Kites and Galleons

Kites and Galleons (200 Words)

It had been a little over a year. Every morning Clare sat at the cliff ledge overlooking the sea. She would sit there with her chin resting on her knees, gazing west, watching the ships on the far horizon. The Rover had been lost months ago, but she refused to believe Evan, Lan, and Kate were dead.

Sometimes they told her to move on. Sometimes they looked at her with pitying faces and would say in low voices to each other that it didn’t matter, that if it comforted her there was no harm in her sitting there every morning. But the more ships that passed with the weeks, the more she wondered what she was waiting for.

Then she saw it. At first she thought she was crazy, that her grief made her insane. But there was no denying it—the sight of a galleon with its banners flying, and kites streaming behind it like wild, strange birds. The kites were colorful, bobbing and swooping in strong wind.

Clare’s heart pounded. Tears jumped in her eyes. Seeing those kites dipping over sea froth, she couldn’t laugh or cry, because she knew without a doubt that her friends were home.

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Written in response to Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner‘s prompt. Check it out!