vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
tearful 🥹

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Barb Woods fought back tears as she gathered up Elaine's hairbrush and toothbrush to give to the FBI agent. Only yesterday Barb had thought this man was working for NASA, getting Elaine ready for their special youth program.

And now he's our best hope for answers. Barb swallowed against the lump in her throat. Even if it's just closure.

At least right now she could hold out on a crumb of hope that none of the corpses recovered from the wreckage of the bus was Elaine's, that she had somehow gotten out in the confusion. Michael had said something about Agent Horn handing Elaine off to another man who'd carried her away. However, it didn't change the fact that Elaine hadn't shown up for headcount afterward -- and every bus evacuation drill emphasized the importance of remaining with your group for headcount afterward.

Much as Barb wanted to hope, she couldn't keep her mind from composing the e-mails she dreaded to send. Especially the one to big sister Kate, letting her know that the niece she'd fought so hard to save was now dead, murdered by America's version of the Purificationists.

[marycatelli]

A sad turn

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Fortunately it's just a lack of information -- even as they're speaking, Spartan is taking Elaine to California for training for her psi.

The DNA tests on the remains in the bus will all turn up negative -- they're all terrorists. And in a few days Barb will get a note reassuring her that Elaine is safe, and giving an address to which she can send further messages. It's a dead drop, some distance from Silicon Valley, and arrangements are made to forward things.

But until that information comes through, it's heart-wrenching for a mother who went through so much already.

[marycatelli]

Oh yes

[marycatelli]

Torrin might give him grief for taking longer to get back, but if he arrived tearful, he would never live it down.
He stood in the sunshine for a time. The faintest of breezes made the flowers nod, and butterflies gleamed like jewels and flitted from one flower to another.

[marycatelli]

"You hit him!" said Walkelin. "I knew those spectacles would do the job!"
Gavin ran toward the man, flying but half-falling toward the earth. "Hurry! Let this end in tears for that child-stealing knave!" His shout made a pine shed its snow on him. He shook it off, and ran.