New week? New prompt!
As always, beware the comments section if you plan on writing something, so as to avoid being influenced.
I look forward to seeing your responses!
As always, beware the comments section if you plan on writing something, so as to avoid being influenced.
I look forward to seeing your responses!
I've lived in this town my whole life, and most of the time that's fine by me. But in the late fall when the sky fills with birds migrating south for the winter, traveling thousands of miles, I get homesick for places I've never been. Places like Mexico. Or the Caribbean. Somewhere in the south.
ReplyDeleteOnly not those places specifically. I dream of warm, sandy beaches and green ocean waves lapping against my feet. I can't see anyone else, but I'm surrounded by musical warbling. Like birdsong, only not.
Just like the beaches in my dream are like the Caribbean, but not.
It's an itchy feeling, but no amount of scratching ever sated it.
Then the snow comes and the feeling fades away and my dreams fade back into unmemorable shadows.
It happens every year like clockwork. When I was younger, I tried to tell Dad about it, but he just frowned at me and told me they were only dreams.
As if I didn't know that. Of course they were only dreams.
I stopped telling him about it a few years ago. What was the point? The leaves turn orange and gold and red and I dream of beaches.
This year, it feels different.
It feels BIG. And it's not just my dreams. I close my eyes and I SEE the beaches. No, it's more than that. I can feel the heat of the sun against my skin, taste the salt of the ocean, smell exotic flowers that aren't like any perfume I've been able to find.
Finally, I think I know why.
Perched on the pane of my open bedroom window, I look back at the pile of pillows hidden beneath my comforter and bite my lip.
Dad wouldn't understand. I wasn't sure anyone would, to be honest, but the itching beneath my skin this year didn't go away. It got worse. Worse and worse until my nails bit into my shoulderblades and pulled the thin skin aside like tissue paper.
I reached over my shoulder again, still awed at the muscular mass of feathers stretched out from the loosest tank top I owned.
Red and green and blue.
Parrot colors.
Tropical colors.
I closed my eyes and I could FEEL the beach calling to me. South. South. South.
Dad always got quiet when I asked him who my mom was. Where she was. Why she never talked to me.
Now, I supposed I knew why.
I leaped easily to the tree branch outside my window and dropped to the ground.
I had enough money for a bus ticket, and I was going south.