500 words or less
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She makes a dive and for once it isn’t perfect. Resurfacing through ripples of water, she splutters and looks around as if to ask, “How’d that happen?” I shrug as she eases herself up onto the riverbank and she sticks her tongue out before composing herself, arms outstretched, head lowered. She dives again. No splash.
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He rang the bell of course. As soon as he saw her step out on to the street. Hearing it, she did what they all do. Stopped dead in her tracks, shocked that a bike was approaching her. No-one remembers Amsterdam is a city of bikes. No-one looks. No-one listens. They just step out. Tourists.
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The street is crowded. So many people they merge into a blur. Just a flow of shapes. Save for the boy. Small still. Only three, perhaps four. He’d be invisible among the mass if it wasn’t for the balloon. A bright yellow thing, bobbing on a string. Trailing behind him in the crowd as his
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Lottie was my grandmother’s friend. As a child her name confused me. To my ear, Lottie was the sort of name you would give your favourite doll. A chirpy, foolish sort of name. Giggly and frivolous. So when I first met her, I was shocked to discover that Lottie was in fact an old woman.
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The tree stands on a mound at the top of the hill. From this vantage point it has views out across the fields and down towards the lonely row of houses that make up the village. Up there it’s possible to see everything. There’s nothing that goes unobserved. It’s form, silhouetted against a backdrop of
