Frosted leaves crumbled and snapped underfoot as we picked our way down the bank towards the pond. Birds strode over the ice, sneering at our awkward gaits. I admired the sunlight pouring from over the trees in the distance.
A sound like crystallised wind chimes hit the air and rang out around us. The sound filled me with a thrill I couldn't identify, fear? Awe? Our heads whipped around, eyes searching. My cousin. He giggled and threw another rock. The sound rose again. I shivered.
My breath fogged in my eyes. My swollen hands ached. I snapped another picture on my analogue camera, feeling the shutter button texture my finger. I imagined the photo would be beautiful: filled with the frosted ground, tree strewn horizon, and rising sun, gloomy from fog.
You're too close.
I'm not, I'm not.
You'll fall in.
I won't!
He stood so close to the surface of the ice, his shoes were breaking it. Even as he stumbled, arms raising into the sky to correct his balance, his wind-bitten face scrunched in determination to show he wouldn't fall in.
I snapped another picture, imagining that in the photo it would look as though he was balancing on a precipice and his shadow on the ice would reflect back at him.
We turned away.
A shout went up into the air. Our heads whipped around, eyes searching. He lay in the water, ice fragmented around.
I snapped another picture.
About the Creator
Jaimie
Amateur writer
Hall of mirrors
Things used to matter, before all the noise. And at that time when things still had meaning, there had been dreaming too, when dreams still mattered. And the brightest dream from those times was full of mountains and seas and smiles and the types of passion that absorbs you the way a dog is absorbed by witnessing something for the first time: with absolute presence, and awe.
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Comments (2)
The last line was a definite surprise...
Such a cute story