I thought she was an angel

This story was written in 2013 in response to Kellie Elmore’s prompt: Time & Place

You’re young. You are standing in front of a shop window watching something on the black and white television inside. A woman grabs your hand and runs down the street, pulling you along…

***

The image on the screen … embedded inside my mind like a dart in a board.

Her grip was like that of a feather gripping the sky; I thought she was an angel. When she looked down on me as we flew along at speeds my little legs were incapable of understanding. I saw in her eyes a smile of something unseen on earth; on the little bit of the earth I had seen in my young life.

We flew so so fast, the dart came loose and the image was gone as it became mixed with the blurring of the streets and cars and the people, the ignorant people. Ignorant because I didn’t cry, because I thought she was an angel, my angel, for me.

She smiled with her mouth too, but that was a different smile. It was her eyes which captivated me, captivated me …

They caught me each time she looked down and when she turned her face away towards the horizon, I ached for those eyes to return to me and when they did, they were beautiful … I thought she was an angel.

I thought she was an angel

…

but I was wrong

…

… and now I am.