Running through a Stepford subdivision
I pass a birthday party for some kid, looks like two or three years old.
Just a few family members out in the yard
with sun and balloons and cake
and party cups with Pixar characters.
The kid's on a shiny red plastic tricycle
but it's one of those special ones with a long handle on the back
so grown ups can keep him safe.
He goes down a mole hill, peddling furiously
while dad secretly steers.
I pass by again twenty minutes later
and the party's over.
The tricycle is still in the yard
but everyone's inside
except mom and dad.
They're in the driveway.
She stares daggers at him
from those tired former-prom-queen eyes
and all I hear him say, exhaustedly, is
"Fine"
as he tosses the cigarette butt from his plump, hairy fingers,
gets into his shiny red Corvette
and roars out of the driveway.
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POP!
12 years ago
3 comments:
Terrific, Phil - the story tells itself, and effortlessly reveals its meaning.
Thanks.
Think it'd be better without the "I"?
Nope - the fact that you're observing from the outside (while running by) makes the time gap understandable and the brief glimpses of action that much more compressed and meaningful. If you were just some hovering depersonalized narrator, the reader would expect the whole story. As it is, you force the reader to fill the gap, while giving them plenty of weapons to work with.
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