The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The String Between the Light and Dark Blue Beads
by Melissa R. Mendelson

She wore a light and dark blue beaded bracelet.

She told me that the world was indeed broken,

a strange man waited outside her door.

She toyed with the bracelet,

the string begging to break.

She said that all of our strings were begging to break.

She rolled one light blue bead against her skin,

making a dark red impression.

Nobody understands, she said.

Nobody wants to understand.

They are just like these beads held together,

but one thing and one thing only

will make them snap.

She never took that beaded bracelet off.

It was one of the last few things from her father before the pandemic,

but when I came over to visit,

the front door was open,

my foot stepped onto a light blue bead.

If I’m not here, she said, then they came for me,

my life wrapped in paper tied with broken string

to hide the truth,

a sea of dark and light blue beads

rolling around lost, desperate to fill her absence.

Our strings have finally broken.

She was now just one of many

decorating a bakery shop window

as others continued on, living their lives.

.

Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is the author of the Sci-Fi Novella, Waken.  She also has a prose poetry collection called, This Will Remain With Us published by Wild Ink Publishing.  Her short story collections, Better Off Here and Name’s Keeper can be found on Amazon/Amazon Kindle.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com