Picked up a random poetry book From the crowded shelf. Quick easy hour read: Delight and wonder. Then, Found…
Idaho Writer’s Guild April 2021 Writers Prompt Winner
The young girl, with a white bow in her dark hair, walks out the school door and carefully takes each step down, clutching her brown case in one hand, eyes on the concrete at her dainty feet. I watch from the window inside, marveling at the crazy folks all lined up to shout at this one small girl. How can one young, tiny creature cause so much activity? A girl going to school, seemingly like all of the other kids, save for one distinction: the color of her skin as black as a stallion glistening in the sun.
Cameras flash amidst the shouts all around as the girl steps down from the final step, still not looking up, She follows between the policemen, their tan pants guiding her along on the path to her mother. White men and women with large, white signs, demanding segregation, wave them erratically, shouting as though none of us can hear them with their bellows as loud as a rocket leaving Earth’s atmosphere.
The girl stoically moves forward, mindful of her guides’ leading her to her safe zone: the arms of her mother waiting somewhere unseen. Their heartbeats call to each other from amidst the madding crowd, a lighthouse beam lighting a safe path in the stormy sea. Then, the girl climbs into the open back door of a brown sedan, and, as the officer shuts her in, I see a last glimpse of her white bow before it disappears. And I let out the breath I have been holding since she left my room, relief pouring through me in a wave of security.
The girl is gone, but due back tomorrow and the next, a government solution to ongoing societal attrition. And I start to work on lesson plans for her return.—-Janelle Stear
Wow, very moving and great perspective — as teacher from the window, breath of fear, focused on the bow.
Beautifully written. I could envision the teacher in the window, possibly praying for the little girl.
So happy to see you back writing again, Janelle….This piece is worthy of an award…It held my attention all the way…Kudos for you!
Wonderful use of descriptive language, Janelle. Congratulations!