Summer's Eve
Microfiction for Turtles of Alchemy Prompt: Stillness
On a worn wooden bench at the onset of summer, Ava patiently waits for the moment of perfect twilight, when the sun is halfway sunken into the quicksand of the horizon, and the moon gathers her first breath to call in the tide. As she waits, her breathing slows along with the sun’s descent, until the Earth seems to pause. The warm breeze quiets and the trees cease their swaying. Birds hold their breath and wildflowers bow weary heads. The air takes on a purplish tinge, settling thick across Ava’s shoulders. Everything is still, reluctant to break the silence.
Everything, that is, except for the fireflies. They take advantage of the quiet and rise to fill the air, dancing and bobbing as they flash their little globes of light. Ava’s lips curl into a small smile and she, too, rises into the lavender twilight, the Earth’s momentary hush. The fireflies spin faster at her approach.
Within their storm of defiant light, Ava raises her arms and begins to dance. Her steps set the Earth in motion once more as the purple in the air deepens to indigo. Her sweeping arms set the trees to swaying, call the breeze back to propel her forward. The birds and the wildflowers keep time for her, with rustling petals and flitting wings.
Only when the sun disappears completely and the full darkness of night arrives does she return to stillness. The world around her is lively now, crickets joining the birds’ choir and night creatures bumbling through the grass. But the fireflies are slowing, their light dying out. Ava feels the same reduction within her, no longer at the center of the Earth’s momentum.
She remains there, still and silent, until the last firefly has gone. Then she, too, slips away into the night.
Happy Friday and thanks for reading! And thank you to
for putting this prompt together. (I missed the part about it being less than 300 words until after I was done, but I managed to get it down from 380 to exactly 300. I’ll take it.)
This is such a beautifully calming story, this line took me away to another world immediately "Ava patiently waits for the moment of perfect twilight, when the sun is halfway sunken into the quicksand of the horizon, and the moon gathers her first breath to call in the tide."
Absolutely entrancing, thank you so much for sharing!