Day 175 - All that Glitters

 ALL THAT GLITTERS

Prompt - All that Glitter : Write about a shiny object

I missed our home.  I sometimes missed my dad, but then I remembered.  I had to hold on to those memories, for Mum's sake.  And maybe for my own too.  But mostly it was our house I missed.  Having a garden, having friends around.  I knew that it wasn't her fault we'd ended up here.  But sometimes that was hard to remember too.

We'd moved to the twenty third floor of a tatty, urine scented tower block.  It was all she could get.  One day we'll get out of here she promised.  From day one.  But it had been more than a year now.  I hated my school, I hated the other kids in the block, I hated being here.  Oh, and I hated being told how good the bloody view was.  

Except that today it was, there was a slight compensation for our exile.  It had rained heavily during the night, and most of the morning.  But suddenly the darkest clouds started to gust off, patches of clear sky appeared, and the sky did a sort of good cop, bad cop routine.  I went out on the tiny balcony to take it in.  Overhead the blue was deep and clear and moist, to the east the layers of cloud were banked up into a sandwich of blacks and greys and purples, and then the sky and sun harmonised to create a band of light across the land and the most perfect full rainbow I had ever seen.  Each colour distinct, both ends visible as they hit land.  To the north it balanced on the bungalows of the Tregarn estate, and I followed the arc, up and across and down, to an end point where something shone, glittered, flashed.  The bouncing light from some object that mirrored it back in all directions, enhancing the rays with it's own refractions.  The rainbow began to fade, I looked up to see the sky changing again, more rain coming in, and when I looked back the colours were near gone, the end point lost to me.

What had caused that wild light display at the south end of the coloured crescent?  I was thirteen, I wasn't still falling for that 'crock of gold' crap.  Was I?  That would be stupid.  Yet there had definitely been something there.  Not gold, of course not gold, but it could still be something valuable.  I stared intensely at the area where I'd seen the light.  It looked to be a bit past the community centre (hah! - bad joke) where I thought was some waste ground.  Maybe I should just take a look, you never knew...

So I donned my most waterproof shoes, and parka, and set off.  Everything looked so different at ground level, and I began to doubt that the flashing thing was where I'd thought it was.  But I went on, found the waste ground, hunted about, and eventually came across my treasure.  One of those big American style fridges, abandoned, battered and broken so that bits of inside and outside combined to create a complex of shiny metal surfaces that would reflect light in all directions.

I admit there was a little part of me was disappointed.  There was nothing here that could help Mum get us off the twenty third floor.  But I was pleased with myself for being observant and figuring out where the leprechauns had hidden their fridge.  I might tell Mum about it.