This flash fiction—the first bit of original fiction I’ve written this year—owes its existence to Jeffrey Cummins, who tagged me in the following prompt:
“When it rains, your main character can look into puddles and see future versions of themselves. Sometimes the future looks magnificent, but other times things are not so rosy.”
I believe this was supposed to be a microfiction that I was supposed to have posted in Notes. I tried to make it a drabble (a story of exactly 100 words), but it wouldn’t be contained.
So I submit it here for your enjoyment. If you DO enjoy it, please let me know with a like, comment, restack or share, which will also give it a boost in the algorithm that will help others find it.
Splish! Splash! He giggles as his tiny boots go splat on the surface of the water, just like Sissy and Mimi showed him. Sissy hops from puddle to puddle, squealing with glee. He stops to watch, blinking rain out of his eyes, his grin not big enough to contain the bubbly, happy feelings in his tummy. He turns his gaze back to the puddle. Stops and stares, mesmerized, not understanding what he sees. Sissy hops into his puddle. The image of a bigger boy who looks like him, staring back at him from a swing, dissolves into ripples.
***
He’s a Big Boy now. On his very first day of pre-school, he won a ribbon for counting all the way to twenty. It’s pinned to his shirt, flapping in the breeze as he swings on the playground, higher and higher. Rain before recess left a puddle under the swing. He holds his feet up so they don’t get wet. But he wants to see how his ribbon looks, so he drags them beside the puddle, slowing until he can lean over and look.
He sees no ribbon. He sees an older boy, blinking through tears as he throws bits of paper into the puddle. He glances around at the other kids, all busy with their own play, not seeing what he sees. He doesn’t feel like swinging anymore. He wants to go home.
***
She didn’t have to be mean about it.
He’d never felt this way about anyone before, especially not a girl. He’d never seen anyone so pretty, and after weeks of pretending otherwise, he had to tell her. It was a simple note: “You’re very pretty. I like you. Do you like me?” He’d made it easy for her to answer, just a simple choice. Yes or no. He even drew check boxes.
His heart fluttered up into his throat when she returned the note. He opened it with shaky fingers. Stared at it, his heart sinking, breaking in a way it had never broken before. A big X had been drawn next to the No. Not only that, the Yes was scratched out, the No was circled, and “EWWW GROSS!” was written across the bottom in large letters.
He felt sick all afternoon. When the final bell rang, he ran outside. Went behind the school building, where nobody could see him cry. A drainage ditch ran behind the building, full of standing water. Angrily, he tore the note to bits and pieces and threw them into the water.
Beneath the bits of paper, as he watched them float away, he saw something else. An older guy. A teenager. It looked like him, and he was holding hands with an older girl who was much prettier than Ashleigh.
A memory floated up, a sense of deja vu. Sitting on a swing, staring at a puddle, seeing an older boy like him throwing paper into the water. He shivered, but then a sense of peace settled over him. He didn’t want such a mean girl, anyway. Better things awaited him.
***
Her kisses tasted like cherry Chapstick and Juicy Fruit gum. She had pulled him under the bleachers, out of the rain and the glare of the football lights. They only had a minute before she had to get back to the cheer line and he had to rejoin the band. He couldn’t believe a cheerleader was into a band nerd like him when she could’ve had her pick of the jocks, but the moment he first saw her, he’d known she was meant for him. Meant for this moment.
They left their hiding place hand in hand, laughing together as the rain drizzled down on them, no deterrent to Friday Night Football. Hands still linked, they moved apart to avoid a puddle. He glanced down and his smile faltered as the shallow pool turned blood red. It was all he could see.
Her hand slipped from his. “Gotta run!” she shouted back, taking off as the cheers of her squad could be heard in the distance. He watched her go, then looked back at the puddle, seeing only the lights reflected on the ripples made by the raindrops.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Forget it,” he told himself, buttoning up his uniform. “You didn’t see anything. It was a trick of the light.” He made his way back to the bleachers, thinking about cherry Chapstick as he went.
