WRITERS' CORNER discussion

It was late, and the bright fluorescent lights shone down upon my mother and I as we bought the only thing we needed. Eggs. The wheels of the shopping cart squeaked across the shining linoleum floor. I rode in the seat of the cart, peering around my mother to watch the aisle grow longer and longer behind us. My plastic bracelet slid on my wrist, and my pink skirt decorated with pictures of elephants rested on my legs. When we came to a stop, I turned to find that we had joined the check-out line. Excited, I turned to look at the racks of candy that lined the conveyor belt.
“Mommy, look!” I cried, pointing out my favorite.
“Not today, sweetheart. We have to get home.” Disappointed, I slumped down in the metal chair as my mother paid for the eggs. She then pushed me out through the automatic doors and into the lamp-lit parking lot. She parked the cart, and then we were walking down the street, my hand in one of hers, the eggs in her other, and her purse slung over her shoulder.
We turned onto a busy street, with cars roaring past and people on foot hurrying by. My mother rushed along, and my short legs couldn’t keep up. Eventually, she paused and scooped me up, carrying me on her hip so that she could quicken the pace even further. We breezed by storefront after storefront, but that still wasn’t good enough.
Checking her watch, my mother sighed. She paused outside the gaping mouth of an alley and told me,
“Tarin, we’re going to have to take a shortcut so we get home in time. It’ll be an adventure, okay?” Excitement filled me. Adventures were my favorite.
My mother, clutching me even tighter to her side, ducked into the side alley. It was dark, and large dumpsters stood along the alley walls. I didn’t understand, this wasn’t anything like the adventures in the books my father read me. Those adventures had gold and dragons, and they certainly didn’t smell like this. And they always, always had a prince, or a knight, or a troubled criminal who looked bad but was actually good. So where was he?
Oh, there he was.
The man came out from behind the dumpster, slowly at first. My mother crossed to the other side of the alley in the hopes that he would leave her alone. She had almost passed him, until,
“Stop walking!” She froze. “I want the bag.” She turned, and as he approached, gun in hand, she set me down and pushed me behind her legs.
No, I thought. She’s confused. I tugged on her skirt, wanting to explain that this man was just like the ones in the storybooks, that he wanted her bag to please the king or to bribe the dragon. I wanted to tell her that she should give it to him, or better yet, we could join him. Go on his daring quest and his adventure, because I’m sure it wouldn’t be nearly as rank as this one.
Slowly, my mother threw her purse at the man’s feet. He bent down and grabbed it, never once letting his gun point anywhere than at her. Maybe he was scared. The purse in his hands, he rooted through it, trying to find what he was searching for.
“What the hell is this? Where’s your phone, your money? Is it in your pockets? Where is it?” My mother let out a sob.
“I’m sorry, sorry. Don’t shoot me. I left it all at home, I just needed eggs!” The man’s face turned red, like a tomato. He was furious. I bet he was scared of the king he worked for, and if he didn’t have what the king needed, then maybe he would get beheaded. That’s why he was being so mean.
“You’re lying! You’re lying to me. Tell me where it is!” The man’s hand, the one holding the gun, shook. He begun to back away, he knew he had to get back to his adventure. I guess he would just keep looking for what he needed.
“No! No, I’m not. I swear to God I’m not lying I don’t have anything!” Her hands left my shoulders, and she raised them, one palm open, the other clutching the carton of eggs, the way the criminals did in the police show she always liked to watch.
My mother’s phone rang inside her pocket, the melody filling the darkened alley.
The noise was soon joined with the bang of his gun and the sound of eggs cracking against the ground.
All thoughts of adventure and kings and dragons flew from my mind as I saw the man across the alley for the first time. His eyes were wide and scared, his face scarred. His clothes were loose, dirty, and torn, and his face unshaven. His hair was a matted mess, looking as if a small animal had tried to nest there.
He met my eyes, then glanced down at my mother, then ran. That’s when I looked down at her too. She was lying on the ground, and blood was dripping from her head. I knew just what to do. Yesterday, I had been running on the playground and fallen. My knee was bleeding, and my mom showed me how to stop the blood by putting a band aid on it. I ran to the other side of the alley to collect the dropped purse and look in it for a band aid.
After I found it, I ran back to my mother. Ripping the packaging off the band aid, I applied it to the hole in her head.
“There, all better. You can open your eyes now!” I told her. “Mom? You can open your eyes now.” Why wasn’t she opening her eyes? “Mom?” I shook her shoulder. This wasn’t the time for a nap. After all, she had been the one so anxious about getting home in the first place. Thats when I noticed that her band aid was leaking. I guess I hadn’t put it on right, so I better try again. I stood up and started to walking again, but stopped when I felt a crunching and a squishing beneath my shoes. I looked down and found that I had stepped on the already broken egg shells. They were stained red with the blood that had spilled onto the pavement. I could do nothing but stare and stare.
My reverie was only broken by shouts from the end of the alleyway. I looked up and saw my father sprinting towards me.
“Tarin! Ann!” He scooped me up into his arms and fell to his knees beside my mother. “You were late so I called and nobody picked up and oh my god.”
“Daddy, what’s wrong? Don’t cry, it’s okay. Mommy’s just taking a nap.” This only made him cry harder. He clutched me to his chest and laid his head down upon my mother’s body. He was racked with sobs, more upset than I’d ever seen him.
We stayed this way for a long time, too long to count. Something must be wrong, because my father never cried. When he had calmed down enough to talk, he pulled out his phone and called 911, the number we were only supposed to use in emergencies. He said something into the phone, and minutes later red and blue lights illuminated the foul-smelling dumpsters and piercing sirens bounced off of them.
My father carried me away from my mother as uniformed men lifted her up onto a rolling bed. At least now she could take her nap somewhere other than the bloody ground. A man in a different uniform walked up to us and began to ask my father questions about who we were and what had happened. All I could think about was how my mother hadn’t woken up, even when the men had picked her up, and how limp her arm had been as it dragged across the ground. And the white sheet the men had pulled across her face.
We rode in the back of the police car. My mother rode in the back of the ambulance. I don’t know why we couldn’t ride with her, and my father wouldn’t answer any of my questions. All he did was sit, motionless and silent, tears dripping down his face. Daddy? Dad, what’s wrong? Why wouldn’t he answer me. I shook his arm, pulled on his sleeve, prodded his shoulder but he wouldn’t move, couldn’t move. He couldn’t look at me. I couldn’t understand.
They say that the transition to adulthood is gradual, that it’s a series of little changes from child to teen to maturity, but not for me. I grew up right then and there as soon as I realized that it wasn’t a nap my mother was taking, and it wasn’t something she would ever wake up from, no matter how many band aids I put on her, as soon as I realized that my father had lost the only person he had ever truly cared about, the same way I had just lost mine. As soon as I realized that he couldn’t look at me right now, and he might never look at me again.

Wow.... that was sad.... but good. Really good.

Haha thanks! Yeah, the prompt was to write about an adult event from a child's point of view

Well, I'm not sure how I would've reacted at such a young age, but I like the use of a fairy-tale sort of style that you put into it. It's creative, and the title is amusing.