FLASH FICTION

YOU SEE A SHOOTING STAR

            It is dark outside. Night has come early today. Clouds all day and the daylight seems to gone too soon. You are walking down to the corner store to buy a gallon of milk. You wish you could run away, right now, run far away. Who needs all those kids and that nagging wife! But you are a good man, a responsible man. You’d never do that. And so here you are: walking in the middle of the street because there is more light here, the tall trees obscuring the sidewalks. A car might run you over but who cares…here you are: walking to the corner store to buy a gallon of milk because your wife had no time to do that all day. You work and work and then you come home and you have to work some more.

            Suddenly you look up and the shooting star catches you unaware. Make a wish you say to yourself out loud. Make a wish and it will come true. And then you say: who told you that? Such bullshit! But you make a wish anyway. Very quietly. Very much to yourself lest a neighbor hear you and report you to your wife.

            The shooting star has shot by already. The dark envelops you once more. The light of the store on the corner is your beacon. You walk like a zombie. Milk, a gallon of milk, you repeat to yourself like a mantra when you see the car. The lights blind you. Where is this guy going the wrong way you ask yourself and the next instant your wish comes true.