Escape
She sat on the spindly arm of a crane, swinging her legs and absentmindedly staring out over the gray horizon. Smoke, polluted air, and the tops of skyscrapers were all she could see, all the way to the hazy gray horizon. But there, in the corner of her eye. She spotted a glimmer of something she didn't recognize. She turned, gaping. A hazy, smoky ball was bouncing and weaving at about shoulder height in the stuffy air, brightening its surroundings with its pinkish luminescence. Reaching out to grab it, she fell forward as it darted swiftly away from her. The crane groaned and she felt the platform shake. She felt a surge of excitement. The ball bobbed and weaved a few feet below, and then spun and whizzed when she didn’t follow. Hesitantly she stepped towards it, and it suddenly zoomed away. And the chase was on. She slid down the ladder after it and ran headlong, not caring about the cold gray world she left behind. Jubilation filled her for the first time, she felt, in her whole life.
The ball suddenly stopped. It circled a spot over the asphalt. She ran straight toward it and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. It was just going to give up like this? But as she got near, the ball came and whomped her in the stomach, sending her flying onto her backside. She sat, winded, and could only watch as the ball quivered, winding up, and slammed itself into the pavement. It disappeared, and the only thing remaining of its presence was a wide hole, so deep that she couldn’t see the bottom when she regained the strength to go and look down it. An extreme desire to follow filled her, and wiped out any sense of fear she had seconds before.
And down she jumped.
Suddenly she found herself in a new landscape, pink and purple and blue nature surrounding her. She gasped. She had forgotten what trees looked like. The ball waited, and once it seemed to notice her, it set off again on its manic flight. There were geometric cubes made out of the same frosted-glass material as the ball, with the same internal glow that the ball seemed to possess. She jumped over them, ran between them like an obstacle course. The ball found the biggest one, and threw itself down on top of the cube. To her surprise, the surface splashed and the ball disappeared inside of it. She jumped and splashed as well. Suddenly she was swimming from the bottom of a vast sea, pursuing the trail of bubbles that the ball left behind it.
She surfaced, running up a shore. In front of her stood a large mountain. The ball bounced from rock to rock, no longer concerned with whether or not she was keeping up. She stumbled and fell, defeated. She resigned herself to the fact that she would not catch it. And now she was stuck in a foreign land, with no idea of how to get home. She cried bitterly. But a familiar hum filled her ears. The ball was back, and it threw itself into her hands. It lifted her off the ground and pulled her to the top.
She stared, speechless, at the most beautiful view she had ever seen. By the time she remembered to look down at her hands, the ball had vanished, leaving only smoke. A single tear slid from her eyes as she smiled, free at last.
This is the Pro Tools session that I recorded my voiceover and the sound effects in.
My Flash Fiction was inspired by going back to nature, which I personally am guilty of. Nature is a large inspiration to me and I think everyone should get out more.