Fireworks

A TBL Flash Fiction Feature

by Tracy Lynn

The marble is cold and smooth.  My fingers trace the letters of her name.  Tamara Lillian Carver.  An hour prior, I helped carry a four foot long, maple-stained casket to the spot where I now kneel in the dirt.  Her family, her friends are gone.  I remain.  Air and a memory are buried here below a stone that guesses she passed away on the first of August.  It is wrong.  I buried her first beneath a Douglas-fir tree.

The Carver family invited me to their vacation home in the woods of western Michigan for the fourth of July.  The fireworks were rumored to be outstanding there.  Tamara’s excitement alone would have sold me on their brilliance.  At four in the afternoon, I left for a walk.  At six, I returned to a cabin in hysteria.  Tamara was missing.  By nightfall a search was organized.  The fireworks must have been as astonishing as everyone said.  They lit the forest in sporadic, radiant bursts for a full half hour while we continued our fruitless search.  Not even the magnificence of the finale could illuminate Tamara’s body.  The distant applause echoed amidst a somber forest.

In the cemetery, the sun moves behind a tree and flitters between oak leaves above, speckling my face.  I look into the kaleidoscope of white light, a firework on a summer afternoon.  The air is warm as I walk from Tamara’s grave beneath the shade; the weather unbefitting.  It should be raining.

About the Author:

Tracy Lynn was born in 1980.  Her interest in literature began before the age of two at which time she read picture books aloud to her mother who recorded them on old, bright yellow cassette tapes.  Mother Goose stories were her favorite.  Other loves include Strawberry Shortcake and Monkey Baby, her sock monkey that has never left her side.  Her mother and father had four more children after her.  Though she was taken away before they were born, she still keeps an eye on them from afar.  She hopes to meet them someday.  Until then, Tracy will spend her time enjoying all her world has to offer.

About the Bolide Publication:

The dark is illuminated only for an instant, a sudden flash of light, an explosive glimpse that streaks across the night sky. We have to imagine where that light originated, where it will go once it has left our sight, but in those brief moments, we glimpse something amazing. The Bolide, Tethered by Letters’ newest publication, is dedicated to these same flashes into the world of fiction. With stories of length varying between 55, 250, 500, and 750 words or less, we welcome writers to create their own literary shooting stars. Submissions are now open for the January edition of The Bolide. The deadline for this debut edition is the 15th of December. There is absolutely no reading fee or limit to the number of submissions. Remember, however, that you must be at the rank of Author to submit for possible publication, and we do not accept any submissions that are not correctly formatted (see specifications).

Submit now!