A Micro Fiction: Watch Your Step
Dear Reader,
A few weeks ago a close friend of mine told me a rather funny story of something that had happened to her at work. I confess I laughed quite a bit at her unfortunate tumble, and had such a splendid mental image I had to write a quick little story about it.
Thus, without further ado, I hope you enjoy Watch Your Step.
Sincerely,
The Jade Writer Girl
– – –
She trailed ahead of them, weaving her way through the long brownish green grasses with a graceful ease her companions envied.
The summer sky was bright and vividly blue, speckled with scattered stark white clouds. Sunlight shone in rays, casting dappled colours of contrasting light and shadows over the small group of wanderers.
‘You should slow down,’ called Tim, almost tripping over a concealed log as he and his best friend trailed after the girl bouncing along ahead of them.
She twirled, throwing her hands wide and her head back. Wild blonde curls flew about her face and Tim was sure that this was precisely why so many boys (and some girls) fell in love with her. She was the only person in the world who could make him think that, maybe, fairies really did exist. If they did, she would be one of them.
Green eyes, bright with the spirit of exercise, fixed on him. She traipsed backwards, hands trailing through the tops of the grass.
‘Why?’
Next to Tim, Ant staggered, his foot catching in a ditch. He grabbed hold of Tim, fingers digging in hard as he almost fell.
‘Why, she says,’ Ant muttered, blue eyes flashing up to Tim in exasperated fondness.
Tim grinned.
Ahead, the fairy-in-disguise, danced along. She skipped across two creeks, her ease carrying her across the water with barely a splash, while Tim’s graceless and impatient nature had him stomping through the water without a care for the soaking of his boots. Two steps behind him, Ant cursed, slipping over the rocks and almost tumbling into the water.
‘The trick is,’ she said, waltzing on ahead of them, casting a quick look over her shoulder at them. ‘to have confidence in your feet.’
Not a moment after she had finished speaking she vanished. For a moment Tim thought she really had become a fairy, vanishing into the summer afternoon within a beam of sunlight, not a single blonde curl left in sight.
A second later he heard her shriek of surprise. Abandoning Ant’s struggle through the brush, Tim darted forward to find his lost fairy-girl.
He broke through the grass to find her staring up at him, a stunned look on her freckled face. ‘I fell into a hole,’ she said, green eyes as wide and astonished as her voice.
A grin cracked Tim’s face, without a though to helping her out of the hole, he began to laugh.
‘Confidence in your feet,’ he chortled as Ant caught up to them. ‘Ant, Ant look…she fell into a hole! And not just a hole…it’s huge! Hehehe.’
‘Oh for heavens sake, Tim. Help her out, would you?’
Tim stepped back, still cackling, as Ant tried to yank her out. As she scrambled up out of the cavernous hole, Ant’s foot hit a rock and they both went tumbling. They crashed straight into Tim and the lot of them (Tim still laughing) went tumbling into the earth.
Tim’s laughter became infectious, and soon the three of them were giggling like children in the grass.
‘I guess,’ said Tim, once his laughter had subsided a little. ‘I guess even fairies fall over sometimes.’
Immediately the bubbling sound of her laughter ceased, and her head popped up into Tim’s view. ‘There are fairies here?’
Nice 👍