Celeste: A Flash Fiction First
Celeste was a rule follower. Her mother had drilled into her the importance of being “a good girl.” So each day she dutifully went to visit her in the care home, went to a meaningless job and then home to an emotionally vacant apartment. On Saturdays she treated herself to a matinee at the local art house theater, only $4.50 before 11am! After the movie, she and her book would walk across to the small park, where if the gods were smiling on her, there would be an empty bench near the pond where she could watch the few ducks that had recently taken up residency. The pigeons were always in full force. Their flapping wings and ethereal cooing claiming the space as their own. Celeste envied their camaraderie, their effortless comfort in their own bodies, the way they seamlessly navigated the political hierarchy among their band. Band, flight, flock. She looked it up. How wonderful for it to be so commonplace for you to cohabitate with others that there was more than one name to describe you.
“Oh Hell,” Celeste said as she walked toward the pond. “Of course Miriam is here already.”
Miriam was the middle aged matron who claimed the park as her own all because she had some plaque donated in the name of her dead husband a million years ago. Celeste always reminded herself that Miriam wasn’t the boss of her but each time she came face to face with the Pond Patrol (as she came to think of the stern-faced woman) she would lose her nerve and back down.
“Who says I can’t feed the pigeons?” she would wonder to herself each week. “Why does she get to decide how much they eat and who gets to do it?” Just once, she thought as she watched Miriam strategically scatter stale crusts of bread for the ducks, just once, I will be the one and I will do it my way.
After another week of visiting her mother, clocking in and out of work, eating alone and waking up disappointed at herself and angry at no one she went into work on Friday morning with a scowl on her face.
On her desk sat an envelope with her name on it. A paycheck envelope. But she wasn’t suppose to get paid until next week. Her stomach lurched. She read the letter in silence, slumped down in the chair that had been hers for the last five years and stared at the blank terminal in front of her.
“Everything ok, Cel?” Her co-worker asked. There is no natural nickname for Celeste. Why even try? Why couldn’t she have just called her Celeste? Or nothing at all? She ignored the bleach blond woman who insisted on wearing jeans that were at least two sizes too small, got up and walked out of the door.
She hadn’t thought about where she would go but her legs seemed to know. After a quick stop she walked to the park. There was Miriam. On her bench.
Celeste took one look at her, smiled, and tossed an entire bag of birdseed into the air watching the pigeons launch like confetti exploding from a hollowed out egg.
