more 100 drabbles
Tide
Even now, Marce had some good days and some terrible days.
There were times when she'd wake up early, hum to herself as she took care of Andrei and Alix, and be the one to suggest to her colleagues where they could go for lunch. On those days, Marce never said 'no' when Emil asked her to dance.
There were days though when she'd be silent, poring over papers in such a mechanical manner. She would speak in a clipped tone, and barely smile even at the funniest joke.
All Emil could do was wait for the tides to change.
Snorkel
It was just as beautiful as her parents said it would be.
Alix expertly kicked her way down to the bottom, hearing the snap of the valve of her snorkel that would prevent water from coming in. Her fingers grazed the sand between the pastel colored coral, taking care to avoid the fish that lay in wait nearby. She finally found the shoe lying right in the hollow and then quickly surfaced.
“How did you do that?” she heard Andrei yell from the raft.
The girl tossed the shoe to her brother. "It's simple. And next time tie your shoelaces!"
Slide
"OW!"
"I told you we shouldn't play outside after lunch."
"But the playground is all ours and we can't go here later after class."
"No one is outside for a reason, Dom. It's so hot."
"Yeah, yeah, you can say that you told me so. I hate you."
"You know you don't really hate me, Dommie."
"Don't call me that, Pris!"
"Okay! So if we can't play on the slide, where do you want to go?"
"The swings?"
"You'll burn your butt again."
"I will not."
"Will too!"
"If you're right, you get me ice cream after Math."
"Okay, deal."
Boys of summer
Inasmuch as Ida hated the questions, she knew they were valid. After all she and Anton were friends for years, and it once had been no secret that she had the biggest crush on him.
"He was a nice boy I met one summer day," she explained when Tara asked. "He could play the guitar, he was fun...and I was bored."
Tara had raised an eyebrow. "How old were you then?"
"Fourteen," Ida replied.
Tara shrugged at this. "So why Mark? You met him too near that time."
"He's different," Ida said with a smile, remembering now the rains.
Clambake
"A honeymoon on the beach. How cliche can we get?"
Emil only smirked as he pulled the pot out of the fire pit. "It depends how you look at it. We could frame it as 'taking a break from the world'."
Marce nodded as she sat on the sand. "Two lawyers enjoying a clambake."
"Best friends celebrating an occasion."
"The conclusion to an excellent day on the water."
"No, a prelude to lovemaking."
She blushed momentarily at this. "Partners-in-crime preparing for another adventure," she tried.
"I like that. The night is very young after all," Emil said lightly.
Dandelion
"Is there a difference?"
"Ron, 'butter yellow' isn't exactly the same as 'dandelion yellow'."
The engineer groaned as he looked at his friends. "I wish you'd side with me, Darren. Not with the girls."
"I'm telling it like it is," Darren said nonchalantly.
"Why do you have to have a sense of aesthetics?"
"Not many men do."
Ron gritted his teeth. "Well now Lila wants me to help her repaint her room. I think that's already punishment enough."
"Oh that's already merciful," the older man replied. It would not do good to mention the other ideas for revenge he'd heard.
Haze
"Is that mist or smog?"
Mark shook his head. "It's rain. And it's coming near us."
"Like that?" Ida asked incredulously. The haze she'd seen obscuring the buildings ahead of them was now approaching, and fast. "Like it's marching down a corridor...."
Mark quickly put the car in park. "Watch it."
The couple were silent as they saw the mist now engulf the buildings a block away, then rush forward with a roar that soon dissolved into the relentless pounding of rain on the car roof.
"Never saw anything like that before," Ida said.
"Straight out of the movies, yeah."