She reads aloud.

“North Star,
Star of the sea

I wish for a ship
Named after me

To sail for a day
Alone and free

With someone nice
For company.”

With her little brother giggling,

she launches the paper boats

across the pond,

fire blooming from their center

until they disappear

around the willow branches.

--------------------------

Growing up, there were many oriental traditional that came to be my own. I always give a new bride a bell to hang in her kitchen (so she can ring it when she's lonely and know that her family hears her, still). I always eat the fortune from my cookie so it will come true. And, I used to always launch wish boats on the Willamette River on the eve of Chinese New Year.

The poem that's quoted here is from The Maggie B by Irene Haas. 

I first read this as a small girl, when reading was my escape from a rough and tumble world. I often long for the simplicity of those times, the long hours spent alone with only my thoughts and Moby Dick or Watership Down for company.

This Flash Fiction, as most of the good ones, leans heavily on my own story. G-Man would love it if you'd play along by writing a story in exactly 55 words. The Noir, the merrier...