MICRO-FICTION
Panic In A Crowd
cloudy skies in rush hour
A mother held her child’s hand through a crowd in rush hour, drenched, not by rain but the crowd that smothered them.
Yes, it was raining. But it was a pleasant drizzle, like walking past a garden while the sprinkler was at work. The sky was not all that cloudy either, enough to block the sun’s heat yet leave plenty of daylight. But every hundredth atomised drop on a person became a trickle. Every tenth trickle became a stream. Every other stream smeared onto the next person carrying their share.
Nature shared a happy sprinkle; the crowd felt downpour. Everyone drenched each other.
An eagle-eye view of the crowd resembled wet cement floating along an open gutter. City veterans being the grey of the float and newbies the occasional coloured chunks. Churned and churned to avoid stagnation.
Two of these coloured chunks — the mother and child — were heading to their new home. At that point, they were much too lost to answer from where. Though, one glance at them painted a vivid picture of their day.
A red ribbon held a cheap bronze plated medal dangled, around the child’s neck. A big patch of band-aid and dressing on the child’s scraped knee. A rolled-up certificate between the mother’s hip and arm as she juggled to carry her child’s backpack. A scrunched up paper bag that rattled of tablets and pills with each step.
So far, their first day in the city was not the best. While nothing seemed to be going their way, nothing yet had amounted to a disastrous day.
The mother held her child’s hand tighter than comfortable. The child felt as if they were powering through the crowd like a drill through walls. The scraped kneed stung as the child struggled to keep pace with her long “adult” strides. Droplets of rain carried down from the mother’s hand, passed like a zip-line along the elbow to the child’s arms. It felt uncomfortable, wet and tickled.
The child chose not to whine and add to problems; the mother already worried too much.
Through the pouring drizzle, they waded into the crowd. In a split second wet grip slipped away from the child. Tiny fingers slick from the rain reached out to nothing, the space where mother now; swallowed. The dark crowd covered the view of a calming cloudy sky; trickles and streams tumbled heavier onto the lonely child. Mother was nowhere. Waiting for her to come back was akin to standing still in front of a dam’s floodgates. The crowd would not allow stagnation and steered the child downstream.
Tears welled up. The child wondered when mother would appear. Why when people were everywhere, mother was not. Why was there no light or way out.
Amidst the crowd crept loneliness; emptiness filled the child’s palm, Panic set in.
This is my first attempt at microfiction and is written with a perspective siding with the child.
Tagging fellow writers whose work and latest interactions inspired this attempt— Zane Dickens, Paul Mansfield, J.D. Harms.
Thank you! Scrittura Editors and Readers for the platform.
