Jessie shifted all of her weight onto her left leg. She wildly flapped the fan in front of her face, watched the water drip from the sculpted swan’s icy beak and disappear in the turf below. The officer guarding the exhibit was staring at her. He knew what she was thinking.
I just want to lie in front of it, she pleaded with her eyes, have the water drizzle down and saturate my dry tongue, moisten my cracked lips. I won’t break off its head and suck its crown. I won’t lick its frozen feathers. I won’t rip off my clothes and hump its frigid body like that man from the shelter did to Venus.
“Move along, miss.” His lips barely moved. Could he even pull them apart, or was the parched skin adhesive like the back ends of tape.
She rushed from the museum unquenched, the ice sculptures serving as a hopeless temptation. She’d rather burn her feet on the molten asphalt, melt under the ever-approaching sun.
word count: 168
—Nortina
Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers is a weekly challenge where you write a story in 100-150 words (give or take 25 words) using the provided photo prompt as inspiration.
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Lovely Curses 
The overbearing heat comes through really clearly. Somehow I don’t think that ice sculpture is going to last much longer!
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Quite frankly, I’m surprised it lasted this long under that baring sun!
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Gripping! Absolutely gripping! I love your portrayal of this desire in the oppressive heat.
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Good description sketching the perfect scene of dreadful heat. Good story
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Even in the 21st century, each moment, the gap between the rich and the poor widens a bit more, and you captured it very well.
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Thanks! My dad who’s a songwriter had a line in one of his songs that said, “the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor till they die…” It’s sad that even today, that statement is true.
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You capture the sense of heat so effectively. I’m intrigued by the surreal quality of the piece. ☺
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Thanks. I was actually inspired by the Twilight Zone episode, “The Midnight Sun,” and yes, that episode is very surreal!
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Very cool. ☺
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Excellent Nortina! Sounds like they are slowly burning to death. Very vivid images. Very sad situation, but excellent story!
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There’s this episode of the Twilight Zone called “The Midnight Sun,” and in it, the earth suddenly changes it’s orbit, moving closer to the sun, so I tried to describe the result of that here.
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Oh, that’s interesting. I must not have seen that episode of T.Z. I thought I had seen them all. LOL!
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