Summer Visit to Grandma’s

TBP

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“Lucinda watched as a fly made its way to the top of the large picture window. Once at the top, it descended, flying, hitting the glass a million times a second, bashing its small body against the unforgiving barrier between it and freedom.” She named him Magellan.

When the fly reached the bottom of the glass he would make his way back to the top, move over a bit and do it all again. She determined that he must be following a grid pattern, looking for a way back outdoors. Lucinda waited for him to reach Grandma’s collection of Hummel figurines that she kept on the window sill. Poor Magellan would have to detour around them.

She watched Magellan search, and listened to her grandma in the kitchen preparing another lunch of chicken and dumplings. Grandma boiled the chicken for hours in a stock pot with spices that turned the chicken green. When she pulled the chicken apart she boiled the dumplings in the same pot, in the same water. The dumplings turned green as well. Lucinda, concerned about the green food, always waited for someone else to take a bite first. If they survived, then Lucinda would eat too, and hope for the best.

Magellan made his way back to the top of the glass and Lucinda returned her attention to the tenacious fly. He was tiring. She picked up one of Grandma’s throw pillows and held it to her face, waiting to see what would happen to Magellan. The pillow smelled like Grandma. Finally Magellan hit the glass one last time and fell to the window sill where his body rolled beneath one of the Hummels. She realized that Magellan had had a different goal in mind all along. He had achieved it. “Beneath the statue, at last.”

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Welcome back Ms. Rose. This is 300 words.