Skating With Zoe

Honorable Mention -- 1/26/2010

ID: 896794   (Rated: 13+) Daily Flash Fiction Challenge  Enter your story of 300 words or less. Note new starting time! by arakun the twisted raccoon

SKATING WITH ZOE


         “Daddy I don’t want to go home yet! Five more minutes?”

         “You said five more minutes twenty minutes ago. It’s time to go home, Honey.”

         Zoë pleaded, “Just one more time around. Please?”

         Then she was skating away from him. She came back, breathless and rosy, her eyes shining. Eliot said “Now I mean it. Let’s get our shoes changed. I promised your mother to bring you back before dark.”

         “Why does everything have to be over before I have enough?” she wondered.

         “Maybe because when it comes to skating there’s no such thing as enough for you.”

         Eliot felt as though he were freezing. His icy fingers fumbled with his shoelaces. In the car at last with Zoë firmly buckled in they headed home.

         “I hope Mommy has hot cocoa ready for us.”

         Waiting for the heater to start working Eliot was thinking of a warm blanket for his numb feet. He remembered when he was the kid who never wanted to leave the lake and never felt tired or cold. His father watched him and his brothers having fun and called a halt to it all too soon. Was he tired and cold waiting for us to stop arguing and get in the car? Those were good times! When did I get too old to enjoy being out in the cold gliding on the ice? As he turned the wheel and eased the car onto the road, Eliot thought, Why does everything have to be over before I have enough?



254 words