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Thursday, October 28, 2010

flash fiction thursday: the top of the world.




The Top of the World.

Ellianne looked down from her cloud and smiled at the sparrows that were playing the grass below her.  The were little companions to her, the sparrows.  Like mice to sit in her pockets, only the sparrows were free to go where they pleased, anywhere at all.  And she would follow them.  She smiled and the wind pushed her blonde hair around her like a fuzzy scarf.

She liked autumn.  It was her favourite time of year.  In fact, she liked it so much that she waiting until mid-November to fly south with the birds, just so she could enjoy the Vermont foliage to its fullest.  When she was alive, Ellianne used to collect the brightest and most beautiful leaves, and her mother would place them as the centerpiece on the dinner table.  Even when the wind kept extinguishing the fire in the hearth, and when the turkeys and does were hard to come by, the cabin would be bathed in the most beautiful shades of orange and red.

The sweet brown-speckled sparrows hopped among the golden leaves and from her cloud, Ellianne watched them, her hazel eyes glued to the sheen on their oily feathers.  Chill was on the wind.  Soon, she and the sparrows alike would have to go south, to the Carolinas, and to Florida.  Sometimes, when the wind was cold enough, she could see their faces form in the frosted haze.  She didn't like that, and that was why she she went with the birds.  The haunts should not be haunted.

Ellianne plucked a tendril from the cloud and wrapped it around her finger.  She looked up at the sun, and its white light blinded her so she couldn't see anything.  She sat on the top of the world and looked down at the birds, who still lived their lives as simply as people did when she was alive, when a blizzard meant that you may not wake up in the morning.

And, try as she might, she couldn't forget the stiffness of her mother's body, or the way her father's eyes had stared up at Heaven, as though he could see something she could not.

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 Author's Note:  I swear, this started off as a much happier piece.  For some reason, I kept thinking of Emily, the little girl in Hocus Pocus, and of how horrible it must have been to be living in a world much different than ours is today, much like the lives of the earliest settlers.  I have all the comforts of the world, and I am still cold when winter begins to creep in.  I cannot begin to understand the struggles of our ancestors.  In my opinion, it is a wonder they survived.
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Last Movie Quoted:  Beetlejuice.
Last Song Heard:  "Jump in the Line" by Harry Belafonte.
Last Google Search: "Odin".

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