Saturday, February 22, 2014

Saturday


Her face was a question unvoiced, an eyebrow cocked as she passed the black-and-white image to her mother.

"Oh. He was a friend."

"Was?"

Silence pressed for an answer that reason wouldn't offer. The photo fluttered between clenched fingers as an answer formed.

"He died in an accident later the same later the same night—morning, really.”

“You remember this night? Ah—I probably wouldn’t forget a friend with such crazy hair.”

“He was a friend, and he died that night. That was the last picture of him, taken by my boyfriend on a Saturday evening at a favorite hangout.”

She took the photo back from her mother, on whose face some unnamed emotion lingered.

Only a knot between her greying brows hinted at more than neutral disinterest. The older woman adjusted her reading glasses, her face resuming placidity as she fingered through the shoebox of photos.

A cellphone chimed, causing her daughter to leap up to take the call in another room. Faint laughter suggested the younger woman was adequately preoccupied, allowing a hand graced with age spots to pull that one photo out of the box.

Those cheekbones, those lips—so like her daughter’s. How could she ever forget him?
__________
Copyright © 2014 Femme Malheureuse 
Words: 199
Originally submitted to Flash Fiction - Madi Merek dd. 22-FEB-2014
Word Prompt: Saturday | Photo prompt: origin unknown

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