Marcy's vision

Here's my first story for 2012. I don't know if I'll do a story a week this year, but I'll post something each week, probably most often a bit of flash, but sometimes maybe a rant or a guest post or a taste of something longer.

Marcy's Vision
By Laura McHale Holland

The new day was melting snow seeping through the foundation. It was a draft coming from the empty fireplace. It was a microwave frying Marcy’s brain. She knew this and wanted to glide backward to when the house was solid, the hearth full of flames, the home full of laughter. Tired of being dragged forward year to year, she finally refused to go.

Like Clifford the red dog and Jack’s beanstalk, Marcy’s vision grew and grew and grew and grew, and then she lassoed her entire town—neighbors, pets, lawns and shrubbery, houses, businesses, trinkets, keepsakes, everything and everyone—and hauled the entirety back in time to when nobody carried a cell phone, when Big Brother didn’t take a seat in every living room, when children weren’t ferried from one lesson to another to another.

A crater whispers where the town once was. Folks from other towns sometimes stop by to listen to an absence they think has always been there.