Just Write: Just Vignettes

I had a dream last night that the moon had crashed into the earth. 

From resting plump and white in the sky, it flattened into a disk, flipped end over end from the heavens, and shattered upon impact.  Silver and brown dust plumed outward -- a marriage of celestial bodies -- pushing us down where we stood to watch the fall. 

We looked to the sky later, but it was naked.  Barren and bare. 

 

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Mia's face met the pavement last weekend. 

A gravel-crusted forehead glued together with blood and tears greeted me when I heard the screaming.  Her palms were gouged and bloody; a red teardrop quivered at the base of her wrist when she raised her hands to me.  It fell to her shirt, red bleeding into the blue and turning black. 

She begged to look in the mirror, first thing.  Testing the truth of a swollen sensation.  Lumpy and aching.

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I put locks on the pots and pans cupboard, more for sanity than safety. 

There are four cupboard doors, all opening onto the same, long, shelves.  There are no dividers behind the doors.  The middle two were the easiest to lock, so the plastic diamond hangs beneath their handles, blocking entrance to a baby boy's noisy dismantling. 

In twelve minutes, he's crawled through the end door and into the middle section.  He reaches his desire.  Noisy and reverberating.

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The Halloween catalogues have arrived. 

Lauren wants to be a butterfly, and she searches for the perfect (overpriced) specimen.  She is as focused as she has ever been, lips parted, eyes rapt.  She turns the pages reverently, and finds the costume of her dreams.  Pink and purple, with floaty wings attached to wrists and shoulders. 

Later, Mia announces that she wants to be a cowgirl.  Or an owl.  Or a fairy.  Lauren abandons her butterfly notions.  Halloween is a trial of tiny hopes; I will have to remind her of her independence.  Convince and mollify.

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He is up with the dawn, getting ready for Mass. 

I stretch in bed, finding a warm pocket for my cold toes.  He sits on the mattress, fitting into the curve of my body, and puts on his shoes.  In silhouette, he is perfect: jaw and lips and nose and brow.  My whole heart lunges toward his, and I am surprised that I am not lifted from the bed with its strength.

Then he turns to me and starts to speak, but I can't hear his words.  He is my husband, and the realization still overwhelms me.  Eternal and encompassing.



Feel the need to Just Write?  Heather hosts each Tuesday.