My mother’s goodnight kiss still lingered on my forehead, as I sneaked out of the window and ran across the backyard, into the woods.
The distant sounds from the carnival were my beacon and soon the pale light from naked bulbs, colorful tents, and exotic smells greeted me.
As I entered the muddy field, observed by clowns and animals from far-flung places, a tuneful street organ hummed into life.
I met her seeking blue eyes and soon my trembling hands joined hers. She stopped my sheepish smile by pressing her soft, warm lips against mine.
My mother’s kiss lingered no more.
Coming of age never sounded more simple. Please deliver a follow-up that shows the error of sneaking around.
b.
I’m not sure why why you term his adventure as “the error”
It’s simply the way of the world: Adolescent love, romantic love…..
Shakespeare made a living writing about…..
Thank you for reading and the feedback.
I like the sentiment of young love in the story.
My primary difficulty was determining the age of the boy – young enough to get kissed goodnight by mom but old enough to rendezvous with a presumably older girl with “seeking blue eyes” (makes the female appear older) to be lip-kissed.
Nit-point: one cannot sneak out of a window. Perhaps though an open window. 🙂
Perhaps if it was 102 words………..
What would the 102nd word be?
Jeff:
A nit-point, indeed… Grant the readers some intelligence – they would assume the window was open…!!
The comment was not intended for readers but for the writer and any other writers who happen to pass by.
But the point of that comment is that one cannot sneak OUT of a window, no more than one can be IN a window. The passage is THROUGH not OUT OF.
I suspect most readers assume the window was open. But likely not know the difference between OUT OF and THROUGH.
Now that we have been taught this lesson, we can happily Through it away…..
Perhaps….
“The man jumped through the window.”
Is this man jumping into or out of a building?
“The man jumped out of the window”
We now know he is leaving and not entering through the window.
In an infinite word world where word count doesn’t matter maybe we could rely on context to solve this problem but we’re living in a very small micro-fiction world here.
Also I hope none of your characters have ever looked at themselves IN the mirror. As we all know we look at things being reflected ON mirrors. You cannot be in a mirror any more than you can be in a window.
Never! But they might look at their reflection.
The more obvious change would be sneaking “out the window” dropping the OF. But that would change the word count wouldn’t it? Then another word would have to be added. And we can’t ask that, can we?
As I said in the beginning, this was a minor point. However it was amusing to ruffle so many feathers 🙂
Thank you for reading my story and for the comments.
A nice, satisfying little tale. The last line is great!
Thank you!
I really enjoyed how this story came full circle in the last line. Very enjoyable to read 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it.
A great little story capturing the moment of a lifetime …
as for all the nitpicking ,,, :o)
Thank you!
Jeff:
You need to get out more……..
Wow… so much controversy over such a pleasant little growing up story. I am not sure what people expect from 101 words and not sure if one can really get as much pleasure from reading when they are seeking to find small errors in grammar, but I enjoyed the story and thought you did a great job conveying one of those moments in life when a person is tottering on adulthood.
In this the day of texts and Twitter, it seems ridiculous that a person would deliberately set out to catch grammar errors in a submitted story. Rather pitiful, actually.
I liked the story very much. From kiss to KISS.