Elsewhere

Elsewhere

Sadie crept past the man passed out on the floor next to her mother. She couldn’t remember his name, but he was just like all the others with his leering eyes and his overly familiar hands. Quiet as a mouse, Sadie opened the apartment door and slipped into the hallway, gently pulling the door closed behind her. And then she ran.

Down the hallway to the stairwell. Down the stairwell to the alleyway. Down the alleyway to the park. And through the park into the old part of the city.

For a while, Sadie wandered through the streets, basking in the sunshine and her freedom. She tried not to think about going home. About the state her mother would be in, or the wandering hands of her mother’s latest companion. She tried not to think about the way the apartment stank of stale cigarettes and old sex. A prison filled with desperation and apathy.

Sadie stopped. Immersed in her anxieties, she hadn’t paid attention to where her feet were taking her, but she found herself standing in the middle of a courtyard. The sky overhead shimmered like the surface of a lake and Sadie felt waves of peace lap at her, cleaning away all her worries. She stared up at the sky and wondered.

Around her, dusk began to creep, casting strange shadows across the courtyard. Sadie knew it was time to make a choice. And so, with tentative hands, Sadie reached up into the shimmering sky and poked her hands through the clouds.

And then she jumped.

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This is my submission for Flash! Friday #32. The challenge was to write 225-275 words based on the photo prompt (which appears above).

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Image Credit:  Urban sky. Photo courtesy of David Mark, Pixabay