I race towards home, holding up the watercolour I painted at school. Rainclouds flee the sunlight that is filtering through spruce trees and trembling aspens. Bird wings unfurl into the damp, but now drying, air. Sound is muffled underfoot by sand woven through with pine needles and half-rotten leaves. A yellow-striped garter snake slithers across my path and is gone. Emotions are waiting to pounce. The painting is an offering to my mother standing on the other side of the puddle. But I trip and fall. The paper dips into the water, images melting and dissolving into the reflected light.
Louella Lester is a writer and photographer in Winnipeg, Canada. Her Flash-CNF book, Glass Bricks, is published by At Bay Press (April 2021). Find her at louellalester.blog, on Twitter @louloubellish, and on Instagram @louellalester.