© Eric Wicklund
“Do you see, Sky? I wasn’t kidding. They’re really there.”
It had taken nine-year-old Gray almost half an hour to convince his twelve-year-old sister to follow him into the woods behind their campground. He knew she wouldn’t believe him unless she saw them for herself. Mom and Dad were busy setting up for the concert so it was easy to get away.
Sky’s face was right next to the hole in the tree, only the tree didn’t have a hole on the other side.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered to herself.
“Believe it, Sky. They’re elves or fairies or something.”
“We have to be looking into some other world, Gray. But how is this possible?”
Through the green lens set in the tree’s natural depression she could see what Gray had already witnessed, tiny people with wings dancing and fluttering together as if in celebration.
Suddenly, they both heard a buzzing getting louder and a miniature face of gold with an impish smile appeared. “Excuse me, but this is a private party. Go back to your own summer solstice celebration.”
With that, a door slammed and the hole to the other world was denied the children.
Written for the Sunday Photo Fiction – June 25th 2017 photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as an inspiration for a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 197.
When I first saw the image, the green looked like glass instead of the leaves of trees, so I pretended it was a portal to another world (my favorite theme lately). Gray and Sky are part of a group of families who travel to a remote wooded location every year and have a concert to celebrate the coming of summer.
It seems the little people on the other side of the hole do something similar.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
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I really enjoyed this! Nice interpretation of the image. It really does look like something you could see fairies through.
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My thought exactly, Joy.
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Oh, that’s great! At least the faeries only closed the door. The reaction could’ve been worse. The way you wrote this it seems so believable. A very enjoyable read!
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Thanks. Who’s to say it didn’t happen?
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OH! I liked this. Made me giggle and smile. See? Sometimes fairies don’t need to be mean old fusspots! I imagine fairy portals everywhere-Thank you for writing this one.
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You’re welcome, Kris. It isn’t as if fairies are mean little creatures, but this was an invitation-only event. Anyway, Gray and Sky would probably have been too big to fit through the portal anyway.
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At least they’d be too large at that moment!
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Yes, some sort of magic might change all that…if they had an invitation.
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Nice!
DJ
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Thanks, DJ.
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Haha! Good one, especially the moment of being denied. A peek was all they got…
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Hey. It’s a private party. No invitation, no entrance. 😉
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Interesting take, James.
But I wonder why you felt the explanation was necessary?
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I always feel like an explanation is necessary. Probably part of my insecurities. 😉
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Very interesting take, James. Do read mine at https://neelwritesblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/neelwritesinhidingspffiction200words26062017/
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Thanks. I just did and I commented.
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Ha, ha, a private fairy party. I guess they were told. I love the part about the door slamming shut. 😀 — Suzanne
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Can’t have riff raff humans crashing the party, Suzanne.
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Cute story. I love it. I do like that the fairies spoke to them though even iif it was to tell them to get lost.
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At least they’ll have a tale to tell, not that anyone will believe them, of course.
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