Micro Monday Flash Fiction: Twilight

Welcome to the second Micro Monday Flash Fiction! This week, our one-word prompt is "twilight." And I don't mean the sparkly-vampire sense of the word, but the original meaning (taken here from the Oxford Dictionaries): "The soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun’s rays from the atmosphere." 

So, let that word settle into your senses. Feel it. See it.

Now, write it.

(If you're joining us for the first time, every Monday we have a one-word prompt for a flash fiction piece of up to 300 words. If you would like to participate and share your own, you may paste it in the comments below, or post it on your own blog and link up on twitter with #mmflashfic.)

***

The long grass caught around her toes as she made her way toward the center of the meadow. She tugged his arm, running ahead of him, and he lazily kept pace with her. 

"Where are you taking me?" she heard him say. But her response was a simple laugh. She smiled to herself and checked the sky.

"You'll see," she finally said, peeking behind her to check that the blindfold was still firmly in place. It was. But she also caught the trace of a smile playing on his lips.

Another moment and she had found what she was looking for. 

"Okay, this is it," she said, steering him by his shoulders to face west. "Now, lie down."

"What?" He seemed surprised, but also curious.

"Just do it."

He nearly disappeared among the tall grasses. She lay down next to him, and then pulled the blindfold off.

"Look! There!" she said, pointing. 

The sky above them was just fading purple from the pinks of the setting sunlight, with indigo toying at the edges. The first stars of the evening glimmered overhead, and the moon already held her place in the sky.

She watched his face, noting his eyes darting from star to star, the right corner of his mouth upturned slightly.

“You’ve really never just watched the stars come out? Really?”

He shook his head, still gazing upward. “No,” he breathed. “But, this is…”

“I know,” she sighed, falling back into the grass beside him. For several moments they just lay there, staring up at the twilit sky, watching as the light faded, and the indigo seeped across the remaining colors like spilled ink. “I know,” she whispered again.

And then she felt his fingers finding the spaces between hers, and she smiled up at the stars.