Flash Fiction

      Ridgewater Elementary School twitched to the sound of the closing bell, as Mrs. Catherine Carter waited – sitting on a brittle park bench along the street in front of the school’s stone-arched front entryway – for her son, Nathan, to finish for the day. Within a minute of the bell, students pushed through the propped-open exit and winced in the sunlight. Nathan, hound-eyed and smaller than his classmates, filtered through the crowd, and Mrs. Carter watched as his unadjusted eyes scanned the high-contrast exterior of the school. With a slow wave of her hand, Mrs. Carter caught Nathan’s attention, and he trotted over – his knapsack swinging on his back, oscillating around the beeline he followed. Mrs. Carter stood up. She grabbed one of her two crutches from the bench to use for support as she stood.
      “Momma!”
      He hugged Mrs. Carter gently, making sure to avoid rubbing against her bandaged knee. He wished he could have shown his excitement with a more physical form of affection, like a jump into her arms, but he repressed the urge and just imagined that he had done it anyway and that she had tossed him and caught him and that he had screamed, signaling his joy in a more primal form.
      “Momma, why are you here!? Daddy – ”
      “Yes I know, exciting isn’t it? I told Daddy that I’d pick you up today.”
      Mrs. Carter reached down for her second crutch, so that they could walk to her car. Nathan, faster than she, dipped and pulled the crutch up to meet her casted hand halfway. On the walk over, Mrs. Carter crutched with grace and smiled at the parents of her son’s friends, even though their attention was averted to their children.
      On the ride, Mrs. Carter drove the speed limit. She wondered whether they’d need to pick up groceries. Nathan sat in the back seat with his temple pasted to the glass window.
      “You take a different route than Daddy does. We always go passed the pond with the cattails. He says they look like cigars.”
      Mrs. Carter nodded, and stopped at the stop sign.
      “Hey Momma? Have you ever thought about the worms when it rains – really pours – have you thought about the worms? We learned today that they come up out of the earth to free themselves from drowning in the soil. Did you know that?”
      “Yes Nathan, I did.”
      “But I was thinking, have you thought about the worm families that live and dig around underneath buildings or parking lots? Or even just under streets. What happens to them when it really rains, like it did last night? What happens when they try to surface?”
      “Nathan, I’m not sure. I didn’t notice that it rained last night.”
      “Well it did Momma. I heard it.”