Fourth of July

Honorable Mention--April 29,2011

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

         Earl didn’t want to go to the park to see the fireworks that night, and to be honest, neither did I.  After all we could watch the display from the deck of our own swimming pool. 

         Droverton has changed a lot in the forty years we’ve lived here.  Many of the old friends were gone now, died or moved away.  The new crowd is younger.  The fireworks were a tradition going back to before WWII.  It was a big night of the year with a picnic while we waited for dark and then the show that filled the sky with colors and noise. 

         Over the years the display had become bigger, and more people, and more drama.  Maybe we were getting too old for all this, and that was why it would take a shove to get us to go.  In any case watching the show from home was more comfortable sitting in our own lounge chairs with a snack and a cold drink, just the two of us. 

         And another thing, it would probably rain later.  I remember my grandmother saying it always rains after the Fourth because all the fireworks shook up the clouds.  In any case there were thunderheads on the horizon.  It was better to be at home and watch from here.

         I was remembering the times we went to fireworks, spreading our blanket on the grass, keeping track of the children running around with their sparklers.  The children were grown up now. The world has changed, and it no longer seems to be our world at all. 

         A rocket goes up and blossoms into a great flower of light and color that lingers a moment and then drifts downward, turned to trails of smoke.  We clasp hands and sit here remembering.