Miss Viviane Nimue—I knew her name from the plate on the doorbell for apartment 310—was an old spinster lady who would sit staring out onto Lake Avenue every evening from her window in our brownstone, a candle lit next to her, until she went to bed.
“I wave to her every afternoon as I come up the front steps, being the good neighbor and all, and it’s like she’s a mannequin or something…no recognition, no response at all,” my girlfriend Lynn said one night in June.
“Maybe she’s expecting someone, waiting, wishing, a Mr. Right maybe, to ride up on his white steed and whisk her away from all this,” I said, half-laughing.
“Get real, Ben,” Lynn said, “and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride…and let’s face it, Sir Galahad is never going to tie up to a meter out there on Lake Avenue to rescue old Viv .”
In August, about a week after the old girl passed away, Lynn and I were sitting on the front steps when a white Ford Mustang pulled up and an elderly man wearing a silver Van Dyke and what Lynn later said was a Bond Street suit stepped out, approached us and said, with a quite proper English accent, “Pardon me, but is this the home of the lovely Miss Viviane Nimue?”
Based on Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction prompt word: WISHES.
Ohh… sad she didn’t live to see the day 😦 Very nicely done.
Tina from The Sunny Side of Life
You can’t do that, you know. Tug at the heartstrings and leave me hoping there was a better solution to this 😦 Wonderfully, exquisitely penned ❤
Shailaja/The Moving Quill
Sure we can. 😉 But who says this little snippet of lunch break prose is the whole story? I call these my “placeholder” pieces. We’ll see if it leads to something down the road. Thanks so much for visiting, Shailaja. I was touched by your story.
I completely identify with that, Joseph. I always imagine that there is a larger back story when I write my snippets too. Of course, I never make the attempt to elaborate on them. Perhaps I should now 🙂 Thank you for your kind comment!
I kept on hoping for a happy ending for the lonely soul!! But, alas!!
Maybe the next one will have one..!
I loved the story very well written indeed:-(
That’s beautiful , wishing beyond others expectations is sometimes the miracle we always believed would happen, kudos to you..
Joseph,
I love how you’ve used the word prompt this week. And I love how you managed to stir an emotion in me in only 5 sentences! And I’m not sad for the old woman, she taught the two kids a lesson. As for herself, I know she’s watching from somewhere 😉
Joe, this is spare and yet full of emotion. I love it. :))
Thank you, Jo-Anne. Not spare enough for me, but I rush these during lunch. 🙂
A scarily good story.
Thank you, Mike.
Wow! My favorite of the FSF entries I’ve read. Well written, and you really managed to get a lot out of five sentences! Thanks for writing!
Thank you very much. I think there’s a bigger story (comprised of shorter sentences, LOL) in this piece.
Viviane Nimue? Really? You MUST tell the rest of her story – beginning in childhood, please……..