Commence Flash Fiction:
The best part of my day? That’s easy: those few blissful seconds right after I wake up, when I just feel my head against the pillow and the warmth of the blanket, before it all comes crashing back down on me and I remember where I am. That’s when the worst part of the day begins.
There are guys in here who talk about their dreams. Not like what they want to do with their lives or what they’d do with a million dollars; I mean their actual dreams, where they can fly and talk to animals and shit, but I never remember mine. I haven’t remembered a dream for … well, long enough that I can’t remember what the last one was, and I have a pretty good memory. Like, when I was a kid, there were these smokestacks that I could see from the motorway when we were getting close to home. They were tall, with four rings of red lights around them every five meters or so. The top ring of lights blinked slowly, and on nights when the weather was bad, I could still see the red glow reflecting off the clouds, even if I couldn’t make out the smokestacks in the dark. I would tell my mum, “I can see the smokestacks, mummy!” And she would reply, “That means we’re almost home, darling.”
On cloudy nights, I lie back on my bed, look out through the bars, and imagine that I can see a soft red glow slowly blinking against the orange reflection of the lights, telling me that I’m almost home.
Notes: I recently drove up a freeway that I used to take all the time when I was a kid, but haven't taken for at least a decade. On my drive, I saw these smokestacks that I remembered seeing when I was a little boy. Like the protagonist of this little tale, I liked seeing them, because I knew that meant I was almost home.
That memory stayed with me, and refused to release me until I did something with it. This afternoon, this little story sprung into my head pretty much as you see it here; I just did my best to write it down before it got away from me.
