Flash Friday Fiction: Someone To Watch Over Me

Hope Street, Liverpool, with Window and Sculpture
Liverpool — Hope Street. CC photo by Harshil Shah. Sculpture “A Case History” by John King.

Someone to Watch Over Me – 204 words

“No, it isn’t!”

“Yes, it is.”

“Nu-uh!”

“The moon is too made of cheese. How else do you think the astronauts survived up there?”

We’d dissolved into giggles. Sarah had poked me, I’d tackled her, and we’d tussled until mom yelled at us to stop.

I miss that. I miss her.

Nobody will tell me where she’s gone.

“Good riddance,” my step-dad said once, when he thought I wasn’t listening. Mom had pain in her eyes, when she thought I wasn’t looking.

“See that face?”

“What face?”

“The one right there, can you see it? The Man in the Moon?”

I’d squinted, contorting my face, trying to see what she saw. “I see it! I see him!”

She’d ruffled my hair. “Wanna know a secret?”

A secret? From my sister? “Yes!”

“It’s not a man.”

Oh. “Then what is it?”

“It’s me. Watching you, Em. You can’t hide anything from me.” She’d curled her hands into claws and attempted a monster face. It didn’t work. I’d just laughed.

At night, when he comes into my room, I don’t laugh. I don’t even close my eyes anymore. I look out the window, at the moon. She knows. She’s watching over me.

Someday I’ll join her.

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And boom, there’s my 200 (+/-) word effort, using “moon” as a setting, and the photo prompt from which to launch my story. What do you think?

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