The Paris Review asked us to describe the above image in three hundred words - in the style of Ernest Hemingway, P.G. Wodehouse, Joan Didion, Elizabeth Bishop, or Ray Bradbury.
My story was inspired by Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine."
A DEVILISH RIDE
“You’ll never leave me,” he said,
slicing an orange. “You don’t belong to
yourself, my dear. You here and now, you
always, you belong to me.” Oh, she
thought. And then, as though a myriad of
disjointed pieces had suddenly linked together, she remembered a strange dream
she once had...
The Devil, so fit, hooves polished,
sitting atop a shiny new bike, saying, “My dear, you never will outride me,
will you? You’re always trying to be the
things you aren’t. No matter how hard
you work to be the other strong you, you remain trapped in your own weak
self. Why do you keep trying? Give it up, my dear.”
The road, like a giant orange snake,
that had just awakened and slowly uncoiled, stretched out before them.
“Let me try again, now, let me try
again. I’m strong, I know I’m strong.”
“I’ll be darned!” said the Devil. “Some women are like moths, you know, with
wings reduced to ashes from a million flames…Well…sure…but it won’t work.”
She was the quick lightning that had
struck, without a warning, on a rainless day.
The blossoms of the orange tree sparkled in her ebony hair, and the noon
sun in her eyes. Her small feet in black
high heeled shoes firmly planted on the pedals, the long train of her yellow
dress rising like a pair of golden wings.
The Devil was left far behind. His
fiery breath would never touch her. And
all of this, this other, new, self she had finally caught up with; this wild, glorious
ride would never end, but live forever.
…She nodded at the memory of that old
dream. She smiled.
“From
now on,” she said to no one in particular, “I settle down to being free and
happy.”
She left.
Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur
P.S. I didn't win the cool bike or make the finalists' list, but I had a ton of fun writing.
Check out the winning entries here:
