Buried Pleasure

© Ayr/Gray

The Unicorn Challenge.

A magical new weekly writing opportunity from him – C. E. Ayr – and me.
The rules are
Maximum of 250 words.
Based on photo prompt.
That’s it.

Click here to read other stories from the prompt: 12/04/24

Buried Pleasure

Katy has to live inside her head.
The world is dangerous, ‘Something’ might happen to her, according to her Mum.
Katy doesn’t know what ‘Something’ is.
But it means she’s not allowed to do the things her friends do.
She’s very lonely during the school holidays, until…

She goes to stay with Auntie, who doesn’t know about ‘Something’.
Katy ‘skates’ on the linoleum with dusters on her feet, sits on the handlebars of her tricycle and rides backwards, eats stalks of rhubarb dipped into paper bags of SUGAR!
AND she can play with the children from the other cottages.

Katy is good at ‘make-believe’.
Today’s adventure concerns Mississippi steamboats, their ‘boat’ a circle of trees in the yard.
They jump ‘on board’ and the Captain gathers his crew to explain their journey.
‘But is the river deep enough, Cap’n?’ cries a sailor.
‘Why, check it out, my man!’
The sailor clambers up ‘steep stairs’ to the deck, looks over the side and shouts ‘Mark twain, Cap’n.’
‘Aha,’ cries Katy, a passenger, ‘I am a writer and that shall be my pen-name! I shall be famous.’
The game sails on until the crew tires of steamboats and crosses the yard to become a posse in the Wild West.

So the days fly by, and soon Katy, the lone horsewoman, must ride her tricycle ‘into the sunset’ where ‘Something’ is undoubtedly waiting.
She imagines a game where she and Mum are medieval knights, who ride out and slay ‘Something’.
If only…