some people are just drawn to that kind of stuff, you know?  I always think God designates certain people for certain tasks, and Anna is my angel - my guide.  After all, her name started with "A" and....

"Missy, hello?  Where'd you go?  I've been talking to you for two minutes now, and you were like out in space."  Missy turned her gaze to the left.  It was David's site.  We had to move away from it, as it freaked me out; I didn't want to get any closer than I already was.  

"Do you still feel sad?"

The question just came at me, like a rocket.  She'd known about David, but never asked me anything like this. 

"A little."  I paused, took in a real deep breath like I was going to dive in the deep end of the high school pool. "But mostly I feel nothing, just nothing."

Anna's face told me she didn't believe me.  She looked up now, towards the sky.   There were only a few wispy clouds, and it seemed like it should be a carefree day.  I asked myself again, what am I doing here?  Visiting my brother, or bringing up  the past?  Maybe both.  Maybe I missed him and just couldn't admit it to myself.  I'd learned lately in therapy enforced by my Mom, that there were a lot of things I couldn't admit to.  Ironically, they were about her.  I laughed at this a little.  How much I hated her at times, how much I didn't trust her.  The latter I didn't  like to even think about.  And yet it was all up there, in my mind. all these "thoughts and feelings", stuff I hated to think about,much less talk about.  

"Y'know it's OK if you do.  People are supposed to feel sad when a family member dies.  I sobbed at my aunt's funeral."  

I stared at Anna.  How could she possibly compare her aunt to my brother?  Wasn't even close.  I lived with David, ate breakfast with him, fought with him, called him names.  Anyway you sliced it, they just weren't the same.  Anna could breathe easier than me, no coughing.  She could concentrate on exams, not like me. Hell, even the whites of her eyes were white.  Not yellowish like mine. She had survived, and I was sort of half here all the time.  

I looked at Anna.  That afternoon, in the abnormally bright March sun, I wished I was her.  Even though she had flat blue eyes and mousy brown hair.  Not like my blondish-red hair with green eyes.  At least she had a clean, unspoiled mind.  

We continued our off and on chat in the cemetery until it started to turn dark.

"Let's get going, Missy."

"Yeah."  I walked over to my brother's grave.  "Goodbye, David."  I stood there a few seconds, like there was the slightest chance he would answer.  He didn't.  He never did.

Carol Clark

9/29/14 

Word Count - 814