Flashback

This week Karen has invited us to take a cruise to the British Virgin Islands for WHAT PEGMAN SAW. As I’ve been in quite the reflective mood lately, I’m sharing a memory. Here in the frozen Midwest the skies have been dreary and the roads icy. A trip to a tropical island is just the ticket for this sleety Sunday morning.

St. Thomas © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Memoir

Word Count: 150

St. Thomas © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORIES

Lush hills and tree-studded mountains surround St. Thomas like an imperial crown. Is it any wonder my son and his bride fell in love with the area? They exchanged their vows there and invited their parents to share the honeymoon.

Later, my son told me they had planned to have the ceremony on a mountaintop so his mother wouldn’t be tempted to swim away. Who would do something so utterly rude on such a grand occasion?

However nothing compared to the thrill of snorkeling along the underwater nature trail in Magen’s Bay in St. Thomas or exploring Water Lemon Cay in St. John.

I feasted my gaze on purple fan coral, yellow tangs and crimson starfish. As water takes on the shape of its container, I took on the shape of the water in an indescribable oneness. Unfettered by the mundane, I embraced the sea and it welcomed me home.

“When we’re in the water, we’re not of this world.”
……Gertrude Ederle

The following photo is the PROMPT. Again, this is another blast from the past which, to most of you, will be a new one.

PHOTO PROMPT – © Madison Woods

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There are some flash fictions of mine that I like better than others. This remains one of my favorites. It’s one of the first ten that I wrote when Madison was the chief cat herder. 😉 You can find the original post here.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Word Count: 100

RENDEZVOUS

Golden arches and a drive-through replaced the baroque beacon on the hill. The French restaurant where we often met is long gone.

At our special table we shared crème brulée, class notes and anecdotes. Our careers left no room for marriage. He went his way and I went mine.

Two years later the embossed invitation came. Birth announcements and commencement notices followed me around the world.

Thirty summers passed.

When I read his wife’s obituary I wept.

***

I reminisce in McDonald’s parking lot. Someone taps my windshield.

Ink-black hair turned bone-white, Bordeaux in hand, he grins. “You saved our table.”