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Disclaimer: Jarod isn’t mine, and neither are any small neighborhoods including tract homes… yet.
Strength
By Serendipitous Cake
At night, the suburbs of large cities become silent and still. Darkness encompasses quiet neighborhoods of tract homes, broken only by splotchy circles of light from tall steel posts. Crickets play their sweet and mournful songs to an audience of trees and night-blooming flowers, unaware of sleeping children.
One bus continues on its lonely route, stopping to pick up dark figures on solitary corners. Its doors make a soft "whoosh", allowing harsh, white light to spill onto the dirty pavement as they open. Seconds later, they swish shut, enclosing new passengers in cool, refrigerated air and a bright electronic glow. The bus moves on.
"They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" Jarod said quietly.
"Yes," the bus driver replied, somehow unsurprised that his singular passenger had broken the silence.
No reply.
"I couldn’t save them," Jarod added, some moments later.
"Save who?"
"Men, women," he listed slowly, softly. "Children."
The bus driver was silent.
"I tried," Jarod continued sorrowfully, "but I couldn’t save them."
"Maybe it was their time to go," the bus driver offered gently, without question or query of Jarod’s background.
Jarod didn’t answer.
They rode quietly, passing block after block of darkened houses.
Jarod never looked out the window.
"They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" he repeated.
Fin.
AN: "They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" is from "The Neverending Story." It inspired this story. Originally, a large text-picture of a hand accompanied the dialogue, but would not allow me to post it (they may have caught on to my manipulation of their format). If you would like to see this story as it was intended, it is at my new, unfinished website: Thank you for reading.
Strength
By Serendipitous Cake
At night, the suburbs of large cities become silent and still. Darkness encompasses quiet neighborhoods of tract homes, broken only by splotchy circles of light from tall steel posts. Crickets play their sweet and mournful songs to an audience of trees and night-blooming flowers, unaware of sleeping children.
One bus continues on its lonely route, stopping to pick up dark figures on solitary corners. Its doors make a soft "whoosh", allowing harsh, white light to spill onto the dirty pavement as they open. Seconds later, they swish shut, enclosing new passengers in cool, refrigerated air and a bright electronic glow. The bus moves on.
"They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" Jarod said quietly.
"Yes," the bus driver replied, somehow unsurprised that his singular passenger had broken the silence.
No reply.
"I couldn’t save them," Jarod added, some moments later.
"Save who?"
"Men, women," he listed slowly, softly. "Children."
The bus driver was silent.
"I tried," Jarod continued sorrowfully, "but I couldn’t save them."
"Maybe it was their time to go," the bus driver offered gently, without question or query of Jarod’s background.
Jarod didn’t answer.
They rode quietly, passing block after block of darkened houses.
Jarod never looked out the window.
"They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" he repeated.
Fin.
AN: "They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?" is from "The Neverending Story." It inspired this story. Originally, a large text-picture of a hand accompanied the dialogue, but would not allow me to post it (they may have caught on to my manipulation of their format). If you would like to see this story as it was intended, it is at my new, unfinished website: Thank you for reading.
