Christmas Comet

When the comet hit, the town lit up like a Christmas tree. In the darkest hours of morning, there was no one there to see – just a lonely street sweeper, his eyes like slits, too tired to blink. The whole town was asleep, dreaming of better times, of snowflakes and presents under a tree. But there were no decorations, they no longer had glass in their windows, it had all been destroyed along with chimneys and the surrounding forests.

The first to open her eyes was a little one-legged girl. Her other leg had been amputated. All she wanted for Christmas was a new crutch so she could keep up with her friends. Opening her eyes in the one room she shared with the rest of the family, she cried scalding tears of joy and surprise at the decorated tree, with a star on the very top, pulsing and sparkling as if it were dancing.

‘Wake up!’ she cried. ‘He’s been!’

Kim M. Russell, 2016

When the comet hit, the town lit up like a Christmas tree.  Image: Tim Mossholder via UnSplash

My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Finish Off Fridays # 4 : Holiday-themed

For the final Finish off Fridays (FoF) of the year, Lorraine’s frilly freudian slip has given us the choice of three seasonal pictures with opening sentences, to which we write an additional 100 to 150 words to complete the story – and we must remember to include the picture and the opening sentence in our posts, and tag them Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Finish off Fridays, flash fiction.

Happy Christmas everyone!