Ten squares up, ten squares back

by Gail Fulkerson

The little girl played hopscotch on the cement sidewalk in front of her house almost every day when it wasn't raining. Sarah loved playing the game, and the more often she could play, the better. She had a favourite pretty rock that she used to toss during the game, marking the square she wasn't allowed to step on as she made her way up and down the chalk grid. Ten squares up, ten squares back.

And so it was, on the day Sarah died, that the atmosphere shifted almost imperceptibly. It felt as though the Earth had inhaled and forgotten to exhale. It was dead calm; no one expected a bolt of lightning from the bright, cloudless sky, especially just as Sarah had thrown her pretty rock and watched it land on square five. The bolt hit Sarah on the top of her head as she jumped between the squares marked seven and eight. There was a loud crack, and the little girl was down, her long brown hair smouldering from the hit. Her mother heard the sound and looked out the window to see Sarah lying face down on the hopscotch grid, gripping her pretty rock. Her mother screamed and ran outside to her daughter.

Her family buried ten-year-old Sarah with her pretty hopscotch rock clutched in her left hand for all of eternity, forever at the ready to play a rousing game of hopscotch. 

Ten squares up, ten squares back.