Last weekend was round two of the micro fiction challenge at NYCMidnight. I was assigned romance, the act of recycling, and the word exchange. The genre was terrifying to me, and I submitted a different story all together. Still, I like the idea of a romance blossoming in a recycling plant, and didn’t want this one to go to waste.
-Image Credit Nelsonmakesart.com
I’m imagining things. Alice isn’t really touching her long, wavy blonde hair and half smirking every time I look up at her. She’s like a mermaid, aquamarine eyes and tan skin illuminated by reflections cast from the oncoming conveyor-belt currents of lableless bottles. The colors as the sunlight glints through the multi-colored glasses paints her in a living school of ever changing rainbow-fish.
I blush. Go back to sorting the plastic from the paper in the sea of reusable refuse at my station. There’s no way that gorgeous creature is trying to flirt with me.
A polite whistle wails. Time for lunch.
I enter the ladies room, needing soap and water after touching who knows what. Bubbles foam up between my fingers. Sugary coconut fills the air as I wash the morning’s grit from my nails.
The bathroom door swings wide. I look into the mirror. Find my grey eyes meeting with aquamarine in the reflection.
Her smile is dazzling. And meant for me. It must be. I’m the only one here.
She sashays forward, fluid in her perfection, to squeeze beside me at the sink. Our shoulders touch.
“I love coconuts,” she says, that familiar half-smirk playing across her lips as runs her hand over mine to steal my soap. The slippery exchange leaves my heart hammering. “Wanna sit with me for lunch? I promise not to bite.”
“S-sure,” I respond, grinning stupidly.
Who says no to a mermaid?
Tamara Writes 