Create a Story - Week 8

The continuing saga... I got this one done a little early, from Create a Story, page 51 - a romance prompt. Maybe since this one completed early, I'll manage to catch up and get the skipped week done this week and have a clean slate. We'll see. In the meantime, here it is:

Fortune’s Kiss

When you’re little, running around the fair, gorging on cotton candy and sneaking your way on rides that you can sneak onto in a local carnival while you couldn’t at a proper amusement park, you don’t notice the seedier parts of carnival life—the housewife struggling to maintain control over too many kids, and only half of them her own or the way no one ever seemed to win the big prizes in the ring toss.

It was only when I was older that I noticed the little people wore scarves that hid their ears or that the fortune teller was a proper witch. It was apparent enough if you looked past the shady light on the table illuminating the crystal ball. Enough to repulse if you could make out the shapes. But it was a carnival, so many stayed and had their fortunes read, letting it pass with a grimace as they held out a hand for the witch to work her magic, reading the lines of the palm like a spell woven of sorcery and fairy wings.

I was old enough now to be losing my appreciation for the carnival. Cotton candy loses its appeal when every teen is judged by the perfect bodies on social media every day. When every outfit has to be perfect. I gave up on being perfect a long time ago. Which had a lot to do with the carnival losing appeal, since it was all about doing things with friends. Which is how I found myself in front of the witch, and how I knew the various suspect floating things in jars were far more real than most visitors might suppose.

Only a glance—a fingernail drawing across the lines, and she spoke. “The kissing booth at every carnival is enchanted,” she said. “A first risk can bear fruit, it must, for that risk has cupid’s power bound, but which risk is never guaranteed.”

I pulled my hand away. “Not that desperate.”

She shrugged. “It’s still twenty bucks.”

Which was how I ended up glaring at the line. The boy and girl in the booths were perfect. I’d been watching for hours. Long enough to see the boy take his doublet costume off and rinse off under a hose to cool down. The attraction was too real to pretend.

“A first risk,” I whispered to myself, losing myself in the way his lips swooped. I didn’t even notice paying the ten bucks for charity. 

I barely noticed the attendant shake his head. “You can try kid, but it’s up to him.” The girls in line snickered.

​My heart skipped as I got closer. He was in front of me, lips kissed full. His cheeks reddened. But he still leaned forward, one hand helping my head know which way to go.

​Suddenly I knew what being lost in a kiss meant. Maybe there was some magic. Because afterwards, breathless with wonder, he pressed a paper with his phone number into my hand.

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Again 500 words, though I confess this one was edited down from about 525 to hit that mark so exactly. I also think this one could have gone on longer, had I not been in the depths of work on several critical work projects. Maybe I'll come back to it. Till then, we'll see if I can get caught up this week.