At first it sounded like tissue paper being crumpled, big sheets of it, and Zola wondered, Mama's wrapping presents? before remembering that her mother had gone out to the hairdresser and wouldn't be back until four that afternoon. Though she was alone in the house, she crept noiselessly down the stairs toward the living room. Once or twice she stopped and just listened. If she tried hard enough she could pick out the individual parts of the sound. Like... yes, there. One sharp pop. Then another and another, in quick succession, so that when they were all strung together it sounded like a single unbroken sound.
No more stairs left. She crossed the living room and the sound grew louder, the way music often did during a long, sad song. What was the word for that? She had learned it in school. Mr. Olstead had scrunched up his forehead when he said it, his eyebrows wriggling like caterpillars. Ah, crescendo. That was it.
At the window, she saw what it was. The trees. The trees, all of them. The trees out in front of the house – and as far as she could see, when she pressed her left cheek against the cool water-stained window – all of them were blossoming audibly. Already there were creamy white-and-pink flowers painted all over the magnolia tree in the front yard. Spring would not wake lethargically this year. It was coming all at once, arriving before she could hardly comprehend it.
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Fiction Friday is an outlet for experimentation while I slowly work on becoming a novelist. Read the read of the stories here...
