Thursday
Picture 2
Burntcore's Choice: Both
Title:
Alana was going through some of her grandparents things in a bedroom closet when she found an old shoebox. There were a couple of them, stacked on top of one another. She popped open the top of one to see what was inside and was surprised to find it full of photos. The other box contained the same. Carefully, she set them aside until she could go through them later.
After clearing out the closet, she returned to the two boxes of photos she had laid on the bed. A thin layer of dust covered the top of the first box. Based on the style of shoe that was displayed on the side of the box, the pictures were likely to be old.
Alana was very curious what the pictures were of and eagerly opened the first box. She carefully grabbed a stack of prints from the front of the box and as she started looking through them, she was overcome with memories from her childhood.
In one photograph, a young Alana was playing in the grass, doing what looked like a somersault. When she flipped the picture over, the date was written in Evelyn’s neat script. Alana was about five years old. She smiled, gently touching the edge of the photo. The pictures following that one were much of the same, Alana at five years old doing various things that kids do.
The next stack looked to be vacation photos.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she flipped through pictures of their vacation to San Francisco. She remembered that trip well. As a ten year old little girl, she was in awe of the Golden Gate bridge and the water. Alana vaguely remembered stories that her grandparents told her about Alcatraz and all the bad men that were kept there. The child in Alana shivered. She considered making another trip out there next summer.
The next photos were from her first trip to a carnival. It was funny, Alana’s memories of that day were vague due to her young age, but what she clearly remembered was the color pink. Something about that color always stuck with her. Now she could see why. There were lots of pinks at the carnival. The umbrellas that shaded the picnic benches were pink. The swings were pink, and the dogwood trees were blooming.
The more Alana thought about that day, she recalled the euphoria of being on the swings and feeling like she could fly. She swung her little arms out and pretended she was a bird. It was the highlight of her day, at least until her grandfather won her a huge teddy bear in one of the skill games. Alana wondered where that stuffed animal was. Even now as an adult, that teddy bear would be a handful.
As she flipped through more of the pictures, they were many of the same, Alana’s life chronicled in snapshots. Many of them included pictures of her grandparents. These she treasured the most. She had forgotten how young her grandparents looked when she was a child and how richly brown Evelyn’s hair was. Alana touched her own dark brown hair with a sigh.
Fighting back tears, she put the pictures back in the boxes and carried them downstairs. She wanted to put them in a proper photo. Her grandparents took these photos for a reason and intended to treasure them always.
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