Flash Fiction: A Shade or Two

This flash piece was written for the 18July 2014 Flash! Friday competition. The photo and “clumsiness” was the prompt.

A Shade or Two

“Who’s this?” Jamie sighed and tossed Margaret the grainy photo of a uniformed man.

“No idea. He came with the book.” Her wrinkled face burst into a smile. “I had quite the crush on him.”

The house was nearly packed up, but the family insisted on going through the books before donating them. Margaret sat surrounded by a gathering of half-forgotten bookmarks, bits of paper, and photos.

“Why’d you stuff this crap into books?” She tossed Margaret a photo of girls practising gymnastics.

“This is Scarlet and me. She always won – I was too clumsy.” Margaret took the photo and wrote on the back. She shook her head. At her age there were too many stories and too few to remember them.

After Jamie left, Margaret slipped the ephemera back into the books. Random photos and memories here and there for others to find and keep. Between the pages their shades would live on forever young.

Shiva. CC photo by Raphael Goetter