Mary looked graceful in the water—like a mermaid. The girls on the dock squinted their eyes in envy.
“Show off.”
“Bitch.”
“I totally hate her.”
“Good thing she can’t hear you. You’d be eating lunch at the loser table on Monday.”
“Whatever.”
Mary looked up toward her friends but found sand and seaweed. The sunlight seemed to be on every side of her. Twisting, flailing, searching for the surface, she screamed for help, taking lake water into her lungs.
“She always has to be the best at everything.”
“Screw this. I’m outta here.”
Without a glance back, they left.
January 28 Prompt: Disorientation (In 99 words – no more, no less – write a story about disorientation)
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
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That reads like dark comedy because it’s cheerleaders! I wonder if it would have the same verve if it was a different group identity or simply a gaggle of girls. Why can girls be so mean? Great undercurrent of danger and disorientation beneath the surface of cattiness.
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Dark comedy. That’s awesome. I fought with the title–couldn’t decide. I wound up with this punny one. It changed the story a bit, didn’t it? Fantastic! And I can think of very little that is more disorienting than the moments before you drown.
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Aarghh! I’m trying to remember a novel where that happened. What are friends, huh!
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Oh, please do tell if you remember it! Friends in need…friends indeed…? 😉
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I wish I could. My sense it was a novel that I didn’t get much from overall, yet this scene of the friends moving away while one was struggling in the water has stayed with me.
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That would definitely be a scene to stay with you. It’s interesting how many passages and/or scenes have stuck in my head but I struggle to remember which book because, like you said, overall the book was not memorable.
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