Window

Another attempt at micro-fiction for next week's class. Only three paragraphs this time, and I think this one's less.... um... tacky. Please enjoy.

"Window"
by Cameron L. Maris

Three young girls dressed in sweatpants and nightshirts creep across a front yard in a nice middle-class neighborhood. There is a boy inside the house, a boy the girls know from school, and it is two-o-clock in the morning. The girls had thrown a slumber party, and have snuck out of the house, scurrying and giggling down the block in socked feet, clutching their chests in the cold November night. Tina is the bravest of the three, and the most in love with the boy. Her hand is moving slowly and cautiously merely inches from his window. Colleen stands just yards behind her, holding her hands out awkwardly in the air to maintain her balance in case she suddenly needs to run. Amy stands further back, on the sidewalk, nearly in tears. She had not wanted to sneak out; the others had teased her and she did not want to seem like a scared child.

This is how I see them as I turn the corner on the dark street -- posed in the yard like a plaster nativity set, and lit in the halo of the streetlight. I recognize their poses, and am struck with an odd sense of clarity and kinship. I, too, was once someone who believed that true love was something that involved throwing pebbles at a window in the middle of the night.

Amy glances at me with terrified, watery eyes as I pass. Her future is something that she has been trying to imagine, without much success. As she gazes down the street after me, all she sees is darkness.