"Maggie! I'm so sorry, here take mine!"
I handed a man my freshly bought ice cream cone after knocking his over--I had just bumped into his shoulder. Well, my daughter did, but she's just a little girl. Besides, knowing both Maggie and children in general, she wouldn't give up her ice cream.
"Maggie, what do you say?"
"Sorry mister." The man just stared at us.
I couldn't tell if his expression was one of shock or of anger. Then his mouth turned down, and his eyebrows angled.
"Well then, come along Maggie!" I grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
What a petty little man for getting in a fuss over an ice cream cone. We were on our way to the park when we had decided it was too hot, even for July, to go without ice cream, and without spilling it onto someone.
"Come on, mommy! The slide!"
She had let go of my hand long ago and ran ahead of me towards the park, pointing at the long metal slide that lay just past one of the busiest intersections in the city.
"Come on, mommy!"
"Maggie, wait!"
There were cars passing left and right, rush hour was already starting. Amongst the whiz of cars passing, horns honking, she must not have heard me. Because in a matter of seconds she now ran straight ahead off into the street. Into a sea of cars.
And there she drowned.
***
I stood silent before I registered what had happened when my mind caught up.
"Maggie?" I shouted into the street, only to feel my voice disheveled in the noise. Between a passing car, I saw her, lying there.
"MAGGIE!"
YOU ARE READING
An Uninvited Guest
Science FictionThe decade: Early 1950s, perhaps late 1940s. The setting: A small city, somewhere outside New York City. There lives a single mother and her daughter. Like most mothers, she would sacrifice anything to keep her child safe, happy, healthy. It's a lit...
