Lit eZine Vol 1 | p-11 | FICTION | Being Me

FLASH FICTION

BEING ME
by Scott

An orange sun dipped below the horizon as Aliana gathered her skirt and sat beside me on one of many benches placed near the water’s edge.

“So many souls, so many memories,” she said after placing her handbag beside her then taking my hand. “How many generations has it been now?”

“Somewhere between twenty and thirty, I’m not sure. Would have to look it up.”

“That’s okay, let’s not break the mood.”

This planet was neither the first our people had settled nor was it the most recent. As had been learned in the course of settling those worlds each would naturally develop its own culture, own customs, own lore. Tonight was the Night of Remembrances, a time to honor those who had come before us and had now departed. And a time to remember their contributions to getting we the living to this point in time.

Before joining me Aliana had placed two lantern floats in the water, one for each of her parents. Her parents had their children late and were about a decade and a half older than mine. Her mother had passed the year before and her father this year.

And speaking of years, at this time of year the trade winds changed and transformed this side of the island from the windward side to the leeward side. With the winds coming at a bit of an angle to the long axis of the island they were not blocked by the hills and forest behind us and now gradually carried the lantern floats out to sea as a symbol of the prior generations who had now left us and gone on their eternal adventure to a land we can not see with our material eyes.

I lightly squeezed Aliana’s hand. “It is a change without them.”

She was quiet a moment before responding, “Truth. They gave me enough to still be me without them. I hope I do that job well.”

Having spent his childhood moving all over the country, Scott is now settled in his spot under the sky with his two beautiful cats. A master craftsman, he loves to make miniature trains and has a collection of those, plus model boats, rockets, and aeroplanes. There is also a collection of different styles of kites. He enjoys writing both prose and poetry and is writing a novel that is likely to be a thousand-page book about a beautiful world away from our own.

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