Picture This - Melinda Ponders

March 22, 2008 | Filed Under Fiction, Picture This 

Alecia sat alone in the sand, digging her toes into its coolness. As I observed from the dock, I thought aloud, “I wonder if she is trying to suck cold into her heart.”

John had walked up behind me and heard. “You amaze me with your weirdness, Melinda, what on earth does that mean?”

I didn’t react to his words or his sudden interruption of my attempt to make sense of what I saw, nor did I continue my pondering in silence because he was there. I merely continued thinking aloud as if he had never dared approach me.

“Is she trying to push the burning pain of love misplaced out of her heart by pulling cold in?”

“Give me a break,” John said.

“Or, is she merely a clever young woman, playing on the emotions of the one or two men out there with a genuine heart, who will rush, though with a gentleness of words, to her side to rescue her from her supposed pain?”

“You truly are daft, Melinda.” He shook his head and turned to walk back into the party.

I said my next words loud enough for him to hear as he got halfway up the path, “No, clever she is not if that is her purpose, for the odds are she will draw instead the men who are drawn to the lonely like flies to food, only to fill their physical needs. The ones like you, John.”

I had to warn her, either way.

This was written by MeeAugraphie on 03/22/08 in response to Write Stuff’s Picture This writing exercise. Read the easy rules and bonus reason for participating… not that most of us need a bonus, creating something with words is usually the best reward.

I cannot tell you how much I loved this prompt. I may have to write from it again, or just more of their stories…. Thank you! And by my word processor, it came in exactly at 250 words, it was 246 and I added a thought.. and, holy cow, it was then 250. Scary, sometimes, how the mind works.

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