The Pillar...A Short Story

It looks like I've influenced a couple of writers to join me on submitting a short story for the Weekly Writing Prompt. And since they've already submitted their stories, I thought I'd better hurry up and submit mine.

If you'd like to join us, there's still time for this week's installment. Just write your story using these five words:

Creation
Mime
Balcony
Kidnap
Loaf

Make sure your story's less than 500 words, and submit it to this website: HERE! Come on! It's fun! Even if you don't submit a story, check out the website and read the other stories that are already there. It's a hoot! Here's my latest...

 THE PILLAR

            “Honey, look at this!” Melissa Thomas said to her husband as the recently retired man checked his new Nikon to see if the photo he just took came out as planned.

“Ah, crap…” Ryan Thomas said to himself. “Another shot wasted.” Melissa smiled at her husband of 45 years and she wondered if the only man she’d ever loved would ever figure out what her grandkids called “technology.”

            “Ryan, come over here,” the patient woman said again to her husband who stood across an ancient courtyard in Raskgar, Tibet, as tourists and residents walked between them. Ryan looked up from the small lighted display on the back of the point-and-shoot camera, looked over his glasses at his wife, grimaced, then returned to the problem at hand.

            Wanting desperately to kidnap Ryan’s attention, Melissa changed tactics. Waiting until Ryan looked her way, she caught his eye by first, performing a mime. She pretended as if she held Ryan’s camera. With her husband watching, she placed the imaginary device into her fanny pack and pantomimed a figure walking back to her. She then turned her attention to the pillar, an object of discovery she wished to share with him. Reluctantly, Ryan pocketed the camera and walked to his wife.

            “What?” Ryan said, the dejection in his voice noticed only by his wife.

            “Look, Ryan. Look at these beautiful pillars!”

            “They’re nice,” Ryan said as he admired the obvious talent required to construct the columns that looked the color of a perfectly baked loaf of bread.

            “Nice…they’re beautiful! What do you think it is?”

            “Looks like some sort of wheel,” Ryan said as he extended his hand. The wheel rotated by his simple touch. A noise startled the couple and Ryan immediately withdrew his hand. Looking up, Ryan saw a cherubic face of a four or five-year old boy staring down at him from a balcony above the courtyard.

            “Hello,” Melissa said. The boy remained silent then disappeared above them. The couple returned to the pillar.

            “What do you think this symbol means?” Melissa asked as she gently touched the delicately caved emblem. “I don’t know," Ryan said. "Maybe something having to do with creation.”
            “You think?” Melissa said, her eyes twinkling, a look that reminded the mildly arthritic ex-civil servant of the time he first saw the woman who took his name.

            “Maybe,” Ryan said, and as the love of his life turned back to the pillar, he silently hovered just behind her ear and gave Melissa Thomas a kiss on the back of her neck, his lips barely dusting her skin.