Ritter was staring out her kitchen window when, in the distance, she saw a body fly into the air.
The sudden movement in her line of sight broke her trance and caused her vision to re-focus on the wooden fences, tool sheds, and tree trunks outside. The body fell—the movement only visible through a slight crevice between trees in her neighbors’ backyards—and then arms were flailing upwards yet again. She sighed, realizing it was a child on a trampoline a few houses up. The Saturday morning sunshine filtered through cider-tinged leaves and twining branches, peppering her face with bursts of brightness.
“Oh to be a child again, and experience the existential bliss of bouncing into the air,” mused her left earring.
Her right earring scoffed. “Yeah, right! Do you know how many kids break their arms on trampolines each year?”
Both earrings dangled in quite the same manner, each a silver wire-wrapped spider clutching a gem, her left earring encasing a light blue opalite crystal, her right, a black obsidian rock; however, their commentary almost always contradicted the other, which was even more confusing because independently, Ritter often agreed with them both.
Continue reading “The Spider Earrings: A Short Story”
Slanted Spines 