Daydream At Dusk.... A Short Story

This week's writing prompt has a great picture! (well done chooser!). This time I didn't push the 500 word maximum limit--it was more like 300. The rules haven't changed. 500 word limit, must be posted to the following websites: HERE, HERE, and HERE (thanks Nicole, Carrie & Tina for posting). You've got a week to write it (deadline for this picture ends next Wednesday) and these words must be included:

Wallet

Circus

Kid

Cruise Ship

Slide

Here you go. Hope you enjoy it!

Daydream At Dusk

            “What are you, some circus kid?” Paul asked Billy as his best friend continued to walk atop a rusted and almost abandoned rail line at the south part of town. Paul watched his friend teeter and almost fall several times but the boy remained vertical on the track.

            “Ha!” Billy laughed as he eventually lost the battle of gravity and his Chuck Taylor’s finally met solid ground. “That’s a record!”

            “I’ve gone longer.”

            “No you ain’t. You slide off, every time. I win!” The elated seven-year old began dancing in the fading light of dusk. “You wait,” Paul said. “I beat it tomorrow.”

            “Yeah, we’ll see,” Billy said and the two continued down the path in silence.

            “You know what’d be cool?” Billy said after a moment where only a family of starlings stirred the humid air. The boy, older by exactly 13 days, continued without a reply from his friend.

            “It’d be cool if I found a wallet and it had lots of money in it.”

            “That’d be cool,” Paul said without taking his eyes off the path before him.

            “And it’d be even better if it had lot’s o’ money in it. You know, like Tom Cruise money.”

            “What’d you buy with Tom Cruise money?”

            “I’d buy lots o’ stuff…like a big Tom Cruise house, and a couple o’ Tom Cruise cars—maybe I’d even buy a Tom Cruise ship.”

            “Tom Cruise ain’t got no ship.”

            “How you know?” Billy said. “I bet he got a ship…I bet he got a big ol’ ship.”

            “Tom Cruise ain’t got no ship.”

            “Yeah, maybe. But Tom Cruise could have a big ol’ ship if’n he wanted one.”

            “True dat,” Paul said as the boys reached the only bend in the tracks for miles. They walked the next 10 minutes without either of them saying a word.