At the Prater

We met at the old Prater Ferris wheel on a chilly September afternoon. The aroma of Vienna sausage and the fairground music drifting on the wind were tinged with melancholy. We watched families and young couples fill the wooden cabins before wandering off to a café, where he ordered us both a hot chocolate with whipped cream. He took a sip and, as he looked up with a sad smile, I noticed a dot of cream on his nose. I took my old camera out of my pocket and took a photograph, then passed him a handkerchief.

I’d known it was bad news when he asked me to meet him at a place full of memories. One day, I’ll think of him and I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there, and the moss that has since grown on his grave.

Kim M. Russell, 12th August 2024

Image by Marie Rouilly on Unsplash

It’s Monday and I’m hosting Prosery at the dVerse Poets Pub, where we are writing Prosery, the very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, middle and end. It can be in any genre, but it does have a limit of 144 words and must include a complete line or two from a poem I have chosen.

I have taken the two lines from a poem by Leonard Cohen, called ‘Take this Waltz’, which he put to music. One of the things I liked about this poem is that it was ‘after Lorca’, which sent me on a search for the poem that inspired Cohen, ‘Little Viennese Waltz’.  The lines I chose are:

“And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.”

36 thoughts on “At the Prater”

  2. I’m not sure if it is a blessing or a curse that these beautiful moments are captured by us in such detail and am not sure there is an answer. Good imagery and feelings evoked here, Kim.

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  5. Certainly the scrapbook and the moss create the mood of time passing. I love the way you give detail to that moment in time. This really builds up the loss and the impact. Am rather new to flash fiction but was intrigued by your prompt and the links between Cohen and Lorca.

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  6. Even though sad, it is life, and you have, like others have said, led up to that last sentence well. I enjoyed reading it; it was very thoughtfully written.

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  7. This is a fabulous challenge, Kim, and I thank you for issuing it. Love Cohen and didn’t know Lorca. An homage on Cohen’s part to include so much of Lorca’s poem.

    Now, onto your beautiful prose full of melancholy and a sense of loss felt deeply.

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  12. Pingback: Scrapbook | A Dalectable Life

  15. For me the strength of this piece is in what is not said explicitly, and that would be true of the photograph too – fixing a moment which only has context in retrospect – great prompt Kim…

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