Flash Fiction (Poetry): Scar by Val Muller

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write about “a surprising discovery.” This week’s story (poem) comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit Corgi Capers mystery series. Follow along at www.corgicapers.com

Scar

By Val Muller

He woke to a sight of beauty

Beyond anything he imagined he’d ever witness:

Layered ripples of the Blue Ridge Mountains,

And the pines below bathed in fog.

An impossibly orange sun burst through,

Roseate light pointing acknowledgements from heaven,

Peeking pine peaks witness to the testimony.

Had he woken to a painting?

Only CGI could make a sight so surreal,

And yet here it was,

Outside his bedroom window.

Not even his bedroom:

His closet.

Yes, he had a closet with a window now,

New construction and a new mortgage,

And a window that looked upon a sight unimaginable.

 

He’d never before felt spellbound by unsurpassable beauty,

Never seen a daybreak so glorious,

A site so majestic it pained him,

Until this day.

Morning as a word fell short,

As did Daybreak or Sunrise.

A site so ethereal,

It inspired in him something he could never express,

Not if a master painter,

Nor photographer, nor poet.

Something it was

Beyond human capacity for expression.

A smirk.

This is why he had sold his townhome

And moved to the country.

 

Something ugly stole his eyes from the scene.

Ugly wasn’t the right word, but he wasn’t sure what was.

Something desecrating, unwholesome, blasphemous.

It was a pile of dirt, a human mountain hiding

The bucket of a bulldozer just beyond.

The housing development he had bought into

Had only just started,

His house only the third finished of dozens.

This view, this indescribable view,

Would soon be slaughtered by three new houses.

His closet window would need to be covered

In drapery soon,

To protect him from neighbor’s prying eyes,

Their windows soon a stone’s throw away;

Or perhaps to protect him from

Reminders of his crime.

 

He breathed in the scent of fresh paint

And cardboard

In his newly-manufactured closet,

And then that indescribable beauty

Turned into insurmountable pain

And he realized now,

His home’s new, raw lawn still a scar on the land,

Heft of a mortgage payment on his shoulders,

Just what he had done.

 

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: https://valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/