Let Us Remember Adelaide
Twitter Fiction Festival Flash Fiction #1. Epitaph by BastianKom, fiction by Jennifer Wilson.
Sailed to the treehouse where the best memories were made. Then floated to the moon with a smile on her face. —BastianKom
She adored it there.
As a girl, all manner of trouble was followed by a quick snip to the tree house behind her mama’s place. Run and run on legs like reeds. She put a salamander in the sugar bowl. Or used the spyglass on her brother and the neighbor lady. Kicked a cat that hurt her pet chicken—Mama’s cat, so big trouble there.
And she’d run! To the tree house to think about things. It was her sailboat! Her big old Buick! Her very fancy house made for a queen. Once she’d watched a fox kill a vole from up there, marveled at wild things, and the tree house was her elephant on safari.
She grew. Her trouble changed.
The banker who visited Mama used to leave a bit from time to time. But things were turning tough, he said. Still, he came at night, so Mama would keep their deal, and sometimes Adelaide could hear things that she didn’t even want to get the spyglass for.
The banker noticed her, eventually. Legs like reeds weren’t just for running anymore. She’d grown up. He watched. Brother was away looking for work, and it was just she and Mama, and the banker when he came.
Adelaide wasn’t much for boys. She didn’t want babies like the other girls. She wasn’t much for anything except for helping Mama on their land.
The banker wanted to take it, though. Things were rough at the bank, he kept saying. The land was worth more than when Mama and he struck their deal. The deal had to change. Maybe they should talk about the girl. Mama was in a panic, and Adelaide knew she had to make some trouble.
Late spring, and it was easy to mess with the banker’s car when he was in seeing Mama. Adelaide honked that horn and he came running out because no one’s supposed to know he’s there.
She lit the match. All done. Except she hadn’t counted on the gas that got on her dress.
Through the pain she knew something, and made it not so bad. Only thing Daddy left was protection money on the two of them. Mama would be okay now. She ran on legs like reeds to the tree house, floating like ash to the moon.
Join me in the Twitter Fiction Festival: You write epitaphs based on grave photos I post daily at @WriterJenWilson. I turn the best into stories here. Speed round 12pm-1pm EST Friday and Sunday featured on the Twitter Fiction Festival Page– four grave images per hour and you tweet those epitaphs. Use the #TwitterFiction hashtag and you’ll be featured on the Twitter home page, too. Let’s make stories together … and tweet the dead.
