Evening Dandelion © Anthony Beyga
I can’t find my coffee mug…my wedding album…my grandmother’s quilt…my neighbor…my car; nothing is where I left it. In fact, if I hadn’t been home when it hit, I’m not sure I’d be able to find my own street.
I close my eyes and push lazily with a bare toe, setting my swing in motion, imagining it’s just another peaceful May evening in the park, the sun’s last golden rays warm against my eyelids. I open my eyes and ponder a perfect globe of a dandelion, fuzzy seeds ready to be launched to far-flung corners of the carefully manicured soccer field. Ironic that just one block over, the noble, gnarly live oak that has graced my front lawn for more than a century is now impaled through the side of the neighbor’s garage.
I lean back and pump my legs, hoping I can soar high enough to rise above the sirens, the cries and shouts, the scrape of debris being pushed around, high enough to see my husband walk through the devastation to find me here in the park, where our disaster plan says we will reunite.
Although I’d love it to be so, I just couldn’t work my schedule to be able to participate in StoryADay May. It’s a personal problem…it takes me hours upon hours to churn out any fictional story, no matter its length or how much prompting I am given. However, I fully expected to find lots of inspiration in the month’s worth of daily prompts, so I have been archiving them for future use. I decided to pull one out today, as I had no original inspiration of my own for this week’s Tuesday Tale. As instructed in the 2 May prompt, I went to the Flickr Explore page (never been to Flickr before…what have I been missing!?) and chose the first photograph that caught my eye. Okay, so most of them caught my eye for one reason or another, so I picked the first one that immediately led my sluggish brain to a story. My heart goes out to all those affected by the devastating tornadoes in the States this week.
Things I See and Know 