Nathan's waterfall: A 50-word short story
Here's my #fiftywords story for this week's challenge prompt: waterfall. I invite readers to craft the story around the story. In the comments, tell me what you think is going on. As I see it, there are a few distinct possibilities!
Nathan's waterfall
(Image credit: Pixabay image by StockSnap)
Nathan looks out at the falls. How different they look from here, where air and light are close, protected and strange. Moments ago he was up on the bridge with his mother and sister, watching the enormous volume of water rush over the edge and gone.
“Nathan! Where are you?”
Thank you for reading!
Here's my collection of 50-word stories:
A walk in the woods
The church mouse
The farmers' market
The tiny hunter
The map
Ghost fair
Departure from Castle Island
Conspirators and lies
Getting to know you
The man in hiding
Mermaid dreams
Time to say goodbye
It is to be hoped that the bridge is but a hop, skip and jump away and Nathan is a few feet from his mother, but invisible to her through the waterfall. However, in accordance with Murphy's law, it is likely instead that he has fallen and only his spirit remains where air and light are close.
Nice one!
I was going to write something similar, but I think you hit it on the head with this one. Now I feel like I should try and find a completely different way to end it. Something that doesn't involve Nathan dying.
Or aliens.
Hmm. Aliens did not occur to me at all.
Ohhh... aliens. There's another good theory!
Those were the two possibilities in my mind as well, @deirdyweirdy. I'm going with the hopeful version! But the author hereby bequeaths the truth to the readers' imaginations.
That's interesting. So you actually had two possible outcomes in your own mind, deciding on neither. I'll have to give that a try. When I wrote mine I had no positive outcome in mind, yet most people in the comments gave it a positive spin.
Yes, sometimes I feel it is open-ended and up to interpretation. (Or perhaps I'm just lazy!)
This should be longer. We want more!
Thank you. You're so sweet to say that, @mydivathings!
I love the indeterminate ending of this one. Great piece of brevity, Jayna:)
Thanks so much, @prydefoltz! I appreciate that you took the time to stop by to read and comment! I do enjoy writing these little micro fiction pieces!
p.s. I'm commenting but only upvoting in a limited fashion at the moment because of a user error that caused my SP to drop below the required level to control my upvote percentage. As a result, all of my upvotes are at 100% (including upvotes on all comments) until I can fix it.
I assume he got swept into the falls and issssss underwater? I love the imagery!
That is a valid interpretation! In my mind he scampered down down the embankment and is hidden behind the falls, causing his family to panic completely. But this is a choose-your-own-ending story. :-)
That actually makes more sense :P We can see who's the pessimist and who's the optimist here!
Not that either one is best. They both have their places, I suppose! 😊