Lauren Spratt
Stories (1/0)
A Fruitless Venture
One of the man’s favorite toys as a child were those View-Masters where you look into the eyepiece and click through 3-D images on a cardboard disc. He found one not too long ago rummaging through the remnants of a thrift store. Disappointingly, there was nothing left of traditional value, but as he made his way back out of the building, the red plastic of the toy caught his eye. Discarded on the ground to collect dust, there must have been countless people before him who passed it over. He stooped down and picked it up. With a silent prayer that the toy still held a disc, he looked through the viewfinder. To his quiet delight, he was treated to a look at New Orleans, the old New Orleans. He chuckled as he remembered a college trip where he got sick on beignets and daiquiris. As he clicked through the disc, he allowed himself to be transported to this tiny world, and for a short while he escaped the current reality that gripped his every thought and action. He lost track of how many times he cycled through the precious paper disc before tearing himself away. He considered taking the View-Master with him but ultimately set it back down in the dust it came from. He hoped it could provide that temporary escape for the next passerby. Perhaps that was what the last person had done for him.
By Lauren Spratt3 years ago in Fiction