When Water Was Free

Sunday Photo Fiction: October 5th 2014

Every week on a Sunday, a new photo is used as a prompt for Flash Fiction challenge using around 200 words based on that image. Your story does not have to be exactly what the item in the photo is as long as there is at least a reference to it. You can make it anything you want, and enjoy what you write, and we will as well.

“What is it Mom?”

“An effigy, an icon of ancient people doing something called ‘swimming’. The University’s Archaeology Department found it when the construction crews were digging the foundation for the new language department a few years ago.”

“Swimming? What’s that? It looks like they’re stuck in cement. Did they ‘swim’ in cement?”

“No. Swimming was an activity where people would go into a vast area of water and propel themselves by laying on their stomachs while moving their arms and legs in a forward motion. Supposedly it was done for fun as well as competition.”

“Where’d they go to put themselves in water? We don’t have anything that holds enough water for people to lay in and move their arms and legs.”

“No honey, we don’t. But Grandma Rene told me a story that her grandmother told about how she would go somewhere called a ‘park’ with her friends when she was a little girl. There were things called ‘streams’ of water running freely across the landscape and they would run, play and swim in the water.”

“Gee, I wish I lived in those olden days, they had it better than us.”

“Yes Tony, I do believe they did have it better.”
—200 Words—