Snow Globe
Flash Fiction | 1-2 Minute Read
This story was written in response to February’s prompt in Fictionistas. If you are interested in the prompt, you can find it here. If you would like to read more stories based on this prompt, check out the comments in this thread post.
This story is a 1-2 minute read.
Snow Globe
Outside my window snow falls in magical, slow swirls giving the illusion that I live inside a snow globe. I do not live inside a snow globe. I do, however, live in an illusion.
The fireplace in front of me doesn’t crackle or smell. It just blows heat out of the slats above the projection of a flame. I am warm to the touch, but the glow doesn’t find my heart. I am icy with worry as my love is traveling home on another flight from afar amidst inclement weather. I sit here in our living room feeling like Rapunzel trapped in her tower waiting for her prince to come, though I am waiting in a tower built of doubts.
After living through both the comedies and tragedies this life has thrown my way, I know better than most that this trip is just a toss of the die – there’s nothing but chance between a safe landing or a tumultuous decline of that plane. No amount of pilot preparation or air traffic training can save my love, if today is his day. And so I wonder, while knowing all of this, if I shall be saved from mourning, or will my heart break open just the same.
My phone rings.
This is it.
It is either him or an authority.
I take a breath, not looking at caller ID, giving myself one more precious moment where both outcomes are equally true.
I clear my throat, pick up the phone and end an illusion as I say, “Hello?”
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Have you experienced any snow globe like snow this year? The week before I drafted this story I had a moment when looking out my own window gave this exact sensation. I absolutely loved it.
…the hour+ of shoveling the snow around my house that followed that night was not quite as magical.
The inspiration
Check out the prompt that inspired this story over on the Fictionistas Substack page. That a great community to join if you are also a fiction writer here on Substack.
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Schrödinger's snow globe or, more accurately but less alliteratively, Schrödinger's aeroplane