sarah grant 🇺🇸 [steve rogers] (charcoal) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-05-24 21:47:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !narrative, r * laura, r: sarah grant |
WHO: Sarah Grant
WHEN: this evening
WHERE: a local antique shop
SUMMARY: Sarah finds something old and familiar.
WARNINGS: Nah.
Antique stores were a haven for Sarah. Quiet and full of history, with pieces of furniture or glassware just waiting for someone else to show them some love. Antique stores were where she’d found the trunk that she had sitting by the doorway to her kitchen. It was where she’d found the (artfully) distressed hutch and the clock that hung above it. The best finds were the things she found when she was least expecting it. Sometimes she found pieces to transform for her house; other times she found something she could use in the classroom, as props for the still-life exercises. That day she was wandering aimlessly from one area to the next when her eyes fell on something old and brass on a table. Sarah didn’t know why, but she liked it right away. She picked it up -- it was surprisingly heavy, which gave it some real authenticity -- and flipped the lid, revealing the compass face inside. The wind roared as the plane’s altitude dropped, ruffling his hair. He pulled his compass out from his pocket and set it on the control panel in front of him. A black and white photo of her was in the lid, and her dark eyes stared back at him. He clenched his jaw and pushed hard on the yoke. He felt the nose of the plane dip as intended, and the plane shook under his hands. Underneath the compass, the instrument needles wavered and spun. “Peggy?” He knew it was goodbye, even before she got on the radio. There was no surviving what he had to do. All he really wanted was for someone to be there with him at the end, and to pretend, just for a moment, that the future he’d always dreamt of was within his reach. “I’m here.” The clouds cleared and he could see the ice and the water in front of him. On the other end of the line, it sounded like Peggy was talking through tears as they made plans for a date, even though he still didn’t know how to dance. The plane rattled under the pressure, but he kept his eyes on the quickly approaching horizon in front of him. He’d been waiting for the right partner, and there she was - so close, but still so far away. “We’ll have the band play something slow, I’d hate to step on your --” Sarah gasped and clutched the compass tighter, feeling its hard edges dig into the palm of her hand. “Jesus,” she murmured. She lifted her hand to press it, along with the compass, to her chest. Her heart pounded, and she swore she could still hear the roar of a plane’s engines, of the wind rushing past the broken windows. An older man stood behind a counter nearby, and she held the compass out for him to see. “How much is this?” |