That Night
31 Jan 2022Today’s prompt: “What happened that night”
That night an earthquake shook the cut-glass chandelier in Veronica Myers’ house until pieces rained down, tinkling like cold little stars onto the dining room table.
That night José Flores and Jazmín Villareal made love for the first time. It was breath and sweat and arching backs and Jazmín tracing a finger down his chest and José cupping her breasts in his amazed hands and Jazmín biting her forearm to keep from screaming and José’s thighs shuddering and more and more and more than they ever thought it would be. As they went to sleep, cradling each other, unwilling to stop touching each other, from the window a breeze cooled their skin and bore the faint smell of jasmine flowers.
That night Kiara Ellison took three of her son Michael’s crayon drawings off the fridge to make room for his latest masterpieces, and lovingly tucked them away into a box.
That night in the alley between 24th and 25th streets, a loud catfight broke out that lasted nearly half an hour.
That night as you jammed your foot down on the brake that had been working perfectly fine this morning, seconds before the hood of your car crumpled against the produce truck, a thousand frightened thoughts hit your brain like electrical shorts, most of them iterations on, “Did someone cut the brake line?” and “Who would want me dead?” and “Why?”