Round 5: Drabble Submissions

[regalish]

Please comment to this entry with your drabbles. And remember, there's no limitation as to how many you can post. Drabble submissions will remain open for the next two weeks, until August 1st

Comments

Fireworks and Freckles, points of data make a beautiful line, PG-13

[always_a_boom]

A family with no less than seven children lived across the street. They were very tanned and mostly blonde, and in some ways reminded him of Penny. He sometimes heard the mother call her little boys ‘sweetie’ when they tumbled off their bikes and scraped their knees. The children would play noisy, rowdy games with little to no effective organisation and laughably ill-prepared sets of rules. They laughed with the same wild and free and giddy passion as Penny.

After two years in the apartment, Sheldon could predict to the hour when the family would be letting off their celebratory birthday fireworks - nine times a year, for every child and both parents, a cacophony of deep gunshot bangs and screeching whirls and endless, repetitive popcorn explosions would descend upon the street, and after never less than fifty-three minutes an abrupt silence would leave his ears ringing painfully for the rest of the night. The bursts of intense coloured light painting his room with brightness and then receding to darkness would leave him blinking spots out of his eyes for sometimes days on end. At the best of times, it was unbearable.

Tonight, he had faced the inevitable onslaught with growing unease, which felt jarringly different than previous years. With Penny’s warm, sleeping form curled beside him, he longed for nothing less than complete peace. He ran his long fingers slowly through her hair, inciting no more than a little snuffle as she almost imperceptibly shifted the arm thrown across his chest. He craned his neck to the left to peer at the blinking red numbers glowing in the dark. Not long now, he thought glumly.

Continued here at my journal