***
He hauled the heavy garbage bags out into the alley and set them down as he stood in the doorway, scanning for the dumpster somewhere in the shadows beyond the light above the door. He considered that he could just leave them there and keep walking and never look back. This job sucked. The lead server was supposed to be training him, showing him the ropes. But the dude kept giving him grunt work, treating him like a bus boy. Probably stealing his share of the tips, too.
But it was only his first night. He had to expect some hazing. And he needed this job. His degree was getting him nowhere but the student loans still had to be paid. And the rent. And the bills. And the internet that would let him keep sending out resumes in the hopes of getting the kind of job he’d supposedly spent the last four years getting qualified to do.
And then there was Steph. He couldn’t propose without a ring.
With a grunt, he picked up the bags and went to find the bin. The alley only had one street light, far down at the opening, but he saw a bin-shaped shadow and headed for it. His eyes adjusted as he drew closer and by the time he reached it he could see just fine to heave each bag up and over the rim.
He started to turn back, but movement in the corner of his eye drew his gaze toward the front of the alley. A figure shuffled toward him, shrouded in a dark hoodie. Backlit by the lone street light, shadow obscured his features.
A frisson of fear ran icy fingers up and down his spine, but he squared his shoulders and turned back toward the restaurant. Probably just a homeless dude wanting to dumpster dive. He should get out of the way and leave him to it.
“Hey, man,” the figure called. “Where you goin’?”
Spoken with a challenge that made him stop and turn despite his better judgement. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah, man. Got any change?”
He held up empty hands. “I’m on duty. I just brought the trash out. I don’t have anything on me.”
“You sure about that?”
The figure kept coming. He backed away, moving toward the pool of light around the restaurant door. The dude in the hoodie moved faster. A motion of his hand, a glint of light on metal.
He turned to run. Not fast enough. Something slammed into him from behind, tore into his shoulder, bit deep. He stumbled, lightheaded, lost his balance and fell, forehead bouncing off the pavement. He lay half in and half out of the pool of light. The door stood ajar just inches away. He heard pounding footsteps receding back down the alley, toward the street.
He struggled to get up, but couldn’t move. In the light, he could see liquid pooling around him. Dark and red.
Flashback to cherry Chapstick and a puddle of blood appearing in the rain. Steph laughing as she ran off to join the cheer line. He pictured her crying when they told her the news. He didn’t want to make her cry. Not like this. With a ring, yes. But with his untimely death?
He’d know this was coming for him, just not when or how. Stupid gift if it couldn’t show him enough to save himself.
He heard shouting from inside the restaurant. His name. What the hell was the hold up? A scream. A swear. A call for 911 as the door scraped open.
He tried to lift his head, just to show them he was alive, but it felt so heavy. His gaze went to the puddle of blood that spread beneath him. So much of it. He wondered if it would be the last thing he saw.
But as he pondered it, images formed. Steph in a wheelchair, holding a bundle in her arms as he pushed her from behind, balancing an umbrella over her head.
He closed his eyes and rested his head, tasting blood and the faintest trace of cherry Chapstick as sirens sounded in the distance.
***
He stopped looking in puddles after that night. Decided it was better to be surprised by life, even when it blindsided him. He stayed inside if it rained when he could, and averted his gaze when he couldn’t. And if he did get an accidental glimpse of something, he put it out of his mind.
Life was good. Why invite trouble from the future? Didn’t Jesus say something like that once?
It had rained all that morning, and then Steph took the kids outside to see a rainbow over the neighborhood. She’d wanted him to come, but he declined. Instead, he watched from the safety of the window as they pointed and oohed and ahhed.
But not his littlest. Something else drew her attention. Her gaze was fixed on the rain-slicked street, at a puddle in front of her feet. His chest tightened as he watched her stare, transfixed.
Setting his mug down, he went to go join her. Whatever she saw, she wouldn’t face it alone.
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