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In Fond Memory
She wakes up sprawled on a couch, eyes bleary, head pounding, hair damp from her own saliva.
She tastes the sour tang of alcohol on her breath, sniffs it in her rumpled clothes. Her skin smells of dried sweat and stale sleep.
The floor is strewn with debris - mostly crushed cans, half empty bottles, and pizza boxes. She sits up slowly, trying to remember. At night, the room was transformed into something dark and illicit. Shadows and dim lights turned the people into creatures more powerful and mysterious than themselves, glamorous and otherworldly.
Now the room looks sad, worn, and disappointing - just a living space trashed after another my-parents-are-out-of-town-who’s-got-the-booze party. Clothing and pillows have been flung over the floor and the furniture, where they now lie like soft dead things.
The girl moans softly and steps across the floor, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. She hears a crunch beneath her foot, the one that still has a dirty sneaker on it. The other is bare, pink, and vulnerable looking against the chaotic backdrop of the messy floor.
She blinks, trying to take in what she is seeing. Scattered glass fragments, glittering dangerously on the upholstered rug. Glass that once belonged in picture frame. The one that held a picture of a woman with her eyes, her smile, her nose. The fancy frame with the curlicues around the edges and “In Fond Remembrance” written in looping letters at the top.
Tears leak from the corners of her bloodshot eyes. “F***,” she whispers.
Then, softer: “I’m sorry, Mom.”
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I'm in a flash fiction phase. I had a lot of fun with the imagery in this.