100 words

Summer

My mother hates summer. Then the parching sand embraces our labored feet, she lets go of my hand and remains motionless until the sun taints her skin with burns.

She pits the cherries and the knife pierces her skin. Voracious blood blends with the pristine juice while her mind wanders toward the gently whispering trees.

She says summer reminds her of a broken oath. A place she swore to abandon. A place she comes back to every night.

“Shall we move farther North?”

“No, the sunrise birds would miss my lamenting, as much as I would miss their songs.”

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An Act of Memory

Knock-knock.

“They’re coming for us.”

Granny’s voice turned a “Hello?” into a snowball stuck in my throat. Silence is safer, she said, because there were taps in the walls, spies amongst neighbors, and devious spiders crawling inside our heads at night.

It was time which came for granny first. The paramedics found me twined around her gossamer scarf. They ripped it away. The fabric screamed through my mouth, unraveling into the spider webs to snare my arms.

Eleven years later, I exterminated most of the spiders. Yet, I still shiver from a doorbell’s chime. As an act of memory.

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Regret

I don’t regret leaving then my mom told me to. A fire under the bridge lured me in. “Runaways don’t end well,” uttered a decrepit man crouched in there.

“I don’t care.”

“I didn’t either.” He grabbed a withered guitar. The tones of his rage sparkled around us, while his glee bubbled up, elevating us above the misted city. That’s how my mom found us. Her pale lips graced by the tear streaks whispered: “Sorry.”

“Go,” he bade, so I grabbed her hand.

I only regret walking to school afterward. There was a withered guitar floating in the river.