Beer bottles clinking and clacking and clattering, shifting and rolling and sliding and shattering. Two bins, half barrels, brimming with translucent green, brown, blue, and clarity. Back before they dried, they promoted anything but clarity, but in between some of them took on a different unity after that one shared by soft lips, a harsh tongue, and the slick rim of reality. With his children watching in utter amazement, the father would cut the bottles apart using only a string and a match, or two. This, of course, was after he had already soaked the string in the mother's acetone polish remover. The little girl and little boy stood a fair distance away from the magic trick, waiting for their turn to wrap the new glass cups with twine and glue. A few field flowers and the bottle bottoms perfectly adorned the platter for a Mother's Day breakfast in bed. The bottle necks, paired with beads and bottle tops and fishing line, assembled so their mother could understand their love, not just through smell, taste, and sight, but also through sound when the chinking chimes swayed in the breeze outside her farmhouse window.
YOU ARE READING
Fragmented
Short StoryA collection of story fragments that tell a larger story. These little fictional memories are just for fun and have only been self-edited. Content warning: alcohol
