[Ash]: 102.Contests.Five Words.December 2008

I don’t know why she had picked it, it wasn’t anything special. To that she replied that she wasn’t anything special either, and that’s what caught her attention. It was a small orange bulb, round with a silver top and wire to hang it on the tree. She reached up and grabbed it carefully, her pink wool mittens holding it so gently.

Calmly her eyes seemed to sing as she turned it round and round as if the ornament was her entire world. She stopped and held it up to me and her father and there on the back of it was a tiny scratch. She asked carefully why it was injured and I told her about the time three leap years ago when she was born and she kicked just at the right moment and I dropped it.

She smiled and pulled it back, ‘it’s my special bulb then’ came out of her mouth and she went to hand it on the tree, her smile glistening.