She walked down the road, holding the umbrella carefully. She hated getting wet in the rain. She wished she could have stayed at home instead, but there were some days when you just had to go out and interact with the world. It didn’t mean that she had to like it.
Suddenly she heard laughter; uninhibited joyous childish laughter. She peeked out from under the umbrella and saw a bunch ok kids happily splashing into the puddles and getting drenched in the process.
Unbidden a memory surfaced of oh so long ago, when she was the one doing the laughing and splashing; finding joy in the small things of life.
With a sigh she wondered when she had bid goodbye to that little girl and become someone so devoid of fun and laughter; someone the world expected her to be.
This flash fiction is written in response to the fourteenth edition of Fiction Monday hosted on Reflections by Vinitha Dileep. I chose the picture prompt This is my second post on Fiction Mondays If you like it, do say so in the comments. I would love to hear from you.
We need to keep alive the child in us…It gets lost as we get wrapped up in jobs, commitments, and the rat race….very well written!!
Thank you Archana. Yes, it’s important to keep the child alive in us.
This could be me! When we were young, our parents had to stop us from running out into the rain to get wet! All of us need to recapture the child within that we’ve lost in the process of living!
Yes, we need to find that child again, specially in these times
I so wish that she would find that girl again. This story definitely struck a chord with me, Sunita. It’s never too late to shed those layers that we gathered over the time and become that little girl who knew how to enjoy the little joys of life, right?
Thank you so much for joining fiction Monday and sharing this beautiful story. Hope to see you again in the this week’s edition. 🙂
Thank you Vinitha. I really enjoy writing these short stories. Will join whenever I can.