Flash Fiction #13

The past couple of days have been a mix of a break and focusing more on my WIPs. Sorry about that. I started from scratch on one of my novels, and I realized just how long of a path it will take to reach the end this time around. How I never had this thought about writing this novel before befuddles me...

This flash fiction story came to be after I took a walk at a park yesterday. I was watching a family of three, and this idea came into my head which I then quickly went off on my own tangent...

~~~

Just as we came into the park, my only daughter, aged 4 years old, had run off from the path to enjoy the cool breeze under the clear skies and sun. My wife went after her as she called, "Lily, don't go too far! Wait up!"

Lily stopped at the spot she was on the grass, turned around, and grinned. "Catch me!" Then she continued running as my wife continued lagging behind. 

I laughed as I took out my DSLR camera from my bag, and began to adjust the settings on it after I sat down. "Sandra, you're such a slowpoke. Lily can be a runner at this rate, if everyone is like you."

She rolled her eyes at me, and muttered, "This is coming from the man that got last place in the track meet during high school for all of the sprinting events." Then she sat down beside me, watching Lily from a distance as she bent down to look at some flowers beside a tree. After a while, Sandra said, "She's so adorable right now. It's days like these that makes up the downs in our lives."

I nodded, almost finished with fine tuning the settings on my camera. "I agree. Lily is going to grow up to be a beautiful woman someday, just like her mother. She has so many of your features."

"Oh, what do you want this time?" Sandra raised her eyebrows, suspicious of the compliment.

"What do you mean?" I replied, surprised by her hostility. "It's the truth! I'm not asking for anything!"

"Right..." She nodded her head with doubt, then pulled her legs closed to her body as she looked at the grass. "With her charming looks, she has inherited a trait from you though."

Her comment piqued my curiosity, and I asked, "And what could that be?"

She chuckled. "Your endless ways of teasing me. Even when I am on the upper hand, you always find a way to turn it around."

"That's not always the case as I can count the number of times I was at the other end." I laughed. "But you still chose me to be the person you want to be with now."

Sandra turned her head to face me. "That's because when you are not being a prick, you're thoughtful, caring, understanding, and so many other traits that attracted me to you."

My cheeks started to turn red as I started to become embarrassed at her compliments. "Is today compliment day or something?"

"But it's how I feel about you." She replied, "although I am grateful you have toned it down when Lily was born, but I can't disagree that I did miss those moments in the past."

I suggested, "Want to have a match right now?"

She shook her head, rolling her eyes. "What a way to ruin the mood, Tim."

"Just kidding!" I quickly said, chuckling. Then I put my eye through the viewfinder on the camera to zoom in on Lily in the distance. I manually focused on her and the butterfly, while trying to blur the background.

"I wonder what other traits that Lily inherited from both you and me." She looked at her chasing a butterfly.

I had taken the picture with the camera, and said, putting in my lap, "That's something worth seeing in the future as she is growing up, right?"

"I hope you don't teach her anymore bad traits, otherwise it's going to be hectic around you two." She said in a sarcastic tone, then nodded. "But I agree it is worth protecting her to see the future."

Then she glanced at me as if sending me a cue, but I knew what she was going to say next. Therefore, I took a deep breath to prepare for it but Lily had run away from our view. I stood up, patted off the sand from my pants, looked down, and stretched out my hand at her, smiling. "Let's go catch up with her, Sandra."

She looked up at me, beaming and took my hand while saying, "Together with you."