Santa and the Siren

 

Everyone at the holiday ball noticed Rhonda.

While most women drank champagne in elegant, black gowns or shimmied to Jingle Bell Rock in red velvet, Rhonda wore yellow.

Hair color was not mentioned, but they talked.

Her face was not seen, but they stared.

No one left the party that night without having glimpsed the woman in yellow. Yellow and nothing else.

One kind-hearted woman said the dress was “sheer”. Rhonda heard snippets of conversation—some crude, some accusatory.

She smiled, thinking of her senior prom ten years ago.

Ignored, unnoticed, invisible. Not even worthy of a sneer or snide comment. An overlooked young girl in a yellow dress.

 

Sitting on Santa’s lap, putting her lips next to his fur-trimmed hat, she whispered to the man in the suit, “Not a wallflower anymore, eh, Jim?”

 

 

Sarah Brentyn Reef Flash Fiction - sig -

 

Home for the Holidays

My sister wakes me.

She puts a finger to her lips and we pad down the hall in our fleece footie pyjamas. It is still dark so she holds my hand on the stairs.

Our parents stand in the dining room. I feel strange—like it’s snowing inside. There is quiet and cold here. Our da stares at something on the floor: a Christmas stocking.

I don’t understand why it’s in our house. We don’t have stockings. Or a tree with ornaments.

“There’s a note,” Da says.

My sister points to the shattered window. We are not welcome here.

 

 

December 3 Prompt: Dissonance and Holidays (Write a story that pairs something seasonal with something odd.)
My two words are: Stocking and Window
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch