My Colored Tent

The next few posts are the short stories and the drama I wrote for Creative Writing this semester.  You are welcome to comment about what you think of them.  In fact, I would kind of like to know.

---------------

      I dove into the waiting shadows of the bottom bunk, hastily hiding my treasures among the blankets.  The sheets smelled like bleach.  Funny how I never noticed until I was nearly smothered by them.

      The door was only open the slightest crack, barely enough to make out Mom’s shadow if she came down the hallway to check on us, yet my eyes still locked on the slender beam of light.  I waited, praying that my movement had not wakened the occupant of the bed above me.

      When no shadows were forthcoming and the only sound remained the heavy breathing of my sister, I carefully drew forth my treasures.

      The click of the flashlight seemed abnormally loud in the quiet room.  I hastily smothered the blinding light against my white pillowcase.  Black spots danced across my vision as my confused eyes tried to adjust.

      Only after I had ducked my head underneath the clean sheets did I dare pull forth the light once more.  My second treasure, a half-finished book, was soon braced against my lifted knees.  The cover of the book may have faded; however, my interest in it had not.  The rainbow bookmark, reluctantly placed in the middle of a chapter, reflected in the flashlight’s glow, sending sparkles of color to the otherwise bleak edges of my makeshift tent.

      My niece giggled when I told her about hiding under the sheets.  It was good to see a smile on her face again, even if it did stand in stark contrast with her bald head.

      “Will you bring me some books, Aunt Becky?”

      “Sure, sweetheart.  What do you want?”

      “Oh, anything.”

      Our conversation paused as an austere nurse stepped in to check one of the many indecipherable machines scattered around the sterilized room.  The whole area smelled of bleach and disinfectant.  Everything from the walls to the water glass was white.  Everything save for the bright pink flowers on my niece’s shirt.

      “Aunt Becky?”

      “Hm?”

      “I also want a coloring book.”

      Mom and Dad moved the bunk bed.  I noticed it when I returned to collect some odds and ends shortly after moving out.  “No sense keeping it up with both of you girls gone,” Mom said.

      I found the book in a dusty box shoved into the far corner of the basement.  It was falling apart, the binding releasing the worn pages one by one.  The cover, sun-bleached then, was now barely readable.  The rainbow bookmark no longer sparkled in the light.  I slowly ran my fingers along the edge of the musty pages.

      “Not much left, is there?” Dad commented as he came up behind me.

      My niece’s smile lit up the room as she tore into the brightly colored package.  Carefully, she turned her new treasure over in her hands.  The pages of the book were still falling out despite the efforts of the tape stretched along the binding, and the edge of a rainbow bookmark poked out of the top.  Her fingers paused on the cover as she tried to make out its title.

      I smiled.  “This one was my favorite when I was your age.”